Grace Livingston Hill - According to the Pattern (Romance Classic)

Thinking which she arrived before the gray gown.

Then from above her, somewhere on another floor of the great store and floating down through the open rotunda, came soft, sweet, swelling music, like angelic voices from afar.

It seemed to come nearer and surround her being and float about her naked soul and bathe her in its restfulness.

In a distant gallery there was some newly invented instrument, by whose mechanism a thousand harps and voices seemed to be set free at once and soar aloft in blended harmony.

The melody was familiar. It had been dear to her when it first came out. She knew the words. Each note spoke to her heart now. It had grown tiresomely familiar during her stay in this part of the world, by the constant grinding of it out by the poor wheezy street pianos and hand-organs, as if a common barnyard fowl should attempt the thrush’s roundelay. But now the song seemed to come to her with new significance.

Last night I lay a sleeping,

There came a dream so fair,

I saw the Holy City

Beside the temple there,

I heard the children singing

And ever as they sang

Methought the voice of angels

From heaven in answer rang,

Jerusalem, Jerusalem.

The burdened woman looking up, startled suddenly from her intricate busy plans for earth, realized almost with a sort of mingled horror and longing that there was another world than this. Would what she did now and here affect her happiness there? Would these poor paltry dresses count? Would her trouble be over ever?

Her throat choked up and she stood leaning against the glass case unheeding the people who passed and looked curiously at her absorbed, listening face.

When the music was over she went home.

Table of Contents

That night she dreamed a single dream the whole night through. The scene reminded her of the background of some posters. There was a sky of clearly defined blotches of inky blue and dead white, with strange angels outlined against it. They seemed to be constantly warning her against something, at command of heavenly music that floated above, now soft, now clearer, as the need became greater. And she below, was striving to obey, with anguish in her soul. Gradually the face of her husband appeared a little way off, glad, gay. He was talking with a throng of beautiful women and evil men. Then it became clear that the danger was to him, and the angels were bidding her save him.

With all her soul dragging her down in heaviness she sought to get nearer to him and to attract his attention, but his expressive eyes rested on all faces but hers. He did not see, or would not recognize her. Her soul longed for one loving smile such as he used to give her in the old days when they were in a company of friends and could not speak save with their eyes. But now he would not look. He seemed to be another being and yet the same. At last she could lay her hand upon his and then she thought he surely would look, and she poured out pleading words into his ear of warning and entreaty. But he shook her off with anger, passed on from her grasp, and with a cry which seemed to rend her heart she awoke to live the whole scene over again.

Out from a night thus spent she went to her task, with white face and set lips. That gray dress should be bought to-day and begun.

She wasted no time in looking that morning. But as she sat waiting at the counter for a package which she wished to take home with her, a woman, tall and elegantly gowned, moved slowly down the aisle and stopped close beside her to examine an exquisite piece of lace that was being displayed.

Some sudden memory made Mrs. Winthrop look up at her face, and there she saw before her the one who had sat beside her husband in the park but a few days before.

Her heart fairly stood still to think that that woman was beside her. A great wave of hate and horror rolled over her and threatened for a moment to take away her consciousness, but her self-control that morning was tremendous, and she compelled her eyes to look steadily at the one who had won her husband from her, perhaps, but who, after all, was but a woman, another like herself. She would see what it was that had attracted. Oh, if she could but find out who she was!

And as if in answer to her wish came a smiling saleswoman, saying: “Good morning, Mrs. Sylvester. Is anyone waiting upon you?”

Miriam, quietly waiting for her package, sat watching her supposed rival as she tumbled the laces about ruthlessly as though their yards were priced in pennies instead of dollars, and at last ordered home two pieces that she might the better decide which suited her. As she moved away the smiling saleswoman said, “Let me see; the number is 1820 is it not? I cannot remember anything this morning,” and the proud lady bent her head and smiled condescendingly in reply and then swept by and was gone.

Mrs. Winthrop turned feverish eyes to the busy pencil that was rapidly writing down the address and noted carefully the name of the fashionable square where Mrs. Sylvester lived. Then she gathered up her packages and started home, her knees trembling under her as she walked and a quiver ran through her as if she had faced her worst foe.

Suddenly she stopped in the street and a light broke over her face. There was a rift, just a little rift in the dark clouds over her head. And now she knew that down deep in her heart she had harbored a fear which she would not let be put into thoughts even, that this woman, this enemy of hers, this Mrs. Sylvester, was on the wide ocean. Nay, even that she might be in the same ship with her own husband, Claude. Now that she knew she was not she saw the absurdity of the idea. That a woman who calmly purchased such costly lace would give up her great orbit for the sake of a comparatively poor man was ridiculous. Still, there were women who liked to play with hearts, and who took care never to play the game too long with anyone. And after all, what mattered it whether she played it well or ill, so long as the other player had been willing. Ah! That was the hard part. Her Claude was hers no longer. He had given another woman the light of his eyes, and his wife’s heart was breaking. The tiny gleam of light in the clouds above closed blank and dull once more and she went on her way with a tumult of feelings running riot in her breast.

An idea came to her as she took her way home which startled her with its daring. What if she should try to use this very woman to help against herself? How could she do it? What sort of woman was she? What if she should invite her to one of these little teas for which she was preparing? What if she should? What if she should? Then would she not be going forth to meet Goliath the Great with her little sling and stones?

But the thought could not be got rid of. Thereafter every gown she planned, every fabric she bought or fashioned, every arrangement of the little home was done as under the surveillance of the haughty, beautiful woman with the scornful mouth and unscrupulous eyes.

The days that followed were weary ones, scarce begun ere ended, it seemed to the poor woman who was toiling to achieve a multiplicity of works before a certain time. She worked with breathless energy, never daring to stop and rest lest she should give up and faint beneath the load, or lest the tragedy of her life should wreck her mind.

Letters came from her husband as he went from place to place. A few directions were given her about matters of business, but they always seemed to be written in haste. Her fingers trembled when she opened them and her heart grew colder at each one she read. He complained of not receiving her letters and she set her lips grimly, which ill became the softly rounded lines of mouth and chin. She had written none, nor would she. The questions he asked might be answered when he came. They seemed to be of moment to him, to her they were as trifles. The questions he did not ask were a whole volume of the tragedy she was living. The fact that he did not think or care to ask them made her excuse for not writing; though her heart was sometimes bursting with the words she would send him, still she retrained herself. It was not time yet. She must bide and work and be ready when the moment came.