We and Our Neighbors: or, The Records of an Unfashionable Street

So, after a rather dry pause, Mr. St. John uttered some commonplaces about the books of engravings before them, and then, suddenly seeming to recollect something he had forgotten, crossed the room to speak to Dr. Campbell.

"Dear me, child, and so that is your rector," said Mrs. Betsey. "Isn't he a little stiff?"

"I believe he is not much used to society," said Angie; "but he is a very good man."

The evening entertainment had rather a curious finale. A spirit of sociability had descended upon the company, and it was one of those rare tides that come sometimes where everybody is having a good time, and nobody looks at one's watch; and so, ten o'clock was long past, and eleven had struck, and yet there was no movement for dissolving the session.

Across the way, old Dinah had watched the bright windows with longing eyes, until finally the spirit of the occasion was too strong for her, and, bidding Jack lie down and be a good dog, she left her own precincts and ran across to the kitchen of the festal scene, to pick up some crumbs for her share.

Jack looked at her in winking obedience as she closed the kitchen door, being mindful in his own dog's head of a small slip of a pantry window which had served his roving purposes before now. The moment Dinah issued from the outer door, Jack bounced from the pantry window and went padding at a discreet distance from her heels. Sitting down on the front door-mat of the festive mansion, he occupied himself with his own reflections till the door opening for a late comer gave him an opportunity to slip in quietly.

Jack used his entrance ticket with discretion, watched, waited, reconnoitered, till finally, seeing an unemployed ottoman next Mrs. Betsey, he suddenly appeared in the midst, sprang up on the ottoman with easy grace, sat up on his hind paws, and waved his front ones affably to the public.

The general tumult that ensued, the horror of Miss Dorcas, the scolding she tried to give Jack, the storm of applause and petting which greeted him in all quarters, confirming him, as Miss Dorcas remarked, in his evil ways, – all these may better be imagined than described.

"A quarter after eleven, sister!"

"Can it be possible?" said Mrs. Betsey. "No wonder Jack came to bring us home."

Jack seconded the remark with a very staccato bark and a brisk movement towards the door, where, with much laughing, many hand shakings, ardent protestations that they had had a delightful evening, and promises to come again next week, the company dispersed.

CHAPTER XVIII
RAKING UP THE FIRE

The cream of an evening company is the latter end of it, after the more ceremonious have slipped away and only "we and our folks" remain to croon and rake up the fire.

Mr. and Mrs. Van Arsdel, Angelique, and Marie went home in the omnibus. Alice staid to spend the night with Eva, and help put up the portfolios, and put back the plants, and turn the bower back into a workroom, and set up the vases of flowers in a cool place where they could keep till morning; because, you know – you who are versed in these things – that flowers in December need to be made the most of, in order to go as far as possible.

Bolton yet lingered in his arm-chair, in his favorite corner, gazing placidly at the coals of the fire. Dr. Campbell was solacing himself, after the unsatisfied longings of the evening, with seeing how his own article looked in print, and Jim Fellows was helping miscellaneously in setting back flower-pots, re-arranging books, and putting chairs and tables, that had been arranged festively, back into humdrum household places. Meanwhile, the kind of talk was going on that usually follows a social venture – a sort of review of the whole scene and of all the actors.

"Well, Doctor, what do you think of our rector?" said Eva, tapping his magazine briskly.

He lowered his magazine and squared himself round gravely.

"That fellow hasn't enough of the abdominal to carry his brain power," he said. "Splendid head – a little too high in the upper stories and not quite heavy enough in the basement. But if he had a good broad, square chest, and a good digestive and blood-making apparatus, he'd go. The fellow wants blood; he needs mutton and beef, and plenty of it. That's what he needs. What's called common sense is largely a matter of good diet and digestion."

"Oh, Doctor, you materialistic creature!" said Eva, "to think of talking of a clergyman as if he were a horse – to be managed by changing his feed!"

"Certainly, a man must be a good animal before he can be a good man."

"Well," said Alice, "all I know is, that Mr. St. John is perfectly, disinterestedly, heart and soul and body, devoted to doing good among men; and if that is not noble and grand and godlike, I don't know what is."

"Well," said Dr. Campbell, "I have a profound respect for all those fellows that are trying to mop out the Atlantic Ocean; and he mops cheerfully and with good courage."

"It's perfectly hateful of you, Doctor, to talk so," said Eva.

"Well, you know I don't go in for interfering with nature – having noble, splendid fellows waste and wear themselves down, to keep miserable scalawags and ill-begotten vermin from dying out as they ought to. Nature is doing her best to kill off the poor specimens of the race, begotten of vice and drunkenness; and what you call Christian charity is only interference."

"But you do it, Doctor; you know you do. Nobody does more of that very sort of thing than you do, now. Don't you visit, and give medicine and nursing, and all that, to just such people?"

"I may be a fool for doing it, for all that," said the Doctor. "I don't pretend to stick to my principles any better than most people do. We are all fools, more or less; but I don't believe in Christian charity: it's all wrong – this doctrine that the brave, strong good specimens of the race are to torment and tire and worry their lives out to save the scum and dregs. Here's a man who, by economy, honesty, justice, temperance and hard work, has grown rich, and has houses, and lands, and gardens, and pictures, and what not, and is having a good time as he ought to have, and right by him is another who, by dishonesty, and idleness, and drinking, has come to rags and poverty and sickness. Shall the temperate and just man deny himself enjoyment, and spend his time, and risk his health, and pour out his money, to take care of the wife and children of this scalawag? There's the question in a nutshell? and I say, no! If scalawags find that their duties will be performed for them when they neglect them, that's all they want. What should St. John live like a hermit for? deny himself food, rest and sleep? spend a fortune that might make him and some nice wife happy and comfortable, on drunkards' wives and children? No sense in it."

"That's just where Christianity stands above and opposite to nature," said Bolton, from his corner. "Nature says, destroy. She is blindly striving to destroy the maimed and imperfect. Christianity says, save. Its God is the Good Shepherd, who cares more for the one lost sheep than for the ninety and nine that went not astray."

"Yes," said Eva; "He who was worth more than all of us put together, came down from heaven to labor and suffer and die for sinners."

"That's supernaturalism," said Dr. Campbell. "I don't know about that."

"That's what we learn at church," said Eva, "and what we believe; and it's a pity you don't, Doctor."

"Oh, well," said Dr. Campbell, lighting his cigar, previous to going out, "I won't quarrel with you. You might believe worse things. St. John is a good fellow, and, if he wants a doctor any time, I told him to call me. Good night."

"Did you ever see such a creature?" said Eva.

"He talks wild, but acts right," said Alice.

"You had him there about visiting poor folks," said Jim. "Why, Campbell is a perfect fool about people in distress – would give a fellow watch and chain, and boots and shoes, and then scold anybody else that wanted to go and do likewise."

"Well, I say such discussions are fatiguing," said Alice. "I don't like people to talk all round the points of the compass so."

"Well, to change the subject, I vote our evening a success," said Jim. "Didn't we all behave beautifully!"

"We certainly did," said Eva.

"Isn't Miss Dorcas a beauty!" said Jim.

"Come, now, Jim; no slants," said Alice.

"I didn't mean any. Honest now, I like the old girl. She's sensible. She gets such clothes as she thinks right and proper, and marches straight ahead in them, instead of draggling and draggletailing after fashion; and it's a pity there weren't more like her."

"Dress is a vile, tyrannical Moloch," said Eva. "We are all too much enslaved to it."

"I know we are," said Alice. "I think it's the question of our day, what sensible women of small means are to do about dress; it takes so much time, so much strength, so much money. Now, if these organizing, convention-holding women would only organize a dress reform, they would do something worth while."

"The thing is," said Eva, "that in spite of yourself you have to conform to fashion somewhat."

"Unless you do as your Quaker friends do," said Bolton.

"By George," said Jim Fellows, "those two were the best dressed women in the room. That little Ruth was seductive."

"Take care; we shall be jealous," said Eva.

"Well," said Bolton, rising, "I must walk up to the printing-office and carry that corrected proof to Daniels."

"I'll walk part of the way with you," said Harry. "I want a bit of fresh air before I sleep."

CHAPTER XIX
A LOST SHEEP

The two sallied out and walked arm in arm up the street. It was a keen, bright, starlight night, with everything on earth frozen stiff and hard, and the stars above sparkling and glinting like white flames in the intense clear blue. Just at the turn of the second street, a woman who had been crouching in a doorway rose, and, coming up towards the two, attempted to take Harry's arm.

With an instinctive movement of annoyance and disgust, he shook her off indignantly.

Bolton, however, stopped and turned, and faced the woman. The light of a street lamp showed a face, dark, wild, despairing, in which the history of sin and punishment were too plainly written. It was a young face, and one that might once have been beautiful; but of all that nothing remained but the brightness of a pair of wonderfully expressive eyes. Bolton advanced a step towards her and laid his hand on her shoulder, and, looking down on her, said:

"Poor child, have you no mother?"

"Mother! Oh!"

The words were almost shrieked, and then the woman threw herself at the foot of the lamp-post and sobbed convulsively.

"Harry," said Bolton, "I will take her to the St. Barnabas; they will take her in for the night."

Then, taking the arm of the woman, he said in a voice of calm authority, "Come with me."

He raised her and offered her his arm. "Child, there is hope for you," he said. "Never despair. I will take you where you will find friends."

A walk of a short distance brought them to the door of the refuge, where he saw her received, and then turning he retraced his steps to Harry.

"One more unfortunate," he said, briefly, and then immediately took up the discussion of a point in the proof-sheet just where he had left it. Harry was so excited by the incident that he could hardly keep up the discussion which Bolton was conducting.

"I wonder," he said, after an interval, "who that woman is, and what is her history."

"The old story, likely," said Bolton.

"What is curious," said Harry, "is that Eva described such a looking woman as hanging about our house the other evening. It was the evening when she was going over to the Vanderheyden house to persuade the old ladies to come to us this evening. She seemed then to have been hanging about our house, and Eva spoke in particular of her eyes – just such singular, wild, dark eyes as this woman has."

"It may be a mere coincidence," said Bolton. "She may have had some errand on your street. Whatever the case be, she is safe for the present. They will do the best they can for her. She's only one more grain in the heap!"

Shortly after, Harry took leave of Bolton and returned to his own house. He found all still, Eva waiting for him by the dying coals and smoking ashes of the fire. Alice had retired to her apartment.

"We've had an adventure," he said.

"What! to-night?"

Harry here recounted the scene and Bolton's course, and immediately Eva broke out: "There, Harry, it must be that very woman that I saw the night I was going into the Vanderheyden's; she seems to be hanging round this neighborhood. What can she be? Tell me, Harry, had she very brilliant dark eyes, and a sort of dreadfully haggard, hopeless look?"

"Exactly. Then I was provoked at her assurance in laying her hand on my arm; but when I saw her face I was so struck by its misery that I pitied her. You ought to have seen Bolton; he seemed so calm and commanding, and his face, as he looked down on her, had a wonderful expression; and his voice, – you know that heavy, deep tone of his, – when he spoke of her mother it perfectly overcame her. She seemed almost convulsed, but he assumed a kind of authority and led her away to the St. Barnabas. Luckily he knew all about that, for he had talked with St. John about it."

"Yes, indeed, I heard them talking about it this very evening; so it is quite a providence. I do wonder who she is or what she is. Would it do for me to go to-morrow and inquire?"

"I don't know, my dear, as you could do anything. They will do all that is possible there, and I would not advise you to interfere merely from curiosity. You can do nothing."

"Strange!" said Eva, still looking in the fire while she was taking the hairpins out of her hair and loosening her neck ribbon, "strange, the difference in the lot of women. That girl has been handsome! People have loved her. She might have been in a home, happy like me, with a good husband – now there she is in the cold streets. It makes me very unhappy to think such things must be. You know how Bolton spoke of God, the Good Shepherd – how he cared more for one lost one than for all that went not astray. That is so beautiful – I do hope she will be saved."

"Let us hope so, darling."

"It seems selfish for me to wrap my comforts about me, and turn away my thoughts, and congratulate myself on my good luck – don't it?"

"But, darling, if you can't do anything, I don't know why you should dwell on it. But I'll promise you Bolton shall call and inquire of the Sisters, and if there is anything we can do, he will let us know. But now it's late, and you are tired and need rest."

CHAPTER XX
EVA TO HARRY'S MOTHER

Congratulate us, dear mother; we have had a success! Our first evening was all one could hope! Everybody came that we wanted, and, what is quite as good in such cases, everybody staid away that we didn't want. You know how it is; when you intend to produce real acquaintance, that shall ripen into intimacy, it is necessary that there should be no non-conductors to break the circle. There are people that shed around them coldness and constraint, as if they were made of ice, and it is a mercy when such people don't come to your parties. As it is, I have had the happiness to see our godly rector on most conversable terms with our heretic doctor, and each thinking better of the other. Oh! and, what was a greater triumph yet, I managed to introduce a Quaker preacheress to Mr. St. John, and had the satisfaction to see that he was completely charmed by her, as well he may be. The way it came about, you must know, is this: —

Little Ruth Baxter, our next door neighbor, has received this Sibyl Selwyn at her house, and is going with her soon on one of her preaching expeditions. I find it is a custom of their sect for the preachers to associate with themselves one or more lay sisters, who travel with them, and for a certain time devote themselves to works of charity and mercy under their superintendence. They visit prisons and penitentiaries; they go to houses of vice and misery, where one would think a woman would scarcely dare to go; they reprove sin, yet carry always messages of hope and mercy. Little Ruth is now preparing to go with Sibyl on such a mission, and I am much interested in the stories she tells me of the strange unworldly experiences of this woman. It is true that these missions are temporary; they seem to be only like what we could suppose the visits of angels might be – something to arouse and to stimulate, but not to exert a continuous influence. What feeling they excite, what good purposes and resolutions spring up under their influence, they refer to the organized charities of Christian churches of whatever name. If Sibyl's penitents are Romanists, she carries them to the Romish Sisters; and so with Methodist, Baptist, or Ritualist, wherever they can find shelter and care. She seems to regard her mission as like that of the brave Sisters of Charity who go upon the field of battle amid belching cannon and bursting shells, to bring away the wounded. She leaves them in this or that hospital, and is off again for more.

This she has been doing many years, as the spirit within leads her, both in England and in this country. I wish you could see her – I know how you would love her. As for me, I look up to her with a kind of awe; yet she has such a pretty, simple-hearted innocence about her. I felt a little afraid of her at first, and thought all my pins and rings and little bows and fixtures would seem so many sins in her sight; but I found she could admire a bracelet or a gem as much as I did, and seemed to enjoy all my pretty things for me. She says so prettily, "If thee acts up to thy light, Eva, thee can do no more." I only wish that I were as sure as she is that I do. It is quite sweet of her, and puts me at ease in her presence. They are going to be gone all this week on some mission. I don't know yet exactly where, but I can't help feeling as if I wished some angel woman like Sibyl would take me off with her, and let me do a little something in this great and never finished work of helping and healing. I have always had a longing to do a little at it, and perhaps, with some one to inspire and guide me, even I might do some good.

This reminds me of a strange incident. The other night, as I was crossing the street, I saw a weird-looking young woman, very haggard and miserable, who seemed to be in a kind of uncertain way, hanging about our house. There was something about her face and eyes that affected me quite painfully, but I thought nothing of it at the time. But, the evening after our reception, as Harry and Bolton were walking about a square beyond our house, this creature came suddenly upon them and took Harry's arm. He threw her off with a sudden impulse, and then Bolton, like a good man, as he always is, and with that sort of quiet self-possession he always has, spoke to her and asked where her mother was. That word was enough, and the poor thing began sobbing and crying, and then he took her and led her away to the St. Barnabas, a refuge for homeless people which is kept by some of our church Sisters, and there he left her; and Harry says he will tell Mr. St. John about it, so that he may find out what can be done for her, if anything.

When I think of meeting any such case personally, I feel how utterly weak and inexperienced I am, and how utterly unfit to guide or help, though I wish with my whole heart I could do something to help all poor desolate people. I feel a sort of self-reproach for being so very happy as I am while any are miserable. To take another subject, – I have been lately more and more intimate with Bolton. You know I sent you Caroline's letter about him. Well, really it seemed to me such a pity that two who are entirely devoted to each other should be living without the least comfort of intercommunion, that I could not help just trying the least little bit to bring them together. Harry rather warned me not to do it. These men are so prudent; their counsels seem rather cold to our hearts – is it not so, mother? Harry advised me not to name the subject to Bolton, and said he would not dare do it for the world. Well, that's just because he's a man; he does not know how differently men receive the approaches of a woman. In fact, I soon found that there was no subject on which Bolton was so all alive and eager to hear. When I had once mentioned Caroline, he kept recurring to the subject, evidently longing to hear more from her; and so, one way and another, in firelight talks and moonlight walks, and times and places when words slip out before one thinks, the whole of what is to be known of Caroline's feelings went into his mind, and all that might be known of his to her passed into mine. I, in short, became a medium. And do you think I was going to let her fret her heart out in ignorance of anything I could tell her? Not if I know myself; in fact, I have been writing volumes to Caroline, for I am determined that no people made for each other shall go wandering up and down this labyrinth of life, missing their way at every turn, for want of what could be told them by some friendly good fairy who has the clue.

Say now, mother, am I imprudent? If I am, I can't help it; the thing is done. Bolton has broken the silence and written to Caroline; and once letter-writing is begun, you see, the rest follows. Does it not?

Now the thing is done, Harry is rather glad of it, as he usually is with the results of my conduct when I go against his advice and the thing turns out all right; and, what's of Harry better than that, when I get into a scrape by going against his counsels, he never says, "I told you so," but helps me out, and comforts me in the loveliest manner. Mother, dear, he does you credit, for you had the making of him! He never would have been the husband he is, if you had not been the mother you are.

You say you are interested in my old ladies across the way.

Yes, I really flatter myself that our coming into this neighborhood is quite a godsend to them. I don't know any that seemed to enjoy the evening more than they two. It was so long since they had been in any society, and their society power had grown cramped, stiff by disuse; but the light and brightness of our fireside, and the general friendly cheerfulness, seemed to wake them up. My sisters are admirable assistants. They are society girls in the best sense, and my dear little mamma is never so much herself as when she is devoting herself to entertaining others. Miss Dorcas told me, this morning, that she was thankful on her sister's account to have this prospect of a weekly diversion opened to her; for that she had so many sorrows and suffered so much, it was all she could do at times to keep her from sinking in utter despondency. What her troubles could have been Miss Dorcas did not say; but I know that her marriage was unhappy, and that she has lost all her children. But, at any rate, this acknowledgement from her that we have been a comfort and help to them gratifies me. It shows me that we were right in thinking that we need not run beyond our own neighborhood to find society full of interest and do our little part in the kindly work of humanity. Oh, don't let me forget to tell you that that lovely, ridiculous Jack of theirs, that they make such a pet of, insisted on coming to the party to look after them; waylaid the door, and got in, and presented himself in a striking attitude on an ottoman in the midst of the company, to Miss Dorcas's profound horror and our great amusement. Jack has now become the "dog of the regiment," and we think of issuing a season ticket in his behalf: for everybody pets him; he helps to make fun and conversation.

After all, my dear mother, I must say a grateful word in praise of my Mary. I pass for a first-rate housekeeper, and receive constant compliments for my lovely house, its charming arrangements, the ease with which I receive and entertain company, the smoothness and completeness with which everything goes on; and all the while, in my own conscience, I feel that almost all the credit is due to Mary. The taste in combination and arrangement is mine, to be sure – and I flatter myself on having some nice domestic theories; but after all, Mary's knowledge, and Mary's strength, and Mary's neatness and order, are the foundation on which all the structure is built. Of what use would be taste and beauty and refinement, if I had to do my own washing, or cook my own meals, or submit to the inroads of a tribe of untaught barbarians, such as come from the intelligence offices? How soon would they break my pretty teacups, and overwhelm my lovely bijouterie with a second Goth and Vandal irruption! So, with you, dear mother, you see I do justice to Mary, strong and kind, whom nobody thinks of and nobody praises, and yet who enables me to do all that I do. I believe she truly loves me with all the warmth of an Irish heart, and I love her in return; and I give her this credit with you, to absolve my own conscience for taking so much more than is due to myself in the world. But what a long letter I am writing! Writing to you is talking, and you know what a chatterbox I am; but you won't be tired of hearing all this from us.

Your loving

Eva.