Amorelle laughed in spite of the tears that suddenly sprang to her eyes, and then went and threw her arms around the little old lady and kissed her.
“You’re so dear,” she said.
“So are you,” returned Miss Landon, winking back the tears that came into her own eyes. “I wish you were my niece. I’d like to have you come and live with me. If I only could get back some of the money I had in that bank that closed its doors I’d have you here in no time, uncle or no uncle.”
“Oh, you dear Aunt Lavinia! I couldn’t do that, of course, but I love you for suggesting it. But aren’t you ever going to get any of your money back at all?”
“Well, I don’t know. I might and then again I mightn’t, but I just can’t count on it. But, child, you must remember this: if things don’t go well with you, you’re always welcome to come to me, and we’ll make out somehow. I just love you like my own.”
Amorelle came away comforted at last, with a happy little feeling that there was a haven for her if everything else should fail. It was good to know there was a refuge, even if she knew she never would let herself seek it unless she had money enough to be a help and not a hindrance to this hard-working woman.
But as Amorelle went in the back gate and unlocked the kitchen door of the manse, she heard the front door bell ringing violently, and she wondered if some of her tormentors had already arrived.
In trepidation Amorelle hurried through to the front door and opened it to find Johnny Brewster standing there, red and embarrassed, his big hands revolving his straw hat nervously, his red curls newly wet and slicked back, a spruce dark blue coat buttoned over the old brown sweater he usually wore on weekdays. His grocery truck was parked halfway down the street on the other side.
Ordinarily Amorelle was very good friends with Johnny. He had been an eager member of the Christian Endeavor under her leadership, a willing helper at all Sunday school picnics, church socials, and the like, and an ardent lover of her father. She had always had a pleasant word and a smile for him, and he had always seemed to admire her respectfully from afar, never by word or look presuming to offer her personal attention. But now, as he stood there fumbling his hat and looking at her out of oddly frightened eyes, their relationship seemed somehow to have changed. With a horrible memory of Mrs. Brisbane and her ill-timed suggestions, the girl began to quake with strange premonition.
“I—You—” began Johnny awkwardly. “That is, may I come in a minute? Are you very busy, Miss Amorelle?”
He had always called her Miss Amorelle. It had been the outward sign of his recognition of the difference between them in class and education.
“Oh, why come right in, Johnny!” she said, trying to make her voice sound bright and natural. “Sit down, won’t you?”
Ordinarily Johnny would have breezed in respectfully and remained standing while he told his errand. This time, however, he strode into the parlor and sat down on the edge of the first chair that presented itself, twiddling his hat wildly as if the motion of it would help him keep his equilibrium.
Amorelle looked at him with trouble in her eyes and dropped weakly in the big chair opposite him, trying to disarm her fears. Probably he had only come to offer her sympathy and didn’t know what to say, poor lad. Oh, was everybody in the parish going to come? How could she stand such long-drawn-out, sorrowful kindness?
Johnny’s good, honest face flushed painfully as he lifted anguished eyes to her gaze and plunged wildly in.
“I wanted ta come and tell ya how sorry I am fer ya, Miss Amorelle!” he began. “I sure did love your father. He sure was a great preacher!”
Amorelle drew a breath of relief and smiled.
“Oh, thank you, Johnny. I do appreciate your sympathy,” she said. “And Father was always very fond of you. He was proud of the splendid Christian stand you took among your friends.”
The young man flushed with pleasure, and then he looked wildly around the room as if clutching for another sentence to help him through and began again.
“That was why,” he said earnestly, “that was why I wanted ta come—at least I dared ta come—that is I come ta offer ya my sympathy—that is my—help. That is, anything I cud do fer ya.”
“Oh, you are very kind, Johnny,” said Amorelle, looking at him with puzzled eyes.
“No, it ain’t kindness!” he blurted out embarrassedly. “I’ve always thought an awful lot of ya. That is, I’ve always thought ya were wonderful. But I never dreamed—that is, I never wouldda presumed—and I don’t know as you’d consider it now, Miss Amorelle, an’ ef ya wouldn’t it’s all right with me. That is, I mean no offense. I know I’m not in any way fit fer ya, only I’d like ta take care of ya ef you’d let me. And somehow I thought ef you wouldn’t mind we ud get married, an’ then I cud see ya didn’t have things so hard. I got a real good business going now, an’ I cud afford ta hire help an’ you wouldn’t havta work. And I’d take real good care of ya an’ see ya had things just as ya wanted ’em, as far as I was able, an’ ya wouldn’t need ta have anything more ta do with me than ya wanted. I’d try not ta stick around too much, ya know. But I’d be powerful proud of ya—I know I’m not in your class—”
He lifted miserable, shamed eyes to her white face now, as if to implore her not to think too ill of him, and suddenly she bowed her head in her cold hands and began to laugh and cry together, her whole body trembling and shaking with her mirthful sobs.
Johnny stood across the room, twirling his hat, his own face gone white now, his honest, blue eyes filled with distress, his soul racked with compunction. He longed to do something to comfort her, yet he would not lay so much as one of his strong, rough fingers on her sweet bowed head.
In a moment more she had control of herself and lifted her face, wet with tears, yet a smile trembled through.
“Oh, Johnny, dear!” she said earnestly. “Please forgive me! I wasn’t laughing at you, I’m just all upset; and I do appreciate your great offer. It’s the biggest thing a man could do for a woman. And it’s beautiful, what you have said to me. I’ll never forget it! But, Johnny, you and I are friends, not lovers. There’s no question of marrying between us.”
“Oh, I know I’m not of your class—!” he broke forth again in a troubled voice.
“No, Johnny, it’s not a matter of class between us. It’s just that God hasn’t put us into that relationship to each other, Johnny.” She looked at him keenly. “Whenever did such a thing come into your head? You never had such an idea before, did you?”
“Well, no,” said Johnny, getting red again. “I—I…just thought of it this morning. I thought I was well fixed—And I thought I’d like ta make things easy fer ya—”
“Johnny, has Mrs. Brisbane been into the store this morning? Has she been talking to you about me?”
Johnny’s honest eyes met hers and then dropped sheepishly.
“Well, yes,” he owned uncomfortably. “She was in. She did mention ya, but I—”
Amorelle was suddenly seized with that uncontrollable desire to laugh and cry again, but she mastered it.
“Now look here, Johnny,” she said earnestly. “You’re my friend and I want to keep you so, and you’ve got to help me. Mrs. Brisbane was over here this morning suggesting all sorts of wild things to me, even suggesting different people in the town I could marry. And I was simply furious at her, but I never dreamed she’d go out and tell the people! Oh, Johnny, I’m so ashamed and troubled! Johnny, I don’t want to get married! I don’t want to marry anyone. I’m going out West to live with my uncle’s family, and I want to get away from here quietly and decently and not have people talking about me. Won’t you help me, Johnny? Won’t you help me to put down such ideas and go away like any quiet, decent person? I can’t marry you, Johnny, and I hope you won’t feel bad. I’m sure you’ll be glad someday I said no. But I do want your help. Won’t you help me? Won’t you be like a good, friendly brother to me?”
“I sure will!” said Johnny earnestly. “What could
I do? How should I go about it?”
Amorelle looked wildly around her and, through the open doorway, caught a glimpse of her father’s bookcase in the library opposite.
“Well, if you could help me get a few things packed and moved, I’d be so grateful. I want to get Father’s books put away in boxes and some of my precious things moved away to the house of a friend, over near the Glen, who is going to keep them for me. You see, I think some of the ladies have an idea of trying to buy Father’s books and furniture for the manse, and I couldn’t part with them. I’d like to get them all put out of sight before anybody can come and suggest anything about it and make an embarrassing situation for me. Mrs. Brisbane said some of the Ladies’ Aid were talking about it.”
“Sure I’ll help, Miss Amorelle,” said Johnny in his old breezy tone. “I’ll be glad ta beat that bunch of old cats to it! I sure will! Whaddya wantta do first? The books? Say, I gotta lotta good strong, empty boxes over ta the store. They’re clean and nice. I can bring ’em over at noon, and we can get those books into ’em in no time and nail ’em up. Then when I take the run over ta the Glen, I ken deliver ’em, and when anybody come around wanting ’em, they’ll be gone, see?”
“Oh, Johnny, that would be wonderful,” said Amorelle. “But I couldn’t take you all that time away from your store. If I just had the boxes, I could pack them and get a truck to take all my things over at once.”
“No sense in wasting truck hire,” said Johnny. “Ef I’m your brother, why not let me cart ’em? I run over that way twice a day anyway, and my truck is good and strong. I can get quite a load in every time I go, and before you know it they’ll all be gone!”
“But some of them are heavy; I’m afraid you couldn’t manage them alone.”
“Aw, whaddya mean manage? Besides, Tod often goes out on the truck with me, and we’ll take the heavy things at night after dark. Then I’ll leave Tod over at his home on the way back. That’s all fixed now; that’s what I’m going ta do. And you don’t know how glad I am you’ll let me be of some real help. But say, Amorelle, you won’t lay it up against me that I asked you that other? I know it was sorta presuming, but I’d a ben glad ta do it ef you felt it was the right thing.”
Johnny was all eagerness now, wistfulness. His big, earnest blue eyes searched her face tensely. He was calling her Amorelle just as if he’d always done it, and he didn’t even realize it.
“Why, of course not, Johnny. That was really a wonderful thing for you to propose,” said Amorelle gently. “That is the highest honor a man may offer a woman. Only you know, too, Johnny, that you are young, a year or two younger than I am, and that you have friends of your own that probably have been occupying that place in your thoughts, and I hope you’ll be very happy someday in that snug little house over your store. I’ll love the girl you will choose. But you and I are just friends, and today you’ve come to be more like a brother, too, and I’m glad. I’m just going to call upon you to help me in my need and be real happy in the asking. Father loved you, and he’d be glad that you’re helping me. So don’t say anything more about presuming, please, and let’s be glad in our friendship.”
“Well, now that’s settled,” he said in a relieved tone. “Just let me take a look at those books to see about how many boxes we can use, and I’ll bring ’em over when I go to my lunch.”
Johnny stumped away, whistling happily, slamming the manse door behind him. And Amorelle retired to her father’s big chair to laugh over the strange, embarrassed proposal of marriage and to grind her teeth over Mrs. Brisbane and wonder if the woman could possibly have dared to talk of marriage to the other men whom she had suggested. Oh, how terrible! How humiliating! And there was nothing, nothing, she could do to stop it. Her mind ran over the list of available bachelors her caller had mentioned, and she shuddered.
Then suddenly she looked around her. There was just one thing she could do, and that was to get out of Rivington as soon as possible. She must get packed up in a hurry and moved before anybody realized what she was doing. Oh, if only Mrs. Loomis Rivington was at home, she would be able to stop all this nonsense and take her under her watchful eye!
But the Rivingtons were in Europe. They would write lovely, kind letters and probably send her a present of some sort and great sympathy when they knew of her father’s death; but they could not protect her from the village gossips and the church meddlemakers. Strange that the two most loved members of her father’s church should be from the opposite walks of life. The Rivingtons were old settlers, rich and influential. The town was named for them. Old Judge Rivington had been her father’s closest friend and adviser until his death some five or six years before. The younger Loomis-Rivingtons were like him in their friendliness and generosity. And strangely they and Lavinia Landon had the same sympathetic, comforting ways with them. But the Rivingtons were in Europe and Lavinia Landon was not a person of influence. There was nobody to help her. Just nobody! A little dry sob broke in her throat.
Then suddenly there came a thought of her father’s tender smile and his voice as he had said to her not long ago, “There is always God, little girl, and He loves you more than anyone could.”
Ah! She had been forgetting.
She lifted her eyes to the little silver-and-blue card that hung on the wall above her father’s desk and read the familiar words: “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms!” And for a moment, she bowed her head on her father’s desk and prayed in her heart for the help she needed. Then she sprang up and went to work.
Chapter 4
Amorelle got a dust cloth and went swiftly around the rooms taking down the beloved old pictures, thankful that she had a place to put them out of the way for a while and that she did not have to decide which to keep and which to give away or sell. There was room in Miss Lavinia’s kitchen chamber to stow them all away.
There were not a great many pictures, and it took only a few minutes before they were standing face to the wall in a compact bunch, ready for Johnny any time he should demand a load.
Next she went through the little parlor gathering out a few books and papers, a few vases and ornaments that would need to be packed carefully in her bureau drawers. She came back from carrying them upstairs and looked around, trying to banish the memory of the flower-banked casket that had stood over in the bay window only yesterday, trying to keep back the tears. Ah! Pain and sweetness and love and parting. How they were mingled. But she must not stop to think. She must go on and get things done. It would all be easier, perhaps, if she would just goad herself with the thought that she must get as much done as possible, irrevocably, before the Ladies’ Aid should descend upon her.
She looked around the parlor again, removed a couple of chairs that she did not care to keep, a little table that she never had liked and that had no special associations. There was nothing left now but the couch; the chairs that belonged to it that had been her mother’s; a fine, old inlaid table; a small bookcase with glass doors; and the old piano. She eyed the latter with a troubled glance. It wasn’t a very good one and had seen long service. Some parishioner moving away had given it to her when she was a child, just beginning music lessons. It wasn’t valuable. She couldn’t, of course, take it with her, and it would be expensive to move it to Glenellen. Besides, she had to have money to get to Uncle Enoch’s. There would be other expenses, too. She must not be dependent upon what the parish would offer to do for her. If they did anything, let it be a surprise, an extra, but she must be independent and pay for everything, though she knew her small bank account had been sadly depleted in the last few sad days. She must get together all she could.
So she deliberately went to the telephone and called up the mother of a small member of her Sunday school class who had told her only a few days before that her daddy was going to get her a piano.
“Mrs. Wayne, this is Amorelle Dean. I’m calling about my piano. Tessy told me you were going to get one, and I wondered if you would care to c
onsider a second-hand one to start with, and then when she is getting on a little farther, you might be able to trade it on a new one? You see, I’m having to break up my home here, and I can’t very well take my piano with me. Of course it’s not new, and I wouldn’t expect to get much for it. But I thought it ought to bring at least thirty-five dollars. I thought I’d let you know first before I told anyone else.”
The outcome of that conversation was that Mrs. Wayne promised to run right around and see the piano, and presently she arrived eagerly with Tessy by the hand and her husband trailing behind.
Mr. Wayne did try to reduce the price, but Amorelle was firm.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Wayne, but I just felt it wasn’t worthwhile to part with it for less than that, and I’ve got to have money to get things settled up here.”
The Waynes consulted together in the hall and finally decided to take the piano and said they would send for it around five o’clock that afternoon.
After they were gone, Amorelle went over to the old piano and laid her hands lovingly on its ivory keys. It was like parting from another friend. Perhaps she ought not to have done it. And yet she knew it had been right. She must have money. She slid down to the stool and let her fingers wander softly over the keys, playing an old hymn or two that her father used to love, playing the first little piece her mother taught her when she was a child.
Then suddenly the doorbell sounded out sharply through the house, and she closed the piano quickly and went to the door, hoping nobody had heard her soft music. The parish would think it dreadful of her to be playing the piano the day after her father’s funeral.
But it was only Johnny, with his honest face beaming and two boxes on his shoulder.
“I couldn’t raise anybody at the back door,” he said with a grin, “so I hadta come around here, but I got the truck in the alleyway, and ef you want I should take anything out to Miss Lavinia’s I can just sneak ’em out the back door an’ nobody’ll notice. Now, where do we get the first books from?”