A Complete Story

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 19, 27 May 1925, Page 11

A Complete Story

("By Florence Gilmore, in Jie.nzitjer's Matin zinc.)

THE SCARS ALONE REMINDED

In time the enmity between Lucy Joyce and Marie Flowed became an accepted fact in Dennison; and though people did not cease to wonder what had caused it, as years and months passed it lost its prestige as a topic of conversation. No inkling of the cause of the trouble between them ever leaked out. No one knew just when it began. It was only by degrees that the neighbors noticed that Miss Joyce no longer spent her mornings on Miss Howell’s broad vineshaded verandah, and that she took the afternoon drives with only the coachman for company while -Hiss Howell fell into the habit of going, alone for long country walks in a direction which her former friend never took. Soon people, began to notice that although both attended Mass as regularly as of old, neither of them ever approached the Sacraments. Marie Howell changed her lifelong habit of going to Mass at 7 o’clock, deciding that she would rather hear a High Mass. Her seat and Miss Joyce’s were in the same pew, and they found it embarrassing to sit side by side — at least so their friends imagined. And the gossips talked and wondered and conjectured, but reached no conclusion. Weeks and months slipped by and heaped up into years, twelve of them, and still the two women lived alone, and their big, handsome homes glared at each other from across the narrow street, but apparently neither lof them remembered the other’s existence or cared to be reminded of it. Reluctantly they left their thirties behind them and ' passed on and on into the shady side of their forties. Old age began to loom large ahead of them. Occasionally the inquisitive souls in Dennison wondered if they -were not '' ' _ .

very lonely, for neither of them ever had another intimate friend and the close relatives of both wore long dead. But if they were, they made no sign. Miss Howell had grown thinner and more frail looking and her clothes were noticeably plainer than of old. They were even shabby. About her fine old house there was an indescribable air of carefully concealed economy. Miss Joyce, on the other hand, was the picture of perfect health, and everything about her homo was bright and luxurious and up-to-date. When the quarrel was still young, old Father Burton, who had known them both all their lives, made an effort to bring them together and to make them realise that they were doing very wrong and were giving bad example. Fie made but one effort, for he saw at once that no intervention of his could heal the breach. One year it was announced early in Lent that there was to be a mission at St. John’s, the only Catholic church in Protestant Dennison. With that holy willingness which is recognised of the Jesuits, Father Burton suggested to an old lady, an aunt of Lucy Joyce, that she try to' persuade her niece to make the mission. He then told Maggie Wolf, a poor crippled girl, who was a protege of Miss Howell’s, to ask her to make it without fail so that she could report the substance of the sermons to her. It was with a sigh of content and a prayer of thanksgiving that, at the services which opened the mission, Father Burton . caught sight of Miss Joyce, fair and smiling! in her place in the front pew,tand that a moment later he saw Miss Howell, white and sweet

and a little sad looking, take the seat, next to her. It seemed good to see them side by side once • more, -and, he -hoped : much, and prayed more than he hoped. Meanwhile the two women sat in their accustomed places, too miserably uncomfortable to understand the drift of the eloquent words which rang in their ears. : , I Marie Howell looked straight at the altar, apparently entirely free from distractions. But she had had one long startled look into Lucy’s face, when, on entering the pew, she found her there before her. “She looks a little older and care-worn, quit© care-worn.” This latter fact no one had ever discovered before. “I wonder! if that wretched brother of hers still gives her trouble. It is an outrage that she has to be harassed and humiliated by him.” A moment later she smiled a little spitefully, “But I suppose more or less-trouble is good for the best of us.” ' As for Miss Joyce, she could not refrain from glancing furtively, at her old friend more than once. It was the first time in twelve years that she had been so near her. “How frail she looks, how very frail!” she thought with a feeling of pain about her heart, “I suppose that in- one takes care of her now as 1 used to do. She never know how to spare herself.” She stole another glance as they settled back in the seats for the sermon. ‘‘Her face is sweet, sweeter than any other I ever saw. How strange it is that she is so —” She did not finish the sentence even in her own mind. As soon as Benediction was over, Miss Howell, who was at the end of the pew, hurried out of .the church with all possible speed. Miss Joyce waited until the candles had been extinguished, the organ had sobbed itself to sleep, and the last devout worshippers were lingeringly stealing away. During the days that followed, the two were in their places for Mass and again at the evening services. Neither of them would have deigned to seek another seat, though each would have been relieved if the other had done so. It was very uncomfortable, very wearying, that sitting side by side hour after hour without giving any signs of recognition or even appearing to be aware of the existence of one’s neighbor,' After the middle of the week people began . to linger after the devotions to go to confes- [ sion. Father Burton watched anxiously, but neither Miss Joyce nor Miss Howell was ; among the penitents who patiently stood in , line on both sides of the missionaries’ con- . fessionals. Thursday morning and Friday 5 morning, Thursday evening and Friday eveni ing, they left the church as soon as the devot tions were over. Father Burton’s fatherly heart grew heavy, and his hope faint and i fainter. / \ 3 On Saturday morning, a sudden, and very - violent storm blew;- up ' before the end of 3 --Mass; but; as usual Miss Flo well hurried out ’as soon as the priest left the altar. On r reaching the outer door she . found it was i" raining so heavily that she dared not venture t forth,' for, she was always obliged to lie carer fill lest she take cold, - and that morning she t ’ was equipped with neither over slides ’nor; umt brella. With an impatient sigh she stepped 1 i*.l - ‘ '-. i. 1 i.. 1 7 - .1 i f. .i , . ' ■ *- t .L -T,V i .4 v

back into a corner of the dimly lighted vestiB""" buldj to wait until the downpour had spent it.sv^v 'w~d< 3 ive minutes later .Miss Howell saw Lucy Joyce pass through the vestibule' and peer out into the street, which by that time was literally hooded with muddy water. She, too, went back, and, all unconscious, stepped aside into Miss Howell’s corner. She flushed |a£\ painfully when she realised what it was she had intruded upon, and Marie looked no |||less ill at ease. Meanwhile several other 111 women had gathered in the vestibule and fe; stood talking in loud half-whispers, which the two in their corner could not fail to overhear. “Did you see .Miss Howell hurry out again || before Miss Joyce?” said one. with a triumif phant ring in her voice. “She has done fpso all week. I have been watching.” Ky “Yes, and they never pay the least attention to each other when they are in the pew. I. made a point of sitting just behind them last night to. see how they are acting.” pvß “They must feel decidedly uncomfortable,” the third exclaimed with a little laugh. Miss Rowell and Miss -Joyce were wretched. They blushed furiously and looked B intently at the wall opposite them. .Neither stirred. “Miss Joyce is prettier than ever this H morning,” said one admiringly, breaking a little lull in their conversation. “Yes, isn’t sin'l But no one could say as much for Miss Howell. She is the plainest, primmest-looking mortal i ever saw. Her g hair is always as flat as a pancake. And her jacket! And that antediluvian hat! The Njjforst of it is, that is all stinginess—nothing g Her father was considered one of the richest men in Dennison, and she must he pretty well fixed. Maggie O’Connor was telling me only yesterday that the inside of her house is as shabby as her clothes. Well, I am glad that I am not miserly, whatever i else I may be.” There was a self-satisfied smile on the speaker’s face which plainly proclaimed that her perfections were manifold. |y: Poor Miss Howell! It was too much for Lucy Joyce, who was Irish, with the hot temper and loyal heart common to her race. To the intense dismay % ... * ppf the other women, not excepting 'Miss Howell, she emerged from her dark corner. “You are a set of gossips!” she burst out hotly. “The idea of you —any one of you—ft daring to criticise Miss Rowell, who is worth Mai dozen of you. If she spent every dollar she lays her hands on for clothes as you do, she would be far better dressed than any woman in Dennison. If you wonder what ill she does with her money, ask old poor crippled Maggie -Wolf ask old Mrs. O’Grady— Bask'the Sisters at the orphan asylum ! Miserly, indeed!” ppf|The three women looked as if they would ha vwl thanked the floor had it opened and CeTipyd.fcd them one and all, but as it was not considerate, they muttered a few incoherb';',.|Sexcuses and apologies and shied out the rAJu’, regardless of the rain, which still I Mired in torrents. ' Bjpl long, embarrassed silence followed their Jpit. ' Miss Howell was the first to speak, 0

and her voice trembled very much. She wont toward Miss Joyce with outstretched hand. “Thank you very much, Lucy— though it was only half true. And Lucy, ever- since the mission began and— even long.before that — I have been wanting to tell you that I didn’t mean it.” Miss Joyce took the little outstretched hand in both her plump one. She seemed to understand exactly what that, “it” meant. “Marie, it was true. That was why I hated to hear you say it. But —what I said to you—well, it was just a lie, Maggie.

I hope you knew long ago that I couldn’t have been in earnest that day.” H ■- They kissed each other very affectionately, and hand in hand went back into the church to go to confession for the first time in twelve years. Early the next morning they again knelt side by side in their front pew, and they could not help - smiling at each other from time to time even during Mass; and when all was over Miss Howell found that after all there was no .necessity for her hurrying from the church. She waited quietly>,for a.few- minutes to walk.home with Miss Joyce.