The Voice

CHAPTER III

"Somebody making herb tea and stealing my business?" said William King, in his kindly voice; he had called to see old Hannah, who had been laid up for a day or two, and he stopped at the kitchen door to look in. Henry Roberts, coming from the sitting-room to join him, asked his question, too:

"What is this smell of herbs, Philippa? Are you making a drink for Hannah?" "Oh no, father," Philly said, briefly, her face very pink.

William King sniffed and laughed. "Ah, I see you don't give away your secrets to a rival," he said; and added, pleasantly, "but don't give your tea to Hannah without telling me what it is."

Miss Philippa said, dutifully, "Oh no, sir." But she did not tell him what the "tea" was, and certainly she offered none of it to old Hannah. All that day there was a shy joyousness about her, with sudden soft blushes, and once or twice a little half-frightened laugh; there was a puzzled look, too, in her face, as if she was not quite sure just what she was going to do, or rather, how she was going to do it. And, of course, that was the difficulty. How could she "add the philter to the drink of one who loved her not"?

Yet it came about simply enough. John Fenn had lately felt it borne in upon him that it was time to make another effort to deal with Henry Roberts; perhaps, he reasoned, to show concern about the father's soul might touch the daughter's hardened heart. It was when he reached this conclusion that he committed the extravagance of buying a new coat. So it happened that that very afternoon, while the house was still pungent with the scent of steeping herbs, he came to Henry Roberts's door, and knocked solemnly, as befitted his errand; (but as he heard her step in the hall he passed an anxious hand over a lapel of the new coat). Her father, she said, was not at home; would Mr. Fenn come in and wait for him? Mr. Fenn said he would. And as he always tried, poor boy! to be instant in season and out of season, he took the opportunity, while he waited for her father and she brought him a glass of wine and a piece of cake, to reprove her again for absence from church. But she was so meek that he found it hard to inflict those "faithful wounds" which should prove his friendship for her soul; she sat before him on the slippery horsehair sofa in the parlor, her hands locked tightly together in her lap, her eyes downcast, her voice very low and trembling. She admitted her backslidings: she acknowledged her errors; but as for coming to church—she shook her head:

"Please, I won't come to church yet."

"You mean you will come, sometime?"

"Yes; sometime."

"Behold, NOW is the accepted time!"

"I will come... afterwards."

"After what?" he insisted.

"After—" she said, and paused. Then suddenly lifted bold, guileless eyes: "After you stop caring for my soul."

John Fenn caught his breath. Something, he did not know what, seemed to jar him rudely from that pure desire for her salvation; he said, stumblingly, that he would ALWAYS care for her soul!—"for—for any one's soul." And was she quite well? His voice broke with tenderness. She must be careful to avoid the chill of these autumnal afternoons; "you are pale," he said, passionately—"don't—oh, don't be so pale!" It occurred to him that if she waited for him "not to care" for her salvation, she might die in her sins; die before coming to the gate of heaven, which he was so anxious to open to her!

Philippa did not see his agitation; she was not looking at him. She only said, softly, "Perhaps you will stay to tea?"

He answered quickly that he would be pleased to do so. In the simplicity of his saintly egotism it occurred to him that the religious pleasure of entertaining him might be a means of grace to her. When she left him in the dusk of the chilly room to go and see to the supper, he fell into silent prayer for the soul that did not desire his care.

Henry Roberts, summoned by his daughter to entertain the guest until supper was ready, found him sitting in the darkness of the parlor; the old man was full of hospitable apologies for his Philippa's forgetfulness; "she did not remember the lamp!" he lamented; and making his way through the twilight of the room, he took off the prism-hung shade of the tall astral lamp on the center-table, and fumbled for a match to light the charred and sticky wick; there were very few occasions in this plain household when it was worth while to light the best lamp! This was one of them, for in those days the office dignified the man to a degree that is hardly understood now. But Henry Roberts's concern was not entirely a matter of social propriety; it was a desire to propitiate this young man who was living in certain errors of belief, so that he would be in a friendly attitude of mind and open to the arguments which were always burning on the lips of Edward Irving's follower. He did not mean to begin them until they were at supper; so he and John Fenn sat in silence waiting Philippa's summons to the dining-room. Neither of them had any small talk; Mr. Roberts was making sure that he could trust his memory to repeat those wailing cadences of the Voice, and John Fenn, still shaken by something he could not understand that had been hidden in what he understood too well—a sinner's indifference to grace—was trying to get back to his serene, impersonal arrogance.

As for Philippa, she was frightened at her temerity in having invited the minister to a Hannahless supper; her flutter of questions as to "what" and "how" brought the old woman from her bed, in spite of the girl's half-hearted protests that she "mustn't think of getting up! Just tell me what to do," she implored, "I can manage. We are going to have—TEA!"

"We always have tea," Hannah said, sourly; yet she was not really sour, for, like William King and Dr. Lavendar, Hannah had discerned possibilities in the Rev. John Fenn's pastoral visits. "Get your Sunday-go-to-meeting dress on," she commanded, hunching a shawl over a rheumatic shoulder and motioning the girl out of the kitchen.

Philippa, remorseful and breathless, ran quickly up to her room to put on her best frock, smooth her shining hair down in two loops over her ears, and pin her one adornment, a flat gold brooch, on the bosom of her dress. She lifted her candle and looked at herself in the black depths of the little swinging glass on her high bureau, and her face fell into sudden wistful lines. "Oh, I do not look wicked," she thought, despairingly.

John Fenn, glancing at her across the supper-table, had some such thought himself; how strange that one who was so perverted in belief should not betray perversion in her countenance. "On the contrary, her face is pleasing," he said, simply. He feared, noticing the brooch, that she was vain, as well as indifferent to her privileges; he wondered if she had observed his new coat.

Philippa's vanity did not, at any rate, give her much courage; she scarcely spoke, except to ask him whether he took cream and sugar in his tea. When she handed his cup to him, she said, very low, "Will you taste it, and see if it is right?"

He was so conscious of the tremor of her voice and hand that he made haste to reassure her, sipping his tea with much politeness of manner; as he did so, she said, suddenly, and with compelling loudness, "Is it—agreeable?"

John Fenn, startled, looked at her over the rim of his cup. "Very; very indeed," he said, quickly. But he instantly drank some water. "It is, perhaps, a little strong," he said, blinking. Then, having qualified his politeness for conscience' sake, he drank all the bitter tea for human kindness' sake—for evidently Miss Philippa had taken pains to give him what he might like. After that she did not speak, but her face grew very rosy while she sat in silence listening to her father and their guest. Henry Roberts forgot to eat, in the passion of his theological arguments, but as supper proceeded he found his antagonist less alert than usual; the minister defended his own doctrines instead of attacking those of his host; he even admitted, a little listlessly, that if the Power fell upon him, if he himself spoke in a strange tongue, then perhaps he would believe—"that is, if I could be sure I was not out of my mind at the time," he qualified, dully. Philippa took no part in the discussion; it would not have been thought becoming in her to do so; but indeed, she hardly heard what the two men were saying. She helped old Hannah carry away the dishes, and then sat down by the table and drew the lamp near her so that she could sew; she sat there smiling a little, dimpling even, and looking down at her seam; she did not notice that John Fenn was being worsted, or that once he failed altogether to reply, and sat in unprotesting silence under Henry Roberts's rapt remembrances. A curious blackness had settled under his eyes, and twice he passed his hand across his lips.

"They are numb," he said, in surprised apology to his host. A moment later he shivered violently, beads of sweat burst out on his forehead, and the color swept from his face. He started up, staring wildly about him; he tried to speak, but his words stumbled into incoherent babbling. It was all so sudden, his rising, then falling back into his chair, then slipping sidewise and crumpling up upon the floor, all the while stammering unmeaning words—that Henry Roberts sat looking at him in dumb amazement. It was Philippa who cried out and ran forward to help him, then stopped midway, her hands clutched together at her throat, her eyes dilating with a horror that seemed to paralyze her so that she was unable to move to his assistance. The shocked silence of the moment was broken by Fenn's voice, trailing on and on, in totally unintelligible words.

Henry Roberts, staring open-mouthed, suddenly spoke: "The VOICE!" he said. But Philippa, as though she were breaking some invisible bond that held her, groaning even with the effort of it, said, in a whisper: "No. Not that. He is dying. Don't you see? That's what it is. He is dying."

Her father, shocked from his ecstasy, ran to John Fenn's side, trying to lift him and calling upon him to say what was the matter.

"He is going to die," said Philippa, monotonously.

Henry Roberts, aghast, calling loudly to old Hannah, ran to the kitchen and brought back a great bowl of hot water. "Drink it!" he said. "Drink it, I tell ye! I believe you're poisoned!"

And while he and Hannah bent over the unconscious young man, Philippa seemed to come out of her trance; slowly, with upraised hands, and head bent upon her breast, she stepped backward, backward, out of the room, out of the house. On the doorstep, in the darkness, she paused and listened for several minutes to certain dreadful sounds in the house. Then, suddenly, a passion of purpose swept the daze of horror away.

"HE SHALL NOT DIE," she said.

She flung her skirt across her arm that her feet might not be hampered, and fled down the road toward Old Chester. It was very dark. At first her eyes, still blurred with the lamplight, could not distinguish the footpath, and she stumbled over the grassy border into the wheel-ruts; then, feeling the loose dust under her feet, she ran and ran and ran. The blood began to sing in her ears; once her throat seemed to close so that she could not breathe, and for a moment she had to walk,—but her hands, holding up her skirts, trembled with terror at the delay. The road was very dark under the sycamore-trees; twice she tripped and fell into the brambles at one side or against a gravelly bank on the other. But stumbling somehow to her feet, again she ran and ran and ran. The night was very still; she could hear her breath tearing her throat; once she felt something hot and salty in her mouth; it was then she had to stop and walk for a little space—she must walk or fall down! And she could not fall down, no! no! no! he would die if she fell down! Once a figure loomed up in the haze, and she caught the glimmer of an inquisitive eye. "Say," a man's voice said, "where are you bound for?" There was something in the tone that gave her a stab of fright; for a minute or two her feet seemed to fly, and she heard a laugh behind her in the darkness: "What's your hurry?" the voice called after her. And still she ran. But she was saying to herself that she must STOP; she must stand still just for a moment. "Oh, just for a minute?" her body whimperingly entreated; she would not listen to it! She must not listen, even though her heart burst with the strain. But her body had its way, and she fell into a walk, although she was not aware of it. In a gasping whisper she was saying, over and over: "Doctor, hurry; he'll die; hurry; I killed him." She tried to be silent, but her lips moved mechanically. "Doctor, hurry; he'll—Oh, I MUSTN'T talk!" she told herself, "it takes my breath"—but still her lips moved. She began to run, heavily. "I can't talk—if—I—run—" It was then that she saw a glimmer of light and knew that she was almost in Old Chester. Very likely she would have fallen if she had not seen that far-off window just when she did.

At William King's house she dropped against the door, her fingers still clinging to the bell. She was past speaking when the doctor lifted her and carried her into the office. "No; don't try to tell me what it is," he said; "I'll put Jinny into the buggy, and we'll get back in a jiffy. I understand; Hannah is worse."

"Not... Hannah—"

"Your father?" he said, picking up his medicine-case.

"Not father; Mr.—Fenn—"

As the doctor hurried out to the stable to hitch up he bade his wife put certain remedies into his bag,—"and look after that child," he called over his shoulder to his efficient Martha. She was so efficient that when he had brought Jinny and the buggy to the door, Philly was able to gasp out that Mr. Fenn was sick. "Dying."

"Don't try to talk," he said again, as he helped her into the buggy. But after a while she was able to tell him, hoarsely:

"I wanted him to love me." William King was silent. "I used a charm. It was wicked."

"Come, come; not wicked," said the doctor; "a little foolish, perhaps. A new frock, and a rose in your hair, and a smile at another man, would be enough of a charm, my dear."

Philippa shook her head. "It was not enough. I wore my best frock, and I went to Dr. Lavendar's church—"

"Good gracious!" said William King.

"They were not enough. So I used a charm. I made a drink—"

"Ah!" said the doctor, frowning. "What was in the drink, Miss Philly?"

"Perhaps it was not the right herb," she said; "it may have been 'mother-wort'; but the book said 'monk's-hood,' and I—"

William King reached for his whip and cut Jinny across the flanks. "ACONITE!" he said under his breath, while Jinny leaped forward in shocked astonishment.

"Will he live?" said Philippa. Dr. King, flecking Jinny again, and letting his reins hang over the dashboard, could not help putting a comforting arm around her. "I hope so," he said; "I hope so!" After all, there was no use telling the child that probably by this time her lover was either dead or getting better. "It's his own fault," William King thought, angrily. "Why in thunder didn't he fall in love like a man, instead of making the child resort to—G'on, Jinny! G'on!" He still had the whip in his hand when they drew up at the gate.