In another half hour she would be in the city station and have to change to the western express, and there were all those gifts, a whole seatful, to be disposed of somehow. What should she do with them? She couldn’t possibly carry them alone. To summon a porter and arrive in a second-class car with them would make her ridiculous for the whole journey. Yet she couldn’t throw any of these love tokens away. Even if she were sure that it would never get back to the dear souls who brought them, she could not bring herself to be so untrue.
So she began to sort them out—the roses from the goldenrod and chrysanthemums, the gladioli from the asters and salvia—choosing a flower from each tenderly with a thought of the giver, laying them flat in a magazine to press. Those she would keep to remember her friends by. The large package of hot cinnamon buns she reduced by more than half by bestowing them upon the staring children, who fell upon them ravenously, evidently having had no breakfast as yet.
There were little gifts in pink tissue paper, tied with ribbon—a lace collar, several pretty handkerchiefs, an embroidered dressing case, and a pair of soft, lovely gloves. Those she slipped into her suitcase, strapping the magazine with its pressed flowers on the outside smoothly. Finally, just as the train was sliding into the city station, she asked the children if they would like the rest of her flowers, and they snatched at them eagerly. Perhaps their mother might regret it later when she marshaled her five sticky children looking like an animated flower garden, but at least she smiled her thanks now upon Amorelle.
So Amorelle gathered up what was left of literature, candy, and cinnamon buns, massed them in an amazingly small compass, picked up her suitcase, and smiled good-bye to the smiling children. They were waving and shouting noisily their farewells and already beginning to quarrel over who had the most roses.
Started at last on her long journey, she watched her way out of the city until the countryside appeared again, and then she put her head back and closed her eyes. She was tired, so tired. Would she ever be rested? Would she ever be interested in life again?
Over and over again she went back through the experiences of the past sad week. Sorrow and humor and tenderness. Stupidity and interference and kindness. What a jumble! And those pitiful proposals of marriage. What a travesty! To think that Mrs. Brisbane had dared—for she must have done it! There couldn’t be a coincidence like that. Every one she had mentioned had come and proposed! No, there was one missing; the young minister she had spoken of who was rumored to be engaged. There was no telling but Mrs. Brisbane would even yet hound him on, get him unengaged, and send him after her!
Marriage! What would marriage be with one whom Mrs. Brisbane selected? There were so many married people that did not seem at all happy. Marriage was a big chance. Yet her father and mother had been wonderfully happy. She could remember the days when her mother was living and how home seemed like a little heaven. How her father adored and tenderly cared for her mother, and how her mother was always planning some little surprise for Father, or trying to save him in some way. True married love must be like that, always joyful sacrifice for one another. But love like that would be rare. She told herself she had never seen a man that she could care for in that way, as her mother had cared for her father.
She had asked her father once, not long ago, how a girl could know she truly loved a man enough to marry him and if there were rules to guide one in such a situation. He had given her a curious, tender look and told her she would know it beyond a doubt if she was ever really in love. If there was any question about love, there was no question!
Then he had talked quietly on, almost as if he had been her mother.
“Of course a Christian would first ask, ‘Is he a Christian? Does he know and love my Lord? If not, we could have no true marriage unless I became untrue to my Lord!’ ‘Can two walk together except they be agreed?’There is no point of disagreement worse than between believers and unbelievers.”
He had paused to let her consider that a moment and then gone on to say that even between believers there could be no true marriage without love. Love that forgives faults and failings and loves on in spite of them. He spoke of the love of Christ to the church and how God used the earthly love of man and woman in marriage as a picture of His love for the church.
They had talked that over for some time before he went on to speak of other things.
“It is not usually a wise thing for two people to come together in marriage who are from different ranks in life, different standards of refinement, culture, education. One needs a super love to overcome the differences. Little acts of refinement or the lack of them can grate upon tired nerves and become a great separator. I do not say that it is never right for two who have such differences to marry, but I say it is a perilous experiment for which one needs almost infinite love and special divine grace to keep the love under such circumstances.”
The daughter sat with closed eyes, considering what her father had said and wondering idly if the time would ever come when she would be weighing and measuring this question in the light of her father’s advice with any special person in mind. She could imagine that life could be very beautiful with such love and the right person, but it all seemed too utopian ever to happen to her. She meant to keep a level head and try to make a place in the world for herself.
She settled this question with a sad little sigh and sat up determinedly, looking out at the new landscape. She hadn’t been on a journey in several years, not since she was sent as a delegate to a Sunday school convention just before she went to college. Her college had been in the nearby city so that had not taken her far. If she stayed indefinitely with her uncle, it might be a long time before she went on another journey. She must make the most of this while it lasted. She sighed again, thinking what a delight it would be to watch every mile of the way if her father were only where she could write about it all to him. How he loved her descriptions of people and places and things. But now, no one cared.
But she steadily kept herself looking out the window, watching everything just as if she were going to write about it to someone. It seemed the only way to keep from thinking sad thoughts that brought undesired tears.
She ate her delicious lunch when noontime came, sampled some of her candy, shared some of it with a shy little girl and her weary mother across the aisle, and found plenty left in the lunchbox for her dinner. But when darkness began to come down and obscure the landscape, her brave spirit faltered. She felt that she must stretch out on a bed and sleep in spite of the price it would cost, so she found her way to a sleeper and, fortunately, secured a berth.
It was late when she awoke the next morning. She had missed many of the sights which would have interested her, but she felt more rested than she had for a week. When she had dressed, she explored her lunchbox and found a sandwich and a large, juicy pear left for breakfast.
The train was due to arrive at her uncle’s city at three o’clock that afternoon, and Amorelle, more cheerful than the night before, began to take an interest in the new landscape around her. She went to the dining car at lunchtime and began to feel herself part of a new world.
As her destination drew nearer, she tried to fancy how the strange relatives would look and act. She had not seen even her uncle since she was a very little girl. It was good to think of having some relatives. She made a lot of resolves about making them love her, and she tried to hope they were all going to be glad to see her. She wondered if they were Christians. She knew her father had been troubled about his brother. He had said he was immersed in business and never wrote on such topics but that he was a church member. Amorelle wondered if it would be any easier to live in the same house with people who were not Christians than it would be to be married to them.
As it drew near three o’clock, she got out her aunt’s letter and read the directions over carefully, though she almost knew them by heart. But when she landed in the strange station with many people jostling by her and the noise of the big city outside, she felt ve
ry much alone and wished someone had seen fit to meet her.
Seated in the taxi, she found her heart beating wildly. She felt she had come a long way from the girl she had been yesterday. It seemed as if her father had been dead a year and she had been growing up very fast. When she looked up at the somewhat pretentious house at which the taxi stopped, her heart almost failed her. Just for an instant she wanted to turn back, go somewhere else and get a job, support herself, and write her uncle she had changed her mind. Why hadn’t she thought before that that was the thing to do?
But the driver was opening the door and waiting for his fare, and of course someone might see her out of the window. Now she was here, she must go in. She steadied herself with the thought that, of course, she could make an excuse and go away in a day or two if she found things unpleasant. And then with an upward cry for help, she got out of the cab and went up the steps of the house.
While she waited for the door to be opened, she glanced around curiously. It was a pleasant neighborhood. There was shrubbery in front of the house, partially hiding it from the street. The wide porch was covered with matting of an orange and black pattern, and there were bright orange cushions on the chairs and couch and swing that hung from the ceiling on chains. The tables and other furniture were lacquered black. Scattered around lavishly were bright magazines, with startling pictures of movie stars in sketchy bathing suits. A book with silver and black covers entitled Her Scarlet Sin lay open facedown on the black wicker table. Beside it a cloisonné ashtray held several cigarette stumps and plenty of ashes.
Amorelle turned from a thoughtful contemplation of the scene to see that the door was opening and a maid, obviously finishing the adjustment of her hastily donned cap and apron, stood looking at her curiously.
“Is this where Mr. Enoch Dean lives?” Amorelle asked with a frightened wish that the girl would say no and she might yet turn and flee.
But the girl nodded.
“You’re Miss Dean, aren’t you? Well, you’re to go right upstairs to the third story, the middle room, not the front room—that’s the sewing room. You’ll find it right at the top of the stairs. Ms. Dean is gone to a bridge party and Miss Louise, she’s at the country club. They said fer you ta make yerself at home.”
Amorelle stepped into the hall with a feeling as if cold water had been suddenly thrown in her face and yet a relief that she would not have to face the formidable strange aunt and cousin right at once.
“Is—my uncle—able to see me?” she asked, hesitantly pausing on the first step of the stairs.
The maid was already untying her apron and unpinning her cap and did not stop in the action as she answered.
“Oh, him? He’s down at the office. He don’t get home till six any night.”
“Oh, but I thought he had been in an accident,” said the girl, puzzled. “I thought he had hurt his knee.”
“Oh, he did, last week, but he ain’t missed a day at the office yet. Ef he wanted to she wouldn’t let him anyway. You got a trunk coming, ain’t you?”
“Yes,” said Amorelle, feeling more of a stranger than ever. “Here is my check. Had I better leave it with you? Will they bring the trunk up to my room?”
“Not n’less you pay him an extra quarter. It’s fifty cents fer the second floor, seventy-five fer the third. Of course you could unpack it and lug it up yerself ef you wanted to.”
Amorelle coldly handed the maid the seventy-five cents and plodded up the two flights of stairs. When she reached the little middle room with its one high dormer window, its ugly collection of heterogeneous furniture, she closed her door, sat down in a shaky rocking chair with her elbows on its arms, and buried her face in her hands. What a home to come to! She thought of the dear little manse in Rivington with its tasteful arrangement of fine old furniture; she thought of her own dainty bedroom; she remembered the loving faces at the station when she had left, even dear old Hannah in her plaid gingham, and the world seemed very black. She wondered why she had ever come here.
It was a good thing that her trunk arrived just then—she had started it a full day ahead of herself—else she might have fallen into utter despair, so prone are these spirits of ours to be affected by our surroundings. But the trunk demanded immediate attention. She had asked the expressman to unstrap it for her, and at once she became more cheerful as she caught sight of her own things lying on the top, just as she had placed them a couple of days before.
She took out her father’s picture and placed it on her bureau, the beautiful picture that the kind-hearted photographer, a member of their church, had had enlarged and framed for her a Christmas ago. What comfort it was that she had that picture now. She remembered that Johnny Brewster had said he wished he had a copy of that picture, and she thought to herself that she would write and get one finished and framed for him. Johnny hadn’t taken a cent for all the moving and help he had given her. But that was one thing she could do for him, and she must see to it at once. How good Johnny had been to her! A brother could not have done better, at least in the ways he understood her need.
There was an ugly bureau of golden oak in the room and a maple chiffonier. They were not decorative, but they provided plenty of room for putting away garments. There was also a rather shallow closet containing six hooks and three wire hangers. However, it was more interesting and less disheartening to dispose of her garments than to sit and wonder why she had come, and she went to work trying to forget her cold welcome and the dismalness of the little room. At least it was her own. She would not have to share it with any disagreeable cousin, the dread of which had been one of the bugbears of her way there. There was a bathroom down the hall. She would probably have to share it with that grumpy maid, but there might be worse things than that. At least she looked clean.
About half past five, she thought she heard a car drive up to the house and opened her door to see if any of the family had arrived.
She had dressed herself in a pretty silk of brown with Persian red that her father had always liked, and she was questioning within herself just what etiquette required of a guest who had arrived during the absence of family. Should she rush down and try to be quietly glad to see them, or should she wait for them to come to her? Of course her own feeling was to await developments, but maybe that was not the Christian attitude. They were relatives, and there might have been plenty of excuses for their not having planned a more cordial greeting. Besides, it was all pride anyway. She must put those thoughts aside and try to be natural.
But just as she reached this conclusion, she heard voices.
“Oh, so she’s come, has she? Oh heck, Clara, she’s come! Now isn’t that awkward with Sam Bemis coming to dinner, and very likely Anne and Tommy and George Horton will be in for the evening!”
It was a young voice that was talking, but who was she speaking to as Clara? Not her mother, surely! But yes, that must be it, for an older, bored voice replied, “Oh, for sweet pity’s sake, Louise, don’t worry me now! I’m tired to death! I can’t see what difference it makes about this particular night. If your stepfather insists on having her here all winter, why, there isn’t anything we can do about it. Just act as you would anyway.”
“Oh heck!” said the younger voice. “Does she have to come down to dinner?”
“Certainly! I suppose she does. You know you couldn’t get away with a thing like that. It’ll just have to be understood that she belongs to the family. She won’t likely want to be very social just after a funeral! Louie, dear, go tell Ida not to disturb her yet awhile. I want to get a nap before dinner. I’m simply passing out. Tell her to call your cousin when dinner is ready and not before, do you understand?”
“That’s a help!” said a relieved younger voice. “Clara, you certainly are a cherub when it comes to in-laws. I’m simply dying for a smoke and a hot bath before I dress. I was afraid you were going to make me the goat, and I simply wouldn’t stand for that!”
Amorelle shut her door softly and went and sat down on h
er bed, staring off at the ugly flowered wallpaper, her heart sinking lower and lower. Was this what she was up against for the winter? What could she do about it? What would her father want her to do?
Chapter 8
Ida did not take the trouble to call her even when she heard a silver chime ring out, which surely must be the dinner signal. She hesitated at the door, wondering what she ought to do. Her own wish in the matter would be to remain where she was until summoned even if it took all night. But she had spent some time on her knees, inquiring her way through this difficult path that lay before her, and a spirit of meekness had come upon her through heavenly converse, which shone sweetly in her quiet face and made her anxious to do the thing that would the least provoke. So far as was in her, she was determined to try out this unknown world and see if she could win its inhabitants. Or, failing in that, at least to leave a Christian witness behind her if she had to go.
So now she paused at the head of the stairs and heard a clatter of voices downstairs. It might be only one girl and one young man, but they were conversing loudly. Then she heard a door open on the floor below and a man’s slow step going downstairs.