by Rob Summers
Pride House: The Quest for Vainglory
Book 1 of The City Allegories Series
By Rob Summers
Copyright 1990 by Rob Summers
Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
No actual persons are represented in this book.
Table of Contents
Part 1 The Household of Pride
Chapter 1 Pledges Fair
Chapter 2 A Letter from Kindness
Chapter 3 Worry
Chapter 4 The Shopping Bag Plot
Chapter 5 Confusion on the Patio
Chapter 6 A Secret Remedy
Chapter 7 Tedium
Chapter 8 A Bad Evening
Chapter 9 Inspiration
Part 2 The Quest for Vainglory
Chapter 10 Mammonette
Chapter 11 Pastor Truth
Chapter 12 Gaining Influence
Chapter 13 The Joke on Pride
Chapter 14 You May
Chapter 15 Night Spots
Chapter 16 Old Glasses
Chapter 17 Cruel’s Place
Chapter 18 The Night Pride Spent in Jail
Chapter 19 The Sentencing
Part 3 The Triumph of Humility
Chapter 20 Doubt Discovers the State of Things
Chapter 21 Love Songs
Chapter 22 Edgar
Chapter 23 Doubt’s War Closet
Chapter 24 Assault of Shadows
Chapter 25 A Mystery Solved
Chapter 26 Reason in Paradise
Chapter 27 Power vs. Grace
Chapter 28 A Ricochet
Chapter 29 The Triumph
Chapter 30 The Confiscation
Part 4 The Wedding of Reason and Truth
Chapter 31 Pride’s Satisfaction
Chapter 32 Lawyer Snare
Chapter 33 Selfishness and Worry
Chapter 34 The Chance Meeting with Fame
Chapter 35 Neglect and Folly’s Concern
Chapter 36 Deacon Pride
Chapter 37 The Fitting
Chapter 38 Secretary Confusion
Chapter 39 Fleeting Fame
Chapter 40 The Furnace Key
Chapter 41 The Wedding
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Preface
The key to the allegory is that the houses represent persons; and the characters in a given house represent various character traits of, and influences upon, that person. Therefore, there are much fewer persons in the City Allegories books than there are characters (character traits).
Part 1 The Household of Pride
Chapter 1 Pledges Fair
“Who’s that?” Old Mr. Wag leaned forward, squinting down a row of folding chairs.
A young woman had come in and attempted to sit down unnoticed, but an owlish young usher had intercepted her and now held her in conversation.
As Mrs. Gossip craned her baggy neck to see, the usher led the young woman to one of the nearby chairs. Without being asked, he settled his short and portly self beside her, just as the wedding pianist began to play “Dust in the Wind.”
“It’s just Enjoyment,” replied Mrs. Gossip. “She runs her own little business as a wedding planner now, don’t you know? She planned this, that is, as much as the bride would allow.”
Seated side by side, Mr. Wag and Mrs. Gossip might have passed for an old married couple. Actually they were neighbors, living two doors down from each other, and between them was Pride House, the scene of this day’s wedding.
Wag leaned forward and looked again. “She looks unhappy.”
“Well, the bride didn’t make it easy for her. She badgered and humiliated Enjoyment all through the planning and rehearsal. I was over here enough to know. And then Enjoyment had the family friends to contend with. You see who sat down beside her.” Gossip rolled her eyes in that direction.
“Selfishness who was her boyfriend. What of it?”
“He jilted her,” whispered Gossip.
“I don’t know anything about that,” said Wag, though in fact he and everyone else in the neighborhood knew it full well. “But I hear her business is on its feet. Not bad for an orphan. After her parents died, when she and her grandfather and her two sisters came to live in this house, they didn’t have anything. Let’s see, Reason’s the oldest, and there’s Enjoyment, and—what’s the middle one?”
“Calm. She and Reason aren’t here today.”
“Yeah, Calm. Hum, that was seventeen years ago! I remember Reason was about twelve then.” Wag leaned back and hooked his thumbs in his jacket pockets. “I wouldn’t have expected Neglect and Folly to take in so many relatives.”
“Oh, they took them in as if they were practicing charity,” said the knowledgeable Gossip, “but they put them to work at cheaper rates than if they’d hired help. Then they scrimped on their education, scrimped on their clothes, everything. And they made them raise Pride for them. I call it shameful—Folly and Neglect off on their travels ten months out of the year and pushing off their own son on the poor relatives. No wonder he turned out such a little beast.”
Wag gently nodded agreement, remembering his shrubbery broken and his flowers trampled as a result of the boy’s ramblings across his neighbor’s yard.
“He did jilt her,” said Gossip, returning to her previous point, for she was unwilling to pass over Wag’s hint of contradiction. “I can tell you the whole story because I heard some of it from Folly herself and the rest from her servants. You see, when Enjoyment was still living here, Pride’s parents gave her control of a special checking account with instructions to use it for improvements on the house and grounds.”
“Humph. Afraid of what Pride would do with the money if he got his hands on it.”
“My thought exactly. Anyway, soon after that, what happens but Pride’s friend Selfishness worms his way into her affections and persuades her to become engaged to him—secretly. Well, he told her it was because he wanted to announce on a special occasion, but just listen to what happened.”
“Why would she go along with something like that?” asked Wag half angrily.
“Let me tell you that a girl rather enjoys the thrill of a secret like that, at least up to a point. At any rate, the little fool trusted him completely. Then Selfishness convinced her that his name should be added to the special checking account.” (Wag rolled his eyes.) “Yes, and he told her that spending the money together would somehow draw them closer. But one morning she learned from the bank that he had emptied the account without telling her. Every penny.” (Wag clucked.) “Oh, but that wasn’t all. That same day she discovered that he had ‘forgotten’ their engagement. He was just sure that she had misinterpreted him. There had never been an engagement.”
“The rat. There are laws about that kind of thing.”
“True, but the secrecy of the engagement, Mr. Wag, meant poor Enjoyment couldn’t prove a breach of promise. Selfishness had been careful not to write anything down.”
“But Neglect and Folly should have done something even if the law couldn’t.”
“Oh, they did. Not concerning the money I mean, they passed off that as a trifle. After all, it all went for their Pride didn’t it? But as far as the engagement, they heard Enjoyment out and then, as you must remember, dismissed her and her sister Calm from the house—Calm for taking her sister’s part. Neglect and Folly were never ones to go to any trouble when they could solve things at a str
oke like that. Reason they kept only because she’s indispensable.”
“And the money for the account,” said Wag thoughtfully, “well, that must have been the year Pride bought his sports car.”
“And his country club membership and a closet full of new clothes and who knows what else.”
The pianist stopped playing and they politely applauded. At the front of the room, a minister stepped forward, handsome and pleasant and forty-five, a look of priestly gentility on his face, his tan jacket strained in front by a moderate bulge. His opening remarks were appropriate, harmonious, and forgettable.
“Sweet as pie as usual,” grumbled Wag. “I remember when Pride threw him out of this house.”
“But Pastor Hypocrisy forgave him,” put in Gossip.
“And came sneaking back in,” Wag added.
Pride and his best man Arrogance now joined the pastor. Young Pride was tall, rather handsome, and looked the sort that others are as sure to invite to a party as to exclude from any serious business. Wag knew that, in fact, Pride socialized constantly, but never at home. He was dressed in a sky blue tuxedo with ruffled peach shirt, and expensive rings glowed on his fingers. He seemed to be sharing some joke with the pastor, standing relaxed, as if this were someone else’s wedding.
As the bridal march began, all eyes turned to the arched double doorway. However, when the bride appeared Gossips lips compressed and her bony fingers clenched her purse strap.
Wag’s blue eyes were puzzled. “Couldn’t they have done more to dress her up?”
Gossip made a frustrated sound in her throat. “I was over here yesterday trying to help. What was the use? No color, no lips, no shape. It was like dressing a corpse.”
“But her dress doesn’t even fit. It’s sagging off her shoulders.”
“It couldn’t be helped. Her shoulders slope.”
The bride passed them, moving with the step-and-halt rhythm of the creaking march.
“You could have at least put her on heels.”
“We did. But she’s even shorter than Reason.”
When the bride reached the front of the chamber and took her place beside Pride, Pastor Hypocrisy began another speech. For diversion, Wag began to look around at the other guests and noticed that those two of Pride’s poor relatives who still lived in the house, had appeared in the doorway and were hovering there, making no attempt to sit down. Old Conscience was leaning on his granddaughter Reason’s arm. Reason’s eyes were invisible behind very thick glasses. Wag began to point them out to Mrs. Gossip, but found that she had already noticed.
“Good heavens,” she said with a smile. “This could stir things up. They weren’t invited.”
“But they live here. How could they not be invited?”
“I helped address the invitations myself, so I should know. Yes, even though they’re family to Pride.”
“But Enjoyment is Reason’s sister and—”
“Well, she planned the wedding, didn’t she? So she had to be invited. She might have been needed for something at the last minute. Suppose the flowers had not been delivered? Yes, it’s disgraceful, but don’t blame the parents. It was Pride and his fiancée who made up the guest list. They didn’t want Conscience and Reason.”
“I don’t see why.”
“Afraid they’d make some trouble. They’ve both been against this marriage from the start. Why take the chance of them spoiling the occasion by saying something?”
Wag touched his throat meaningfully. “Old Conscience isn’t going to say anything.”
“Yes, hardly more than a whisper anymore,” agreed Gossip with a smile, “and getting shaky on his feet. It’s hard to say how much longer he’ll be serviceable at all. And Reason, they say she’s all but blind.”
“Been that way a few years now.”
“It’s settled her down,” Gossip added with satisfaction. “Reason isn’t so ready with an opinion as she once was.”
Pastor Hypocrisy finished his speech, and a dozen singers rose to perform. They began to sing the following:
Because she whispered in his ear
The nothings that he wished to hear,
All plausible and pleasant sounds,
She wears today a wedding gown.
Because he loved her whispered words
And wished more of the things he heard,
All flowery and fleeting things,
He brings today a wedding ring.
“I never heard this before,” said Wag grimly.
“Awful, isn’t it?” said Gossip. “Selfishness wrote it as his wedding present. Cheaper than buying something.”
So since he gives her strength and power,
Seal the arrangement at this hour.
Fine words upon your wedding day
Are what we came to hear you say.
Now life to one another give;
One without other cannot live;
And greet your morning wedding song
With pledges fair that linger long.
They applauded again. “Reason pointed out a few weeks ago that there’s nothing in the song about love,” Gossip said, “which is what finally got her off the guest list.”
“She always was loyal to Pride,” Wag said.
“I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Wag. She can hardly be loyal and catty at the same time.”
Pastor Hypocrisy now leaned heavy, fatherly hands on the young couple’s shoulders. “Just look at these two,” he said. “Aren’t they perfect for each other? I think couples like this are the reason that old chestnut about ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’ has been dropped from the modern ceremonies. No one can object to a perfect match. Now if the bride and groom will face each other, we will proceed to the vows.”
Glancing back, sharp eyed Gossip saw old Conscience disengage his arm from Reason’s and limp a few paces up the aisle.
“Let me speak!” he croaked feebly.
Though he continued to try to make himself heard, few of the guests noticed him. Conscience looked back and beckoned to his granddaughter, who had remained in the doorway. Then seeming to remember that she could not see him, he tottered back. They whispered together. Reason poked with a finger under her glasses as if wiping away a tear.
“…and do you, Doubt, take this man…”
Doubt took Pride. Soon the organ blared the recessional as the young couple trotted down the aisle, Pride grinning like a ventriloquist’s doll, ugly little Doubt wearing a wispy smile of triumph. Behind them came Arrogance and with him Confusion, the maid of honor.
Selfishness and another usher dismissed the guests by rows, beginning at the front, so it was several minutes before Wag and Gossip’s row was released. By the time Wag gained the outer hall, Reason and Conscience were nowhere to be seen. The bride and groom were in a reception line with Pride’s parents. Enjoyment, he noticed, was trying to leave the house but had been stopped near the front door by Selfishness, who held an inch of her blouse sleeve between his thumb and forefinger and would not let go.
Stepping closer, he heard Enjoyment saying to Selfishness in an unsteady voice, “Fine! Now the house is falling apart, and Pride is known everywhere as a fool.”
“I thought you wanted to have some good times around here,” Selfishness said.
She answered more quietly, “I guess we just had different ideas about good times. I’m sorry I didn’t realize that from the first. No, I won’t be back.” She brushed his hand away.
Wag followed her out of the house and saw her pass over the crumbling, concrete-paved yard and so down to the street. There she paused to look back and up at the huge house front, as if assessing its dilapidation. Wag himself looked up at the drooping guttering, patches of cracked paint, battered twin chimneys—
“She was supposed to stay for the reception,” someone said sharply at his elbow. It was Mrs. Gossip again.
“Had some kind of argument with Selfishnes
s,” Wag said.
“That’s no excuse. She might be needed if—oh, my!”
Gossips’ ever wandering eyes had left the departing guests as she spoke, and it was something else that now broke her train of thought. She stepped nearer the house and looked curiously at a portion of the wall. What in the world? Fresh gray paint had been applied to several feet of clapboard. But the vandal’s message beneath had been sprayed in red, so it bled through faintly. Six letters, two words: “FOR JOY.”
