Chapter 12

Preston Cheney conceived such a strong, earnest liking for the young clergyman whom he met under his own roof during one of his visits home, that he fell into the habit of attending church for the first time in his life.

Mabel and Alice were deeply gratified with this intimacy between the two men, which brought the rector to the house far oftener than they could have tastefully done without the co-operation of the husband and father. Besides, it looked well to have the head of the household represented in the church. To the Baroness, also, there was added satisfaction in attending divine service, now that Preston Cheney sat in the pew. All hope of winning the love she had so longed to possess, died many years before; and she had been cruel and unkind in numerous ways to the object of her hopeless passion, yet like the smell of dead rose leaves long shut in a drawer, there clung about this man the faint, suggestive fragrance of a perished dream.

She knew that he did not love his wife, and that he was disappointed in his daughter; and she did not at least have to suffer the pain of seeing him lavish the affection she had missed, on others.

Mr Cheney had been called away from home on business the day before the new organist took her place in St Blank's Church. Nearly a month had passed when he again occupied his pew.

Before the organist had finished her introduction, he turned to Alice, saying:

"There has been a change here in the choir, since I went away, and for the better. That is a very unusual musician. Do you know who it is?"

"Some lady, I believe; I do not remember her name," Alice answered indifferently. Like her mother, Alice never enjoyed hearing anyone praised. It mattered little who it was, or how entirely out of her own line the achievements or accomplishments on which the praise was bestowed, she still felt that petty resentment of small creatures who believe that praise to others detracts from their own value.

A fortune had been expended on Alice's musical education, yet she could do no more than rattle through some mediocre composition, with neither taste nor skill.

The money which has been wasted in trying to teach music to unmusical people would pay our national debt twice over, and leave a competency for every orphan in the land.

When the organist had finished her second selection, Mr Cheney addressed the same question to his wife which he had addressed to Alice.

"Who is the new organist?" he queried. Mabel only shook her head and placed her finger on her lip as a signal for silence during service.

The third time it was the Baroness, sitting just beyond Mabel, to whom Mr Cheney spoke. "That's a very remarkable musician, very remarkable," he said. "Do you know anything about her?"

"Yes, wait until we get home, and I will tell you all about her," the Baroness replied.

When the service was over, Mr Cheney did not pass out at once, as was his custom. Instead he walked toward the pulpit, after requesting his family to wait a moment.

The rector saw him and came down into the aisle to speak to him.

"I want to congratulate you on the new organist," Mr Cheney said, "and I want to meet her. Alice tells me it is a lady. She must have devoted a lifetime to hard study to become such a marvellous mistress of that difficult instrument."

Arthur Stuart smiled. "Wait a moment," he said, "and I will send for her. I would like you to meet her, and like her to meet your wife and family. She has few, if any, acquaintances in my congregation."

Mr Cheney went down the aisle, and joined the three ladies who were waiting for him in the pew. All were smiling, for all three believed that he had been asking the rector to accompany them home to dinner. His first word dispelled the illusion.

"Wait here a moment," he said. "Mr Stuart is going to bring the organist to meet us. I want to know the woman who can move me so deeply by her music."

Over the faces of his three listeners there fell a cloud. Mabel looked annoyed, Alice sulky, and a flush of the old jealous fury darkened the brow of the Baroness. But all were smiling deceitfully when Joy Irving approached.

Her radiant young beauty, and the expressions of admiration with which Preston Cheney greeted her as a woman and an artist, filled life with gall and wormwood for the three feminine listeners.

"What! this beautiful young miss, scarcely out of short frocks, is not the musician who gave us that wonderful harmony of sounds. My child, how did you learn to play like that in the brief life you have passed on earth? Surely you must have been taught by the angels before you came."

A deep blush of pleasure at the words which, though so extravagant, Joy felt to be sincere, increased her beauty as she looked up into Preston Cheney's admiring eyes.

And as he held her hands in both of his and gazed down upon her it seemed to the Baroness she could strike them dead at her feet and rejoice in the act.

Beside this radiant vision of loveliness and genius, Alice looked plainer and more meagre than ever before. She was like a wayside weed beside an American Beauty rose.

"I hope you and Alice will become good friends," Mr Cheney said warmly. "We should like to see you at the house any time you can make it convenient to come, would we not Mabel?"

Mrs Cheney gave a formal assent to her husband's words as they turned away, leaving Joy with the rector. And a scene in one of life's strangest dramas had been enacted, unknown to them all.

"I would like you to be very friendly with that girl, Alice," Mr Cheney repeated as they seated themselves in the carriage. "She has a rare face, a rare face, and she is highly gifted. She reminds me of someone I have known, yet I can't think who it is. What do you know about her, Baroness?"

The Baroness gave an expressive shrug. "Since you admire her so much," she said, "I rather hesitate telling you. But the girl is of common origin--a grocer's daughter, and her mother quite an inferior person. I hardly think it a suitable companionship for Alice."

"I am sure I don't care to know her," chimed in Alice. "I thought her quite bold and forward in her manner."

"Decidedly so! She seemed to hang on to your father's hand as if she would never let go," added Mabel, in her most acid tone. "I must say, I should have been horrified to see you act in such a familiar manner toward any stranger." A quick colour shot into Preston Cheney's cheek and a spark into his eye.

"The girl was perfectly modest in her deportment to me," he said. "She is a lady through and through, however humble her birth may be. But I ought to have known better than to ask my wife and daughter to like anyone whom I chanced to admire. I learned long ago how futile such an idea was."

"Oh, well, I don't see why you need get so angry over a perfect stranger whom you never laid eyes on until to-day," pouted Alice. "I am sure she's nothing to any of us that we need quarrel over her."

"A man never gets so old that he is not likely to make a fool of himself over a pretty face," supplemented Mabel, "and there is no fool like an old fool."

The uncomfortable drive home came to an end at this juncture, and Preston Cheney retired to his own room, with the disagreeable words of his wife and daughter ringing in his ears, and the beautiful face of the young organist floating before his eyes.

"I wish she were my daughter," he said to himself; "what a comfort and delight a girl like that would be to me!"

And while these thoughts filled the man's heart the Baroness paced her room with all the jealous passions of her still ungoverned nature roused into new life and violence at the remembrance of Joy Irving's fresh young beauty and Preston Cheney's admiring looks and words.

"I could throttle her," she cried, "I could throttle her. Oh, why is she sent across my life at every turn? Why should the only two men in the world who interest me to-day, be so infatuated over that girl? But if I cannot remove so humble an obstacle as she from my pathway, I shall feel that my day of power is indeed over, and that I do not believe to be true."