February 1930
82
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
very difficult situation—an increasingly difficult one, in deed! Althea was staying in Cambridge now with Aunt Elinor’s first cousin Elizabeth at “ The Firs.” She loved every line of the stately old colonial house, she endorsed the puritygthe chastity— of this early architectural struc ture. All that was in her of breeding and of “ back ground” responded to the fineness of her surroundings.. She loved, especially, the afternoon-tea hour, when they gathered around the fire in the great square entrance hall, with its panels of dark wood. The scene was illumined only by the firelight and the softest of lamps. And then the good Jenkins, who had served Cousin Elizabeth so ' many years, would appear with his tempting tea-tray, and the gleaming silver service that had been used by Althea’s great-grandmother in the old Massachusetts days! Friends, and second and third cousins, and “ in-laws,” dropped in at this hour. Althea enjoyed hugely the con versational interchanges, the introductions, the dignified repressions, and all that lay back of these. She realized, as she listened, that a very different civilization was in process of formation on the Pacific Coast. She missed a certain liberty even while she welcomed the absence of provincialisms. “ Althea dear, here is a distant cousin from New York I’ve been- wanting you to know—Oliver Abbott Iselin III,” cousin Elizabeth would delightedly announce. “ And this is his sister, Bettina.” And Althea would find her self looking into two thoroughbred young faces, and won dering for a moment what to say, would ask them why they lived so far away from Boston. She relished, too, the royal way in which names were handed down from father to son with the numerals II, III and IV attached. Or, sometimes it would be a gray-haired-wiry little man of nearly sixty, who bowed very low over Cousin Elizabeth’s hand as he murmured: “ A h ! I can see that you are feeling very well, my dear Mrs. Pepper!” “ O h ! but I ’m not at all well, my dear Mr. Cabot,” Cousin Elizabeth would reply, as if in very serious de fense of the truth after a direct and dangerous onslaught. So deadly in earnest over little things, reflected A l thea. And yet so restful in their attitudes toward each other and herself— so devoid of all trying angularities. “Noblesse oblige!” Yes, she mused, as she listened dreamily to the glo rious sonata, whose rendition approximated perfection, if anything could woo her away from the course she had elected for herself it would be these delightful friends and relatives. But what were they—what was anyone in com parison to this great burning love with which her heart and soul were aglow for her Lord ! “ I am in love,” she said to herself , “ in love with the One \yho made the two disciples’ hearts burn within them on the walk to Emmaus one day. It’s no use, Mumsie dear, away off there in sunny California! You’ve been tactful and courageous but I’ve given myself ‘clean away to Christ,’ and He has all there is of me!” The orchestra began Franz Liszt’s “ Les Preludes,” and Althea listened entranced to this exquisite sym phonic poem, with its deep tenderness for the race of men with their stumblings, beginnings, and,“ fresh starts,” or “ preludes,” after their repeated failures. “ And thus they will go on until He comes to reign,” she said to Cousin Elizabeth, as the piece ended in a sub lime outburst. “ My child! You quite upset me! Did you not hear Judge Sanger say only last night at dinner, that the old Bibiical interpretations are no longer acceptable? He feels,
wobbly because I ’m just learning to walk. ‘Whereas I was blind, now I see’ —you remember the blind man who refused to argue?” They had thought that Constance was asleep, as .she half lay curled up in a great armchair before the old-fash ioned marble chimney-piece where a coal fire glowed. So when she spoke they were startled. “ I wish,” she said, with the general effect of speaking into the air, and an obvious effort to be merely casual,-“ I wish that Althea would explain the difference between what she is talking about, and just being decent and sport ing—being careful to do nothing that is not ‘cricket’ !” Althea burst into eager speech. “ Oh, Connie! There’s a huge difference. What I ’m taking about is a new life—being born again. Christ told Nicodemus all about it in John three. Paul’s epistles are full of it. And by the bye— I have a friend we call Bill the Brilliant, who says you will find all the Sermon on the Mount in Paul’s instructions to young Christian churches and their new members. ‘Trying to be decent’ is trying to fulfill the law, and ‘by the works o f the lazv shall no flesh be justified.’ So even your ‘good’ Unitar ians fall short of God’s requirements, Aunt Elinor.” They were attentive! “ You see, God did not intend us to know good and evil—He said to Adam and Eve, ‘O f the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat o f it.’ And when they disobeyed, He said, ‘Behold, the man is become as one o f us, to know good and evil.’ And so they lost Eden. And Paul wrote to the Romans, ‘By the law is the knowledge o f sin.’ We shall never know down here, per haps, what were God’s plans for our race; but when we had ruined everything and spoiled our lives, He promised us a Saviour whose blood should cleanse us from sin.” Althea ceased and the soft sputter of the fire was the only sound. “ I wish Christ had stayed on earth,” Constance finally said. “ I wonder if He would have stayed if the Jews had accepted Him as their King?” “ I’ll ask Uncle Alan,” replied Althea. “ But He’s com ing back again, you know!” “ What!” fairly shouted Constance. “ YeS! To reign over the earth from Jerusalem.” Aunt Elinor groaned. “ Oh, Althea dear! How ex treme! How very extraordinary!” Visions of her niece in a peculiar white robe, waiting on a hilltop somewhere with other peculiar people, surged through her mind. “ Perhaps I gave it to them a little too strong at first,” Althea admitted afterwards. However that may be, a conversation over the tele phone ensued a little later when Constance had taken Althea off to a small dinner party. “ My dear!” Aunt Elinor was saying to her first cousin Elizabeth over in Cambridge. “ My dear! I do not know, zvhat we shall d o ! Althea is utterly changed and seems to be actually enjoying it! Says the most ex traordinary things! Connie is bringing her over to have tea with you the day after tomorrow. Draw her out! Do your best for u s!’’ The loyalty of the old, so-called, “ Brahman” caste, which seeks to guard its members from exposing themselves to the uncouth comments of a critical world! sjs >Ji s}c Hi Althea was sitting in the great musical auditorium in Boston, listening to the symphony. She had been in Bos ton nearly a month, and as she looked back over it she rather congratulated herself on “ getting away with it,” as Douglas Snowdon would say. By “ it” she meant a
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