“In church? You’re not going to Ossining to go to church?”
“Why not? There’s a special ceremony in the cathedral—the chantry window is to be unveiled.”
“The chantry window? How picturesque! What is a chantry? And why do you want to see it unveiled? Are you after copy—doing something in the Huysmans manner? ‘La Cathedrale,’ eh?”
“Oh, no.” Mrs. Fetherel hesitated. “I’m going simply to please my uncle,” she said, at last.
“Your uncle?”
“The Bishop, you know.” She smiled.
“The Bishop—the Bishop of Ossining? Why, wasn’t he the chap who made that ridiculous attack on your book? Is that prehistoric ass your uncle? Upon my soul, I think you’re mighty forgiving to travel all the way to Ossining for one of his stained-glass sociables!”
Mrs. Fetherel’s smile flowed into a gentle laugh. “Oh, I’ve never allowed that to interfere with our friendship. My uncle felt dreadfully about having to speak publicly against my book—it was a great deal harder for him than for me—but he thought it his duty to do so. He has the very highest sense of duty.”
“Well,” said Hynes, with a shrug, “I don’t know that he didn’t do you a good turn. Look at that!”
They were standing near the bookstall, and he pointed to a placard surmounting the counter and emblazoned with the conspicuous announcement: “Fast and Loose. New Edition with Author’s Portrait. Hundred and Fiftieth Thousand.”
Mrs. Fetherel frowned impatiently. “How absurd! They’ve no right to use my picture as a poster!”
“There’s our train,” said Hynes; and they began to push their way through the crowd surging toward one of the inner doors.
As they stood wedged between circumferent shoulders, Mrs. Fetherel became conscious of the fixed stare of a pretty girl who whispered eagerly to her companion: “Look Myrtle! That’s Paula Fetherel right behind us—I knew her in a minute!”
“Gracious—where?” cried the other girl, giving her head a twist which swept her Gainsborough plumes across Mrs. Fetherel’s face.
The first speaker’s words had carried beyond her companion’s ear, and a lemon-colored woman in spectacles, who clutched a copy of the “Journal of Psychology” on one drab-cotton-gloved hand, stretched her disengaged hand across the intervening barrier of humanity.
“Have I the privilege of addressing the distinguished author of ‘Fast and Loose’? If so, let me thank you in the name of the Woman’s Psychological League of Peoria for your magnificent courage in raising the standard of revolt against—”
“You can tell us the rest in the car,” said a fat man, pressing his good-humored bulk against the speaker’s arm.
Mrs. Fetherel, blushing, embarrassed and happy, slipped into the space produced by this displacement, and a few moments later had taken her seat in the train.
She was a little late, and the other chairs were already filled by a company of elderly ladies and clergymen who seemed to belong to the same party, and were still busy exchanging greetings and settling themselves in their places.
One of the ladies, at Mrs. Fetherel’s approach, uttered an exclamation of pleasure and advanced with outstretched hand. “My dear Mrs. Fetherel! I am so delighted to see you here. May I hope you are going to the unveiling of the chantry window? The dear Bishop so hoped that you would do so! But perhaps I ought to introduce myself. I am Mrs. Gollinger”—she lowered her voice expressively—“one of your uncle’s oldest friends, one who has stood close to him through all this sad business, and who knows what he suffered when he felt obliged to sacrifice family affection to the call of duty.”
Mrs. Fetherel, who had smiled and colored slightly at the beginning of this speech, received its close with a deprecating gesture.
“Oh, pray don’t mention it,” she murmured. “I quite understood how my uncle was placed—I bore him no ill will for feeling obliged to preach against my book.”
“He understood that, and was so touched by it! He has often told me that it was the hardest task he was ever called upon to perform—and, do you know, he quite feels that this unexpected gift of the chantry window is in some way a return for his courage in preaching that sermon.”
Mrs. Fetherel smiled faintly. “Does he feel that?”
“Yes; he really does. When the funds for the window were so mysteriously placed at his disposal, just as he had begun to despair of raising them, he assured me that he could not help connecting the fact with his denunciation of your book.”
“Dear uncle!” sighed Mrs. Fetherel. “Did he say that?”
“And now,” continued Mrs. Gollinger, with cumulative rapture—“now that you are about to show, by appearing at the ceremony to-day, that there has been no break in your friendly relations, the dear Bishop’s happiness will be complete. He was so longing to have you come to the unveiling!”
“He might have counted on me,” said Mrs. Fetherel, still smiling.
“Ah, that is so beautifully forgiving of you!” cried Mrs. Gollinger, enthusiastically. “But then, the Bishop has always assured me that your real nature was very different from that which—if you will pardon my saying so—seems to be revealed by your brilliant but—er—rather subversive book. ‘If you only knew my niece, dear Mrs. Gollinger,’ he always said, ‘you would see that her novel was written in all innocence of heart;’ and to tell you the truth, when I first read the book I didn’t think it so very, very shocking. It wasn’t till the dear Bishop had explained tome—but, dear me, I mustn’t take up your time in this way when so many others are anxious to have a word with you.”
Mrs. Fetherel glanced at her in surprise, and Mrs. Gollinger continued, with a playful smile: “You forget that your face is familiar to thousands whom you have never seen. We all recognized you the moment you entered the train, and my friends here are so eager to make your acquaintance—even those”—her smile deepened—“who thought the dear Bishop not quite unjustified in his attack on your remarkable novel.”
V
A religious light filled the chantry of Ossining Cathedral, filtering through the linen curtain which veiled the central window, and mingling with the blaze of tapers on the richly adorned altar.
In this devout atmosphere, agreeably laden with the incense-like aroma of Easter lilies and forced lilacs, Mrs. Fetherel knelt with a sense of luxurious satisfaction. Beside her sat Archer Hynes, who had remembered that there was to be a church scene in his next novel, and that his impressions of the devotional environment needed refreshing. Mrs. Fetherel was very happy. She was conscious that her entrance had sent a thrill through the female devotees who packed the chantry, and she had humor enough to enjoy the thought that, but for the good Bishop’s denunciation of her book, the heads of his flock would not have been turned so eagerly in her direction. Moreover, as she had entered she had caught sight of a society reporter, and she knew that her presence, and the fact that she was accompanied by Hynes, would be conspicuously proclaimed in the morning papers. All these evidences of the success of her handiwork might have turned a calmer head than Mrs. Fetherel’s; and though she had now learned to dissemble her gratification, it still filled her inwardly with a delightful glow.
The Bishop was somewhat late in appearing, and she employed the interval in meditating on the plot of her next novel, which was already partly sketched out, but for which she had been unable to find a satisfactory denouement. By a not uncommon process of ratiocination, Mrs. Fetherel’s success had convinced her of her vocation. She was sure now that it was her duty to lay bare the secret plague-spots of society, and she was resolved that there should be no doubt as to the purpose of her new book. Experience had shown her that where she had fancied she was calling a spade a spade she had in fact been alluding in guarded terms to the drawing-room shovel. She was determined not to repeat the same mistake, and she flattered herself that her coming novel would not need an episcopal denunciation to insure its sale, however likely it was to receive this crowning evidence of success.