Winifred Margaretta Kirkland

“ In the house of each heart that must perforce hold his memory like a shrine, there could never be any chamber for hate. Through the gift of his three years’ presence should the grandmother hold to her breast her baby’s baby, until love, overflowing, should enfold that black-mooded woman, her son’s wife, and both, being mothers, should learn the way of peace by guiding there the little feet of a little child. This, himself all unwitting, should be the Bishop’s immortal gift.
Even so, by divine largess of life given to life, should Murray Newbold become the Bishop’s spiritual son. ”

“ The Bishop’s voice was soft with the awe of many years ago. The grandmother flushed, muttering, “She would not have wanted me. She had Dan.”
The Bishop’s eyelids had fallen, quivering, over his eyes. He was far away; again he watched with Annie, with Nan, as he said, “But men cannot understand. God does not mean them to. Such things are a secret between God and women, like the coming of Mary’s little child. Each mother needs a mother then. It was not—it was not till then that I understood how much my Nan had lost when she lost her mother.” ”

“ In unspoken kinship of loneliness must they draw near now, the man and the woman who had walked closest to him, to rear together his last wish. Deathless as dream should rise the House of Friendship, for, passing, the Bishop had found the way to give himself. It is only a little city where he offered the chalice of his spirit, and only a little space his whole bishopric, yet all the world is richer for the gift of his Christmas soul. ”

“ I am not Westbury. Westbury is the frame; I am the portrait, the portrait of an interesting old woman, interesting to everybody but herself!”
Lucy was an artist, she knew the value of the pause, she knew the value of a shrug, the most delicate perceptible lifting of brows and shoulders, she knew the value of hands, that, out of periods of quiet, flickered now and then, spirit-white against the black shadows of her gown. An artist, she forgot the Bishop while she talked and did not look upon the change that grew upon his face.
“It is very easy to be interesting. ”

“ From head to foot, he felt, all quietly, some stern tension relaxed, and with it there passed away also something of that intensely clear vision he had just experienced. Looking now toward that other chair by the fire, he knew it was no stranger but the old familiar Lucy seated there, his friend, and how tired she looked and white and lonely! He must try to understand. It was very strange to realize it all, but step by step he must try to understand, even though he felt again now suddenly, and far more certainly, the shutting in upon him of the vagueness and dullness of the morning hours. ”

“ Why, nowadays I seem to get meshed in my own metres. No, I’m no true poet,” he shook his head ruefully, “if I can’t tell whether a poem is inside of me or outside of me, whether I am it, or it is I! No, old age is the time for seeing, not for singing.” He paused, thinking, “But I verily believe I like the seeing better than the singing.” He looked over to her in the old, quick boyish way, “Don’t you?”
Lucy gave her little humorous shrug, inimitably slight, “O Henry, forgive me, I believe old age for me is all plain prose.” ”

“ At that unbearable sadness Murray Newbold cried out, “No, Bishop, no! If I have failed, it is not your failure! Faith such as yours, life such as yours,—it is impossible to men like me. It is not for us.” ”

“ It isn’t very easy to grow old, not easy for anyone to feel the body breaking beyond mending, and to see all that is unfinished, but I believe, Lucy, an enthusiasm is the one thing to keep us warm, us old ones. I’ve done a plentiful amount of failing, but I wish I could succeed in one thing now,—I wish God would let me give you the word of joy to-night!”
It was so quiet in the old room, that low-lighted space, four-square, swung out upon the night. The Bishop’s long fingers passed slowly across his brow, trying to smooth away that darkness which seemed shutting in upon his brain. ”

“ It would be very cosy to have them coming in on Christmas night—his own!
But at the chiming of those two words through his brain, thought sharply asserted itself, keen and crystalline in retrospect. As a man brings all his life to God at the end, the Bishop looked into the Nazarene’s eyes from the picture of the little city that belonged to them both, whispering, “But those out there have been my own.”
Presently the silvered head sank back in the sudden drowsiness that falls upon the very old, but even as he yielded to it, the Bishop’s eyelids flickered an instant. ”

“ The Bishop knew each of these houses, even as far as Lucy Hollister’s, which was beyond his sight. Lucy still kept the house of her girlhood where the Bishop had first known her, known Lucy and her cousin, Annie. Far beyond Lucy’s house, River Street changed to towering tenements and grimed factories, the place of the strangers, where the Bishop often walked, but wistful and puzzled, for it was this part of Westbury alone that had changed since his boyhood, although even then it had been the place of work-people, for whom St. John’s Southside Mission had been founded. ”

“ Vision!” the Bishop paused. “It is perhaps true that it is not given to all to see, to feel, to know. Yet those who do not see can act! Perhaps—perhaps—it is more beautiful and more brave to work without the vision! We are the stewards, we call ourselves that, you and I—God puts a cup into our hands. He doesn’t say, ‘Believe,’ or ‘See.’ He only says, ‘Give’!”
“But it is as you give, Bishop!”
Their eyes met long. Then the tense pause slackened. Murray Newbold knew best his feeling for the Bishop when he felt the child gazing from the faded eyes and speaking in his pleading voice. ”

“ The Bishop hesitated, thoughtful, then quick words came, “But not incapable of action. I’ve always believed that there is need perhaps for soldiers as well as seers. There’s the fighter somewhere within you, isn’t there?”
“I sometimes feel,” Newbold admitted, “as if there were as much fight left in me as there is in Harry to-day. One sees,” he mused, “some pretty queer things when one looks inside.” ”

“ The Bishop stood thinking of the mission.
Well in sight, breaking the row of houses set among their wintry trees, sprang the spire of St. John’s, and beyond its Rectory lay the brown, cube-like buildings of the college above the sweeping river, a small college of mighty men. It was [Pg 10] there that the Bishop and his roommate, Barty Judd, had learned to dream dreams. It was the glory of Westbury, the kindly old city, remote, unworldly, that it had set so many young men dreaming. ”

“ I had a different body.”
“And perhaps,” mused the Bishop, “a different soul.”
“Oh, that!” cried Newbold with a shrug, then, “Do you suppose if I’d had my health, I’d ever have let the vestry bully me into giving up the Southside Mission!”
“Yet I used to think sometimes that opposition was the breath of life to you. I wonder,” a flicker of whimsical humor in the blue eyes, “if perhaps it would still be the breath of life to you,—if you tried it!”
“Can I fight a spirit in the air? Can I fight, of all things, mere amusement at enthusiasm? ”

“ There was a strange wondering relief upon her keen white face, as she listened for his words, seeing the old boyish mysticism brighten in his eyes. “But let me keep on trying to understand. They cannot be very easy to bear, the things you have been telling me about, all that I have been so dull and slow to guess. It will never do for either of us to let Christmas day go out in the blues. ”

“ Your young Newbold would have been worth bringing up once, but he has never learned not to be afraid, and that brings it about that he has parted with every good quality he possesses except his brain. That is still with us, fortunately, for, quite between us, in spite of patriotism, I must say there are not many brains in active employment in Westbury in these days (I’m not, of course, so impolitic as to say ‘in these days’ to anyone but you, Henry!) . We have about half-a-dozen brains in Westbury capable of conversation,—yours and young Newbold’s and mine, I forget the other three! ”

“ I should cease to be popular! I don’t think that unpopularity would exactly suit—my physique! I am old and accustomed to sovereignty, even if it is, well, a bit monotonous! We were young and lively once, Westbury and I, but now we grow old and wish to be complacent and comfortable, so we don’t poke at each other’s consciences. ”

“ Christmas! Christmas!” shrilling straight up to the angels! Was she not Christmas joy turned mad, his little girl!
He was full awake now. His lips formed a word. We are very weary of old pain repeated when we whisper out to God like that.
The Bishop wondered why people say that one grows used to loss, and that old age grows dull in feeling. Still he had got used to it, of course. [Pg 6] This was Christmas, too; it was quite natural that he should feel it more on Christmas. He must be a little patient then with himself about it, perhaps, on Christmas. ”

“ Yet with a torrent of words upon his tongue, the Bishop, looking at Newbold, turned silent. There are some men to whom the sight of one who cringes before a blow deserved is humiliating to their own inmost manhood. The sight of Newbold seated there, from his bowed, brute head, with its too-blue, watching eyes, to his big foot that never ceased to tap the rug raspingly, had caused the Bishop a [Pg 55] recoil for which he hated himself. ”

“ For are we not pretty good, when one stops to look at us!” Patriotism deepened her voice, “Where is there another Westbury! We have kept the heritage of our fathers! We have not grown cheap in Westbury!” Then a lighter tone, “And how could we be very bad when we always have had you to idealize us! Ever since you were a boy! You came to us a stranger and we took you in, at once. We sometimes do take in the stranger at once, and sometimes never. Nowadays he must be presented to the portrait, and must pass that examination. Young Murray Newbold has never passed his, and he knows it. ”

“ It does not matter if the years left are few and late, if they can be so strong and beautiful! While, as for me—” he shook his head, shrugging his shoulders, smiling, “oh, these poor old bodies that we wear, how they fetter and confine! Yet we mustn’t scorn them too much either, poor things, when they’ve done their best for us for eighty years!” ”

“ Eighty years! How barren of accomplishment they looked beneath the searchlight of Christmas! But perhaps there was still time! His step quickened.
As the Bishop passed beneath the shadow of [Pg 33] St. John’s church, the chimes clanged forth the ten o’clock hour. He glanced toward the door, thinking how calm and gentle and familiar everything was within. After all, his headache had melted away and nothing was to prevent his presence by the altar on this morning. The quiet of the chancel was restful to his fancy, lying beyond the visit immediately before him. ”

“ Of course, for you it is different, you are not afraid; you are a man, and then you have your religion. But a woman is rarely religious, at [Pg 120] least a woman who has not had what she wanted! As a thinking person, I quite envy you your religion. It is a valuable possession, at this end of life. Not that I am unorthodox—who is, in our good old churchly Westbury? I am a good churchwoman,—that does not enable me to see through a stone wall. Oh, Henry, Henry, here you come to-day, looking so pale that I can’t bear it, and talking of going, passing on, leaving your work! ”

“ Graham’s and Murray’s [Pg 141] and Lucy’s, suffering, lonely faces that had been locked against his pleading. Now there only remained to get home.
A street of black housefronts, closed upon good cheer within, the Bishop’s own street, any door of which would have opened readily to his need, had anyone guessed it! But illness had left in his brain only a great homing instinct. He knew he must not stop along the way, because like all other men in all the world on Christmas-night, he, too, had his own, and there, at home, his own were waiting for him. ”

“ Lucy’s face changed, old age dropped over it like a veil, from which her eyes looked forth, strange.
“I, too,” the Bishop answered, “have wished to spend my life in keeping Westbury the Westbury of my youth. It seemed so beautiful to me! People were already beginning to be in a hurry in other places, but they still had time to be kind, [Pg 97] here. They were already locking themselves into classes in other places, but they still had time to be friends, rich with poor, rich with rich, here. You remember the mission, Lucy?” ”

“ Do you know what it feels like to forgive? A person who’d hurt you? Where you care most?”
A moment he groped in past experience for the answer, then in a rush of realization it came [Pg 25] upon him. He rose a little unsteadily, that he, too, might stand to face her, as she stood by the curtained recess of the window, where the searchlight of the Christmas sun fell relentless on the drawn intensity of her plump face. The Bishop’s lean, corded hands rested on the two ebony knobs of the chair back. He did not notice, nor did she, that he swayed slightly with a passing dizziness. ”

“ John’s in his sermons, “is at present sound finance.”
It was a buffet across the Bishop’s face, making Newbold instantly protest, “It is not the mere money. It is the deep unpopularity of such missions as the Southside with such congregations as St. John’s. Am I to go against my vestry and retain my position? Am I to be a Dr. Judd?”
“You are afraid?”
“Afraid! Impossible! For a man of my make-up,” he smiled in honest amusement, wetting his lips, “I merely have the sense not to become voluntarily unpopular. What can a man do in the face of unpopularity? His hands are tied. He is helpless.” ”