The Old Peabody Pew: A Christmas Romance of a Country Church

He bade a stiff good-bye to his neighbours, and to Nancy he vouchsafed little more.  A handshake, with no thrill of love in it such as might have furnished her palm, at least, some memories to dwell upon; a few stilted words of leave-taking; a halting, meaningless sentence or two about his “botch” of life—then he walked away from the Wentworth doorstep.  But half way down the garden path, where the shrivelled hollyhocks stood like sentinels, did a wave of something different sweep over him—a wave of the boyish, irresponsible past when his heart had wings and could fly without fear to its mate—a wave of the past that was rushing through Nancy’s mind, well-nigh burying her in its bitter-sweet waters!  For he lifted his head, and suddenly retracing his steps, he came toward her, and, taking her hand again, said forlornly: “You’ll see me back when my luck turns, Nancy.”

Nancy knew that the words might mean little or much, according to the manner in which they were uttered, but to her hurt pride and sore, shamed woman-instinct, they were a promise, simply because there was a choking sound in Justin’s voice and tears in Justin’s eyes.  “You’ll see me back when my luck turns, Nancy;” this was the phrase upon which she had lived for more than ten years.  Nancy had once heard the old parson say, ages ago, that the whole purpose of life was the growth of the soul; that we eat, sleep, clothe ourselves, work, love, all to give the soul another day, month, year, in which to develop.  She used to wonder if her soul could be growing in the monotonous round of her dull duties and her duller pleasures.  She did not confess it even to herself; nevertheless she knew that she worked, ate, slept, to live until Justin’s luck turned.  Her love had lain in her heart a bird without a song, year after year.  Her mother had dwelt by her side and never guessed; her father too; and both were dead.  The neighbours also, lynx-eyed and curious, had never suspected.  If she had suffered, no one in Edgewood was any the wiser, for the maiden heart is not commonly worn on the sleeve in New England.  If she had been openly pledged to Justin Peabody, she could have waited twice ten years with a decent show of self-respect, for long engagements were viewed rather as a matter of course in that neighbourhood.  The endless months had gone on since that grey November day when Justin had said good-bye.  It had been just before Thanksgiving, and she went to church with an aching and ungrateful heart.  The parson read from the eighth chapter of St. Matthew, a most unexpected selection for that holiday.  “If you can’t find anything else to be thankful for,” he cried, “go home and be thankful you are not a leper!”

Nancy took the drastic counsel away from the church with her, and it was many a year before she could manage to add to this slender store anything to increase her gratitude for mercies given, though all the time she was outwardly busy, cheerful, and helpful.

Justin had once come back to Edgewood, and it was the bitterest drop in her cup of bitterness that she was spending that winter in Berwick (where, so the neighbours told him, she was a great favourite in society, and was receiving much attention from gentlemen), so that she had never heard of his visit until the spring had come again.  Parted friends did not keep up with one another’s affairs by means of epistolary communication, in those days, in Edgewood; it was not the custom.  Spoken words were difficult enough to Justin Peabody, and written words were quite impossible, especially if they were to be used to define his half-conscious desires and his fluctuations of will, or to recount his disappointments and discouragements and mistakes.

CHAPTER IV

It was Saturday afternoon, the twenty-fourth of December, and the weary sisters of the Dorcas band rose from their bruised knees and removed their little stores of carpet-tacks from their mouths.  This was a feminine custom of long standing, and as no village dressmaker had ever died of pins in the digestive organs, so were no symptoms of carpet-tacks ever discovered in any Dorcas, living or dead.  Men wondered at the habit and reviled it, but stood confounded in the presence of its indubitable harmlessness.

The red ingrain carpet was indeed very warm, beautiful, and comforting to the eye, and the sisters were suitably grateful to Providence, and devoutly thankful to themselves, that they had been enabled to buy, sew, and lay so many yards of it.  But as they stood looking at their completed task, it was cruelly true that there was much left to do.

The aisles had been painted dark brown on each side of the red strips leading from the doors to the pulpit, but the rest of the church floor was “a thing of shreds and patches.”  Each member of the carpet committee had paid (as a matter of pride, however ill she could afford it) three dollars and sixty-seven cents for sufficient carpet to lay in her own pew; but these brilliant spots of conscientious effort only made the stretches of bare, unpainted floor more evident.  And that was not all.  Traces of former spasmodic and individual efforts desecrated the present ideals.  The doctor’s pew had a pink and blue Brussels on it; the lawyer’s, striped stair-carpeting; the Browns from Deerwander sported straw matting and were not abashed; while the Greens, the Whites, the Blacks and the Greys displayed floor coverings as dissimilar as their names.

“I never noticed it before!” exclaimed Maria Sharp, “but it ain’t Christian, that floor! it’s heathenish and ungodly!”

“For mercy’s sake, don’t swear, Maria,” said Mrs. Miller nervously.  “We’ve done our best, and let’s hope that folks will look up and not down.  It isn’t as if they were going to set in the chandelier; they’ll have something else to think about when Nancy gets her hemlock branches and white carnations in the pulpit vases.  This morning my Abner picked off two pinks from the plant I’ve been nursing in my dining-room for weeks, trying to make it bloom for Christmas.  I slapped his hands good, and it’s been haunting me ever since to think I had to correct him the day before Christmas—Come, Lobelia, we must be hurrying!”

“One thing comforts me,” exclaimed the Widow Buzzell, as she took her hammer and tacks preparatory to leaving; “and that is that the Methodist meetin’-house ain’t got any carpet at all.”

“Mrs. Buzzell, Mrs. Buzzell!” interrupted the minister’s wife, with a smile that took the sting from her speech.  “It will be like punishing little Abner Miller; if we think those thoughts on Christmas Eve, we shall surely be haunted afterward.”

“And anyway,” interjected Maria Sharp, who always saved the situation, “you just wait and see if the Methodists don’t say they’d rather have no carpet at all than have one that don’t go all over the floor.  I know ’em!” and she put on her hood and blanket-shawl as she gave one last fond look at the improvements.

“I’m going home to get my supper, and come back afterward to lay the carpet in my pew; my beans and brown bread will be just right by now, and perhaps it will rest me a little; besides, I must feed ’Zekiel.”

As Nancy Wentworth spoke, she sat in a corner of her own modest rear seat, looking a little pale and tired.  Her waving dark hair had loosened and fallen over her cheeks, and her eyes gleamed from under it wistfully.  Nowadays Nancy’s eyes never had the sparkle of gazing into the future, but always the liquid softness that comes from looking backward.

“The church will be real cold by then, Nancy,” objected Mrs. Burbank.—“Good-night, Mrs. Baxter.”

“Oh, no!  I shall be back by half-past six, and I shall not work long.  Do you know what I believe I’ll do, Mrs. Burbank, just through the holidays?  Christmas and New Year’s both coming on Sunday this year, there’ll be a great many out to church, not counting the strangers that’ll come to the special service to-morrow.  Instead of putting down my own pew carpet that’ll never be noticed here in the back, I’ll lay it in the old Peabody pew, for the red aisle-strip leads straight up to it; the ministers always go up that side, and it does look forlorn.”

“That’s so!  And all the more because my pew, that’s exactly opposite in the left wing, is new carpeted and cushioned,” replied the president.  “I think it’s real generous of you, Nancy, because the Riverboro folks, knowing that you’re a member of the carpet committee, will be sure to notice, and think it’s queer you haven’t made an effort to carpet your own pew.”

“Never mind!” smiled Nancy wearily.  “Riverboro folks never go to bed on Saturday nights without wondering what Edgewood is thinking about them!”

The minister’s wife stood at her window watching Nancy as she passed the parsonage.

“How wasted!  How wasted!” she sighed.  “Going home to eat her lonely supper and feed ’Zekiel . . . I can bear it for the others, but not for Nancy . . . Now she has lighted her lamp, now she has put fresh pine on the fire, for new smoke comes from the chimney.  Why should I sit down and serve my dear husband, and Nancy feed ’Zekiel?”

There was some truth in Mrs. Baxter’s feeling.  Mrs. Buzzell, for instance, had three sons; Maria Sharp was absorbed in her lame father and her Sunday-school work; and Lobelia Brewster would not have considered matrimony a blessing, even under the most favourable conditions.  But Nancy was framed and planned for other things, and ’Zekiel was an insufficient channel for her soft, womanly sympathy and her bright activity of mind and body.

’Zekiel had lost his tail in a mowing-machine; ’Zekiel had the asthma, and the immersion of his nose in milk made him sneeze, so he was wont to slip his paw in and out of the dish and lick it patiently for five minutes together.  Nancy often watched him pityingly, giving him kind and gentle words to sustain his fainting spirit, but to-night she paid no heed to him, although he sneezed violently to attract her attention.

She had put her supper on the lighted table by the kitchen window and was pouring out her cup of tea, when a boy rapped at the door.  “Here’s a paper and a letter, Miss Wentworth,” he said.  “It’s the second this week, and they think over to the store that that Berwick widower must be settin’ up and takin’ notice!”

She had indeed received a letter the day before, an unsigned communication, consisting only of the words, “Second Epistle of John.  Verse 12.”

She had taken her Bible to look out the reference and found it to be:—

“Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink; but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may be full.”

The envelope was postmarked New York, and she smiled, thinking that Mrs. Emerson, a charming lady who had spent the summer in Edgewood, and had sung with her in the village choir, was coming back, as she had promised, to have a sleigh ride and see Edgewood in its winter dress.  Nancy had almost forgotten the first letter in the excitements of her busy day, and now here was another, from Boston this time.  She opened the envelope and found again only a single sentence, printed, not written.  (Lest she should guess the hand, she wondered?)

“Second Epistle of John.  Verse 5.”

“And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another.”

Was it Mrs. Emerson?  Could it be—any one else?  Was it—?  No, it might have been, years ago; but not now; not now!—And yet; he was always so different from other people; and once, in church, he had handed her the hymn-book with his finger pointing to a certain verse.

She always fancied that her secret fidelity of heart rose from the fact that Justin Peabody was “different.”  From the hour of their first acquaintance, she was ever comparing him with his companions, and always to his advantage.  So long as a woman finds all men very much alike (as Lobelia Brewster did, save that she allowed some to be worse!), she is in no danger.  But the moment in which she perceives and discriminates subtle differences, marvelling that there can be two opinions about a man’s superiority, that moment the miracle has happened.

“And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another.”

No, it could not be from Justin.  She drank her tea, played with her beans abstractedly, and nibbled her slice of steaming brown bread.

“Not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee.”

No, not a new one; twelve, fifteen years old, that commandment!

“That we love one another.”

Who was speaking?  Who had written these words?  The first letter sounded just like Mrs. Emerson, who had said she was a very poor correspondent, but that she should just “drop down” on Nancy one of these days; but this second letter never came from Mrs. Emerson.—Well, there would be an explanation some time; a pleasant one; one to smile over, and tell ’Zekiel and repeat to the neighbours; but not an unexpected, sacred, beautiful explanation, such a one as the heart of a woman could imagine, if she were young enough and happy enough to hope.

She washed her cup and plate; replaced the uneaten beans in the brown pot, and put them away with the round loaf, folded the cloth (Lobelia Brewster said Nancy always “set out her meals as if she was entertainin’ company from Portland”), closed the stove dampers, carried the lighted lamp to a safe corner shelf, and lifted ’Zekiel to his cushion on the high-backed rocker, doing all with the nice precision of long habit.  Then she wrapped herself warmly, and locking the lonely little house behind her, set out to finish her work in the church.

CHAPTER V

At this precise moment Justin Peabody was eating his own beans and brown bread (articles of diet of which his Detroit landlady was lamentably ignorant) at the new tavern, not far from the meeting-house.

It would not be fair to him to say that Mrs. Burbank’s letter had brought him back to Edgewood, but it had certainly accelerated his steps.

For the first six years after Justin Peabody left home, he had drifted about from place to place, saving every possible dollar of his uncertain earnings in the conscious hope that he could go back to New England and ask Nancy Wentworth to marry him.  The West was prosperous and progressive, but how he yearned, in idle moments, for the grimmer and more sterile soil that had given him birth!

Then came what seemed to him a brilliant chance for a lucky turn of his savings, and he invested them in an enterprise which, wonderfully as it promised, failed within six months and left him penniless.  At that moment he definitely gave up all hope, and for the next few years he put Nancy as far as possible out of his mind, in the full belief that he was acting an honourable part in refusing to drag her into his tangled and fruitless way of life.  If she ever did care for him,—and he could not be sure, she was always so shy,—she must have outgrown the feeling long since, and be living happily, or at least contentedly, in her own way.  He was glad in spite of himself when he heard that she had never married; but at least he hadn’t it on his conscience that he had kept her single!

On the seventeenth of December, Justin, his business day over, was walking toward the dreary house in which he ate and slept.  As he turned the corner, he heard one woman say to another, as they watched a man stumbling sorrowfully down the street: “Going home will be the worst of all for him—to find nobody there!”  That was what going home had meant for him these ten years, but he afterward felt it strange that this thought should have struck him so forcibly on that particular day.  Entering the boarding-house, he found Mrs. Burbank’s letter with its Edgewood postmark on the hall table, and took it up to his room.  He kindled a little fire in the air-tight stove, watching the flame creep from shavings to kindlings, from kindlings to small pine, and from small pine to the round, hardwood sticks; then when the result seemed certain, he closed the stove door and sat down to read the letter.  Whereupon all manner of strange things happened in his head and heart and flesh and spirit as he sat there alone, his hands in his pockets, his feet braced against the legs of the stove.

It was a cold winter night, and the snow and sleet beat against the windows.  He looked about the ugly room: at the washstand with its square of oilcloth in front and its detestable bowl and pitcher; at the rigours of his white iron bedstead, with the valley in the middle of the lumpy mattress and the darns in the rumpled pillowcases; at the dull photographs of the landlady’s hideous husband and children enshrined on the mantelshelf; looked at the abomination of desolation surrounding him until his soul sickened and cried out like a child’s for something more like home.  It was as if a spring thaw had melted his ice-bound heart, and on the crest of a wave it was drifting out into the milder waters of some unknown sea.  He could have laid his head in the kind lap of a woman and cried: “Comfort me!  Give me companionship or I die!”

The wind howled in the chimney and rattled the loose window-sashes; the snow, freezing as it fell, dashed against the glass with hard, cutting little blows; at least, that is the way in which the wind and snow flattered themselves they were making existence disagreeable to Justin Peabody when he read the letter; but never were elements more mistaken.

It was a June Sunday in the boarding-house bedroom; and for that matter it was not the boarding-house bedroom at all: it was the old Orthodox church on Tory Hill in Edgewood.

The windows were wide open, and the smell of the purple clover and the humming of the bees were drifting into the sweet, wide spaces within.  Justin was sitting in the end of the Peabody pew, and Nancy Wentworth was beside him; Nancy, cool and restful in her white dress; dark-haired Nancy under the shadow of her shirred muslin hat.

Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings,
Thy better portion trace.