Christmas gold, p.186
Christmas Gold, page 186
"What more?" asked Miss Terry shortly.
"A home!" cried the Angel.
Miss Terry groped in her memory for a scornful ejaculation which she had once been fond of using, but there was no such word to be found. Instead there came to her lips the name, "Mary."
The Angel repeated it softly. "Mary. It is a blessed name," he said. "Blessed the roof that shelters a Mary in her need."
There was a long silence, in which Miss Terry felt new impulses stirring within her; impulses drawing her to the child whose looks recalled her own childhood. The Angel regarded her with beaming eyes. After some time he said quietly, "Now let us see what became of your last experiment."
Miss Terry started. It seemed as if she had been interrupted in pleasant dreaming. "You were the last experiment," she said. "I know what became of you. Here you are!"
"Yet more may have happened than you guessed," replied the Angel meaningly. "I have tried to show you how often that is the case. Look again."
Without moving from her chair Miss Terry seemed to be looking out on her sidewalk, where, so it seemed, she had just laid the pink figure of the Angel. She saw the drunken man approach. She heard his coarse laugh; saw his brutal movement as he kicked the Christmas token into the street. In sick disgust she saw him reel away out of sight. She saw herself run down the steps, rescue the image, and bring it into the house. Surely the story was finished. What more could there be?
But something bade her vision follow the steps of the wretched man. Down the street he reeled, singing a blasphemous song. With a whoop he rounded a corner and ran into a happy party which filled sidewalk and street, as it hurried in the direction from which he came. Good-naturedly they jostled him against the wall, and he grasped a railing to steady himself as they swept by. It was the choir on their way to carol in the next street. Before them went the cross-bearer, lifting high his simple wooden emblem.
HE GRASPED A RAILING TO STEADY HIMSELF
The eyes of the drunken man caught sight of this, and wavered. The presence of the crowd conveyed no meaning to his dazed brains. But there was something in the familiar symbol which held his vision. He looked, and crossed himself, remembering the traditions of his childhood. Some of the boys were humming as they went the stirring strains of an ancient Christmas march known to all nations; a carol which began, some say, as a rousing drinking chorus.
The familiar strain touched some chord in the sodden brain. The man gave a feeble whinny, trying to follow the melody. He pulled himself together and lurched forward in a sudden impulse to join the band of pilgrims. But by the time he had taken three steps they had vanished, miraculously, as it seemed to him.
"Begorra, they're gone!" he cried. "Who were they? Were they rale folks? What was it they was singin'?"
He sank back helplessly on a flight of steps. "Ve-ni-te a-do-re-mus!" he croaked in a quavering basso. And his tangled mind went through strange processes. Suddenly, there came to him in a flash of exaggerated memory the figure of the Christmas Angel which not ten minutes earlier he had kicked into the street. A pious horror fell upon him.
"Mither o' mercy!" he cried, again crossing himself. "What have I been an' done? It was a howly image; an' what did I do to ut? Lemme go back an' find ut, an' take ut up out av the street."
Greatly sobered by his fear, he staggered down the block and around the corner to the steps of Miss Terry's house.
"This is the place," he mused. "I know ut; here's where the frindly lam'post hild me in its arrums. I rimimber there was a dark house forninst me. Here's where ut lay on the sidewalk, all pink an' pretty. An' I kicked ut into the street! Where is ut now? Where gone? Howly Mither! Here's the spot where ut fell, look now! The shape of uts little body and the wings of ut in the snow. But 'tis gone intirely!" He rubbed his eyes and crossed himself again. "'Tis flown away," he muttered. "'Tis gone back to Hiven to tell Mary Mither o' the wicked thing I done this night. Oh, 'tis a miracle that's happened! An' oh! The wicked man I am, drunk and disorderly on the Howly Eve!"
"O come, all ye faithful,
Joyful and triumphant!"
Once more he heard the familiar strain taken up lustily by many voices.
"Hear all the world singin' on the way to Bethlehem!" he said, and the stupor seemed to leave his brain. He no longer staggered.
"I'll run an' join 'em, an' I won't drink another drop this night." He looked up at the starry sky. "Maybe the Angel hears me. Maybe he'll help me to keep straight to-morrow. It might be my Guardian Angel himsilf that I treated so! Saints forgive me!"
With head bowed humbly, but no longer reeling, he moved away towards the sound of music.
* * *
"You were his Guardian Angel," said Miss Terry, when once more she saw the figure on the mantel-shelf. And she spoke with reverent gentleness.
The Angel smiled brightly. "The Christmas Spirit is a guardian angel to many," he said. "Never again despise me, Angelina. Never again make light of my influence."
"Never again," murmured Miss Terry half unconsciously. "I wish it were not too late—"
"It is never too late," said the Christmas Angel eagerly, as if he read her unspoken thought. "Oh, never too late, Angelina."
CHAPTER XIII
THE CHRISTMAS CANDLE
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Suddenly there was a sound,—a dull reverberating sound. It seemed to Miss Terry to come from neither north, south, east, nor west, but from a different world. Ah! She recognized it now. It was somebody knocking on the library door.
Miss Terry gave a long sigh and drew herself up in her chair. "It must be Norah just come back," she said to herself. "I had forgotten Norah completely. It must be shockingly late. Come in," she called, as she glanced at the clock.
She rubbed her eyes and looked again. A few minutes after nine! She had thought it must be midnight!
Norah entered to find her mistress staring at the mantel where the clock stood. She saw lying beside the clock the pink Angel which had fallen from the box as she brought it in,—the box now empty by the fire.
"Law, Miss," she said, "have you burned them all up but him? I'm glad you saved him, he's so pretty."
"Norah," said Miss Terry with an effort, "is that clock right?"
"Yes'm," said Norah. "I set it this morning. I came back as soon as I could, Miss," she added apologetically.
"It isn't that," answered Miss Terry, drawing her hand across her forehead dazedly. "I did not mind your absence. But I thought it must be later."
"Oh, no, I wouldn't stay out any later when you was alone here, Miss," said Norah penitently. "I felt ashamed after I had gone. I ought not to have left you so,—on Christmas Eve. But oh, Miss! The singing was so beautiful, and the houses looked so grand with the candles in the windows. It is like a holy night indeed!"
Miss Terry stooped and picked up something from the floor. It was the bit of candle-end which had escaped the holocaust.
"Are the candles still lighted, Norah?" she asked, eyeing the bit of wax in her hand.
"Yes'm, some of them," answered the maid. "It is getting late, and a good many have burned out. But some houses are still as bright as ever."
"Perhaps it is not too late, then," murmured Miss Terry, as if yielding a disputed point. "Let us hurry, Norah."
She rose, and going to the mantel-shelf gently took up the figure of the Angel, while Norah looked on in amazement.
"Norah," said Miss Terry, with an eagerness which made her voice tremble, "I want you to hang the Christmas Angel in the window there. I too have a fancy to burn a candle to-night. If it is not too late I'd like to have a little share in the Christmas spirit."
Norah's eyes lighted. "Oh, yes'm," she said. "I'll hang it right away. And I'll find an empty spool to hold the candle."
She bustled briskly about, and presently in the window appeared a little device unlike any other in the block. Against the darkness within, the figure of the Angel with arms outstretched towards the street shone in a soft light from the flame of a single tiny candle such as blossom on Christmas trees.
It caught the attention of many home-goers, who said, smiling, "How simple! How pretty! How quaint! It is a type of the Christmas spirit which is abroad to-night. You can feel it everywhere, blessing the city."
For some minutes before the candle was lighted, a man muffled in a heavy overcoat had been standing in a doorway opposite Miss Terry's house. He was tall and grizzled and his face was sad. He stared up at the gloomy windows, the only oblongs of blackness in the illuminated block, and he shivered, shrugging his shoulders.
"The same as ever!" he said to himself. "I might have known she would never change. Any one else, on Christmas Eve, after the letter I wrote her, would have softened a little. But I might have known. She is hard as nails! Of course, it was my fault in the first place to leave her as I did. But when I acknowledged it, and when I wrote that letter on Christmas Eve, I thought Angelina might feel differently." He looked at his watch. "Nearly half-past nine," he muttered. "I may as well go home. She said she wanted to be let alone; that Christmas meant nothing to her. I don't dare to call,—on my only sister! I suppose she is there all alone, and here I am all alone, too. What a pity! If I saw the least sign—"
Just then there was the spark of a match against the darkness framed in by the window opposite. A hand and arm shone in the flicker of light across the upper sash. A tiny spark, tremulous at first, like a bird alighting on a frail branch, paused, steadied, and became fixed. In the light of a small taper the man caught a glimpse of a pale, long face in a frame of silver hair. It faded into the background. But above the candle he now saw, with arms outstretched as it seemed toward himself, a pink little angel with gauzy wings.
The man's heart gave a leap. Sudden memories thronged his brain, making him almost dizzy. At last they formulated into one smothered cry. "The Christmas Angel! It is the very same pink Angel that Angelina and I used to hang on our Christmas tree!"
In three great leaps, like a schoolboy, he crossed the street and ran up the steps of Number 87. The Christmas Angel seemed to smile with ineffable sweetness as he gave the bell a vigorous pull.
CHAPTER XIV
TOM
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Miss Terry was leaning on the mantel-shelf looking into the fire, when the bell pealed furiously. She started and turned pale.
"Lord 'a' mercy!" ejaculated Norah, who was still admiring the effect of the window-decoration. "What's that? Who can be calling here to-night, making such a noise?"
"Go to the door, Norah," said Miss Terry with a strange note in her voice. "It may be some one to see me. It is not too late."
"Yes'm," said Norah, obedient but bewildered.
Presently the library door opened and a figure strode in; a tall, broad-shouldered man in a fur overcoat. For a moment he stood just inside the door, hesitating. Miss Terry took two steps forward from the fire-place.
"Tom!" she said faintly. "You came,—after all!"
"After all, Angelina," he said. "Yes, because I saw that," he waved his hand toward the window. "That gave me courage to come in. It is our Christmas Angel. I remember all about it. Does it mean anything, Angelina?"
Miss Terry held out a moment longer. Then she faltered forward. "O Tom!" she sobbed, as she felt his brotherly, strong arms about her. "O Tom! And so he has brought you back to me, and me to you!"
"He? Angelina girl, who?" He smoothed her silver hair with rough, kind fingers.
"Why, the Christmas Angel; our Guardian Angel, Tom. All these years I kept him in the play box, and I was going to burn him up. But I couldn't do it, Tom. How wonderful it is!"
They sat down before the fire and she began to tell him the whole story. But she interrupted herself to send for Norah, who came to her, mystified and half scandalized by the greeting which she had seen those two oldsters exchange.
"This is my brother Tom, Norah, who has come back," she said. "I believe it is not too late to make some preparation for Christmas Day. The stores will still be open. Run out and order things for a grand occasion, Norah. And—O Norah!" a sudden remembrance came to her. "If you have time, will you please get some toys and pretty things such as a little girl would like; a little girl of about ten, with my complexion,—I mean, with yellow hair and blue eyes. We may have a little guest to-morrow."
"Yes'm," said Norah, moving like one in a dream.
"A guest?" exclaimed Tom. And Miss Terry told him about Mary.
"I love little girls," said Tom, "especially little girls with yellow hair and blue eyes, such as you used to have, Angelina."
"You will like Mary, then," said Miss Terry, with a pretty pink flush of pleasure in her cheeks.
"I shall like her, if she comes," amended Tom, who, man-like, received with reservations the account of a vision vouchsafed not unto him.
"She will come," said Miss Terry with her old positiveness, glancing towards the window where the Christmas Angel hung.
Then arose the sound of singing outside the house. The passing choristers had spied the quaint window, now the only one in the street which remained lighted:—
"When Christ was born of Mary free,
In Bethlehem, in that fair citye,
Angels sang with mirth and glee,
In Excelsis Gloria!"
CHAPTER XV
CHRISTMAS DAY
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And Mary came. The brother and sister were at breakfast,—the happiest which either of them had known for years,—when there came a timid pull at the front-door bell. Miss Angelina laid down her knife and fork and looked across the table at Tom.
"She has come. Mary has come," she said. "Norah, if it is a little girl with a package under her arm, bring her in here."
"Yes'm!" gasped Norah, who believed she was living in a dream where everything was topsy-turvy. When had a child entered Miss Terry's dining-room!
Norah disappeared and presently returned ushering in a little girl of ten, with blue eyes and yellow hair. Under her arm she carried a white-paper package, very badly wrapped.
Miss Terry exchanged with her brother a glance which said, "I told you so!"
The child seemed bashful and afraid to speak; no wonder!
Tom's kind heart yearned to her. "Good morning! Wish you a merry Christmas, Mary!" he said smiling.
The child gave a start. "Why, how did you know my name?" she cried.
Tom looked confused. How indeed did he know? But Miss Angelina, with a readiness that surprised herself, came to his rescue.
"We were talking of a little girl named Mary," she said. "And you look just like her. What did you come for, dear?"
The little girl hung her head and turned crimson.
"I—I came to see Angelina Terry," she whispered. "I—I've got a doll that belongs to her."
There was a pause, then Miss Terry said, "Well, go on."
"I—I found her on the steps of this house last night, and I ought to have brought her right here then. But I didn't. I took her home. I hope Angelina was not very unhappy last night."
Miss Terry smiled upon Tom, who gave a kind, low laugh.
"No," said Miss Terry. "Angelina did not worry about her lost doll. She was thinking about something else,—the nicest Christmas present that ever anybody had. But you were a good girl to bring back the doll."
"No, I'm not a good girl," said Mary, and her voice trembled. "I was a wicked girl. I meant to keep Miranda for myself, because I thought she would be a lovely big doll. And when I found she was old and homely, somehow I still wanted to keep her. But it was stealing, and I couldn't. Please, will you give her to Angelina, and tell her I am so sorry?" She took Miranda out of the wrapping and held her toward Miss Terry without looking at the doll. It was as if she were afraid of being tempted once more.
MARY RETURNS THE DOLL
Miss Terry did not take the doll.
"I am Angelina," she said. "The doll was mine."
"You! Angelina!" the child's face was full of bewilderment. Mechanically she drew Miranda to her and clasped her close.
"Yes, I am Angelina, and that was my doll Miranda," said Miss Terry gently. "Thank you for returning her. But Mary,—your name is Mary?" The child nodded.—"Suppose I wanted you to keep her for me, what would you say?"
Mary's eyes still dwelt upon Miss Terry with a puzzled look. This gray-haired Angelina was so different from the one she had pictured. She did not answer the question. Miss Terry drew the child to a chair beside her.
"Tell me all about yourself, Mary," she said.
After some coaxing and prompting from what they already guessed, Mary told the story of her sad little life.
She was an orphan recently left to the care of her uncle and aunt, who had received her grudgingly. They were her sole relatives; and the shame of their degraded lives was plain through the outlines of the vague picture which Mary sketched of them.
"You do not love them, Mary?" asked Miss Terry kindly.
"No," answered the child. "They always speak crossly to me. When they have been drinking they beat me."
Tom rose from the table with a muttered word and began to pace the floor. His blue eyes were full of tears.
"Mary," said Miss Terry, "will the people at home be worried if you do not come back to dinner?"
Mary shook her head wonderingly. "No," she said. "They will not care. I am often away on holidays. I go to the Museums."
"Then I want you to stay with us to-day," said Miss Terry. "We are going to have a Christmas celebration, and we need you for a guest. Will you stay, you and Miranda?"
Mary looked down at the doll in her arms, and up at the two kind faces bent toward her. "Yes," she said impulsively, "I will stay. How good you are! I don't want to go home."
"Don't go home!" burst out Tom. "Stay with us always and be our little girl."
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