The hour had been striking still as she followed them out of Giovanni Bruno’s bedroom, through the dining room with its alien pungency, into the shrouded blink and rasp of the living room where the old father sat, foul-smelling and raking his throat, staring mindlessly at an old movie, followed them, held by a mere thread to the edge of the awful cliff, to the very door. Out they had marched, indignant, inflexible, even as though frightened, the Baxters and the Coates, all those people, the widows Lawson and Harlowe, the Willie Halls and Calvin Smiths, the Grays, Gideon Diggs, everybody, all the friends of the faith she had known and so devotedly served, even her truest friend Betty Wilson. Out! If only one could have—“Please!” she had whispered desperately to Betty, and Betty, crying shamelessly, had begged her forgiveness, then left with the others. The thread parted. She dropped, head spinning. Nearby: a sofa. It received her. There she wept.
And the worst of it was: she no longer felt Ely’s presence. Throughout this month of terror and trial, he had stayed by her side, had seemed closer even than he had been while living, had guided her, inspirited her, given her strength and singleness of purpose … and now he was gone. Gone! Ely! How? How had it come to pass? “Puffed up with conceit!” Abner Baxter had cried, passing through the door. Oh no, dear God, it was not so!
So utterly, so frankly and wholeheartedly, had she believed that the portentous thing was truly happening, that now it was as though it had happened and had left her behind, behind in the strange-scented emptiness with its blue flickering light and tinkling hollow voices. She had not doubted, no, indeed all her life had seemed to come to bear on this moment, all good Ely had taught her, and all the signs this month — especially his suffering — had insisted upon it. “For our light affliction, which is for the moment only, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory, because we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen!” So many indications of the Spirit at work! Ely’s message and the appearances to both him and his companion Giovanni Bruno of the mysterious white bird, then the startling coincidence of the story that appeared in the evening Chronicle—had not the whole world seen it? — about the shepherd boy who had been visited centuries ago by a white bird that had also changed into the Mother Mary, telling him then to lead a Holy Crusade. Even little Elaine’s innocent gift at Christmas of the small porcelain statue of Mary with the bleeding heart now seemed almost terrifying in its hidden portent. Then, too, there was poor Eddie Wilson with the broken back, suffering like Ely a saint’s end, dying in Sister Betty’s arms with Ely’s name on his lips and something like “God” before — and he had not even been near Ely in the mine! And what of the puzzling “black hand” slaying of Mary Harlowe’s cat? Was it not another sign? So clear! So foreboding! And how excited Willie and Mabel Hall had become when she showed them the note! Willie had turned pale as a ghost, told Clara he had stayed home from the mine that night just because it had been the eighth of the month. Oh, true! true!
And with such seeming irreversibility had it all proceeded! The Evening Circle meetings so well attended, so much spiritual excitement, the anxiety of all to learn — not even Brother Abner’s momentary sullenness could dull their zeal for the Lord and their eager faith in Ely! “Forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus!” Yes! yes! they had been as one! She and Ely had lived among them, mostly hardworking mining people, almost all their lives, and they had responded ardently to her call. Sorely afflicted, they had found hope in a faith renewed by love: her love and Ely’s. The eighth of the month! The moment had grasped them all, each and every one! Even Abner Baxter, swept by the current, had called on them all to “run with patience the race that is set before us!” and had preached in church on the faith of the prophets. Like a thunderclap of doom had come his inspired message the week before: “And by faith Noah, being warned by Almighty God concerning events as yet unseen, he took heed and, moved with a godly fear, prepared him an ark to the saving of his house, and by this he condemned the world!” Dear old Gideon Diggs had leapt right up in the church and cried out, “Lord! I believe!” And the whole congregation had stood with him and prayed as a body. And it was these who had come, rejoicing … and had left, reviling.
Why, it had not even been her, but Brother Willie Hall who, when informed that Giovanni Bruno was too weak still to attend their special February eighth meeting, had made the motion to assemble this night in the Bruno home. In spite of doubts expressed by Abner and a couple of the menfolk, Giovanni Bruno’s presence had seemed somehow crucial to them all. She had met him and so had reassured them that, though silent and in his illness withdrawn, he had shown himself no less profound and sensitive than Ely had so often said he was, and Betty and Mary had backed her up. But a Roman Catholic? No, he was not one, and she’d told them of his enthusiastic response to Ely’s teachings and had reminded them of his vision of the white bird—Ely’s white bird. Aye! Aye! Unanimously, they had agreed, and Clara had obtained that very night, from the man and his sister, the invitation. The way was made straight.
And then, finally, the best of all possible signs: almost none had stayed away, not even Abner and Sarah Baxter, and all had come with fear and great joy in their hearts. “The darkness is passing away and the true light already shineth!” But what was this? She had seen that there were no children, as if by agreement they had all been left at home, and if tonight were—? But it was Abner’s work, she had learned — what was it had turned so true a man? And Clara had prudently avoided making an issue of it. Meek Mary Harlowe had ducked her eyes on greeting, and Betty Wilson had seemed fretful, anxious to speak of something, but the press of time had not allowed it. A few moments, then, at the outset, of awkward silence and muffled introductions, the harsh unresponsive stare of Giovanni—“He’s got a fever,” Clara had alibied — and his sister’s gentle but faintly hostile shield, the aroma of medicine, of bedclothes, of something foreign, something like sin, yes, there was sin here, wine and television and tobacco and Roman Catholic pictures and crosses, and the sister, sensuous, too pretty really; and not to mention the long preliminary march from the front door through the living room with its disconcerting noises of senility and illicit entertainments even before getting to the bedroom, and then the Nortons — oh, why had they come? — he kindly enough and at first conversational, but that brittle icy woman, so openly annoyed, so imperiously silent, refusing to participate yet placing herself at the very head of Giovanni Bruno’s bed — what did she think they wanted? What did she fear?
But her people had crowded in and soon the room was as if the world and they as if its people, united in faith. A natural reticence at first, of course, but Clara had marshaled them quickly to her side. Emboldened by the truth she carried and the grace upon her, she had led them in opening prayer, beseeching and exhorting them to open their hearts to Christ Jesus and earnestly prepare His way. For in just such manner, behind shut doors, He had appeared to the Eleven, had He not? Yes! Yes! “Oh why are ye troubled? And wherefore do questionings arise in your hearts?” None rise, Lord! No! None! “For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night!” Yes! He comes! He is coming! “When folks say, ‘Peace and safety,’ then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall in no wise escape!” Come, Lord! Come! “Oh spirit of holiness, on us descend!” Their voices rose in fervent song. “But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief, for ye are all sons of light!” Amen! Amen! “For God appointed us not unto wrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ!”