“I certainly am sure,” she said very definitely. “How could you think I was like that?”
One more instant his eyes raked her face, and then he suddenly put his hand over hers with quick meaningful pressure, and his face bloomed into a brilliant smile.
“All right! Come on, then,” he said, and led the way to her car.
Chapter 5
Filled with a great joy that she did not in the least understand, Laurel followed him, hesitating only an instant at the car door.
“Will you drive?” she asked shyly.
“If you want me to,” he said gravely.
“I do,” said Laurel and got into the right-hand seat.
“Just a minute till I get my suitcase from my car,” said Pilgrim, and hurried away. He was back in a moment more, stowed his baggage in the back of the car, and slid in behind the wheel.
“Okay, Mark,” he called, “see you sometime tomorrow!” Then Pilgrim started the car, curving out of the enclosure and into the road, his capable hand firmly on the wheel. “I might return on the morning train you know, if I can get my work done.”
He looked down at her with his charming smile. “Well, we’re off!” he said, and it seemed to mean so much more than just the words, that her heart gave an odd little rapturous thrill. Then her conscience rose up in alarm. What right had she to feel that way? To thrill at his words? Of course he was a good-looking soldier, wavy brown hair, nice eyes under long lashes, steady brows, clear-cut features, but what right did that give her to read into those simple words—“We’re off”—a satisfaction of her own that perhaps did not find an echo in the young man’s heart? Ah! That was a thought. Perhaps he had not wanted to come with her. Perhaps there was someone else he wanted to take, some other girl whom he had been planning to see and take to the city? Trouble suddenly clouded her eyes. A moment later she spoke, putting a restraining conscience into action.
“Wait!” she said sharply. “I’ve just thought. Perhaps this is interfering with something you had planned. Perhaps you didn’t want to do this. I am being very selfish. You probably have other friends you would have liked to take with you. Or at least you must be fed up with my company by this time. I have been too insistent. Please go back. We can explain that we have changed our minds. And if I worried you by suggesting I didn’t want to go alone, forget it. Or what will do just as well—ease your conscience by following me later on the same road, and pick up the pieces if any, then your duty will be just as thoroughly done. I really am not afraid.”
She gave a bright little imitation of a laugh to end her words gracefully, but there was a small, hurt catch like a sob in her voice that stirred Phil Pilgrim’s heart more than it had ever been stirred by any girl in his life.
Suddenly he laid his free hand over hers that lay in her lap by his side. “Please don’t say that,” he said gently. “Please don’t think that! I certainly did want to come with you. I wanted it more than anything, but I just didn’t think I had the right.”
“The right?” she asked, opening her eyes wide with a troubled wonder in them. “Why?”
“Well, I didn’t feel that I should presume to drive you in your car. What would your father have thought of that? Though I may as well tell you that I was planning all the time to follow behind and look after you, without your suspecting, unless there was need. But remember, I’m just a plain soldier boy you never really knew at all, and your father was Langdon Sheridan.”
“My father!” she exclaimed. “Why should my father object? He wasn’t a snob. My father was one of the most reasonable men in the world, and he would honor you for having looked after me.”
“Listen,” said Pilgrim, “I have always had the utmost respect for your father. I heard him make a speech once when I was very young. There was a lot of agitation in town about a question of moral rights, and a mass meeting in the town hall, and your father gave the most convincing speech I ever heard. He was my idea of what a speaker and a man should be. And it was because I felt that way about him that I didn’t want to do anything that he might think presuming.”
“Presuming!” said Laurel almost indignantly. “But my father would never think that. He would be proud that you had saved my life and glad that you were taking me home! And—my mother would be glad, too!”
It was the crowning word that Laurel could offer. Her lady-mother! He understood and was deeply stirred. The pressure of his hand was strong and tender. “That was the nicest thing you could have said!” His hand moved softly over hers in a warm enfolding clasp. “Your mother was a real lady!”
“Yes,” breathed Laurel softly, “she was a real lady, and she loved real people!”
After an instant’s pause, Pilgrim said softly, “Thank you—for that, too!”
Then suddenly there came a stream of traffic, two big trucks and three cars dashing by, regardless of the two preoccupied young people. But Pilgrim had seen them coming and quickly slipped his hand from over Laurel’s to the wheel. He was on the alert at once, guiding the car safely past them. Then they were alone again in the sweet quiet twilight of the country road, with a feeling between them that something wonderful had just happened, though neither of them had stopped to put the thought into logical order.
The sun was going down like a great fiery ball, in deep purple clouds, picked out sharply with a fluted cord of brilliant gold. It was like a gorgeous pageant, and the two were driving straight into that brightness, as though it had been called into being and lit just for them.
“Isn’t it gorgeous?” breathed Laurel, in a voice that was almost worshipful.
“It is,” said Pilgrim reverently. And then he added jokingly, “And we have a front seat at the show. I’m glad I came.”
“So am I,” said Laurel excitedly. “And look! The sky above is getting ready for the next act. See that soft jade color stealing up above and those dainty coral flecks of clouds dusting along to fall into line!”
Pilgrim, as he looked, thought he would never see a sunset again without thinking of her words. This was to him a marvelous experience he must treasure in his heart, for its like would not be apt to come his way again.
They drove on through the rosy glow of the approaching night, thrilled with the beauty of the world about them, and being gradually shut in together by the soft colored twilight.
“There’s only one word that describes it,” said Phil Pilgrim after they had been riding along quietly for some minutes, “and that is glory!” He said it solemnly, in deep earnest. He did not seem at all like the same young man who had said a little while ago, “I’ve never had much to do with God.”
Somehow that remark didn’t seem to fit with his calling that display in the sky glory, for glory belonged to God, didn’t it? Of course there was a worldly glory, manmade—earthly royalty and all that—but one didn’t speak of that kind of glory in such a reverent tone as Pilgrim had used.
She watched his profile silently for a moment, as he said it, and thought within herself that he looked as if he were in a church worshipping. “Yes,” she said thoughtfully, slowly, “that word glory is a wonderful word. It can mean a great deal—according to how you say it.”
He turned and looked at her curiously.
“How did I say it?” he asked uncertainly.
“Oh,” said Laurel, quite taken aback by the question. “Well, I didn’t mean anything personal of course, but—but you looked and sounded as if you were worshipping God.”
Phil Pilgrim looked at her thoughtfully and then away into the dying sunset. Suddenly a cloud broke for just an instant and let the last stabbing flame of the setting sun through. Its glow touched his face and gave it a lovely light. Laurel drew in her breath quickly. And then to cover her self-consciousness, she plunged into a little story.
“I heard something on the radio the other day,” she said quietly. “You make me think of it. I don’t know who was talking, but he was telling about an engineer. He was a fine engineer and was proud of his engine. One day
the man who was telling this story went into the engine room to speak to the engineer, and he saw that the room was spotlessly clean, everything scrubbed to the shining point, scoured white and fine. The engine itself had been polished till it shone like silver, and every joint and bearing oiled and in perfect order. And there in the little engine room near the window where he could see well sat the engineer, his spectacles on his nose, reading a Bible! Very much astonished, the man watched him a minute, and then he spoke, a little curiously, ‘Well, my friend, you’ve got a wonderful little place here! How beautifully you keep it. I never saw an engine kept so bright and shining, nor a room more perfectly clean and fine. It looks as if it had all just been made. You must have worked hard to keep it in such order. It must take a great deal of your time and patience to keep it looking like this. How does it come? You must be awfully interested in your engine room.’
“The man looked up over his glasses and smiled a wide, happy smile and said pleasantly, as if he were telling an intimate secret, ‘Well, you see, I gotta glory, an’ I have ta live up to it!’
“And somehow the look in your face as you watched the sunset, Phil Pilgrim, made me think of that story.”
Pilgrim was silent a moment after she finished, and then he said quietly, “Say, that’s a wonderful story! I’m glad you told it to me. I’ll be remembering it along with this sunset when I am away. Maybe I’ve got a glory, too, only I didn’t know it. I’ll be thinking about it a lot. It somehow reminds me of the look in my mother’s face when I was a little kid. My mother believed in God and glory. She had some of it in the shining of her eyes. But when she was gone, I got all bitter inside and didn’t think of it anymore. I’m glad you’ve brought it back to me.”
“Oh,” said Laurel, “I’m glad! Thank you. And now, won’t you tell me about your mother? That is, if you don’t mind.”
“Mind?” said Pilgrim. “Of course not. No one ever asked me to tell about my mother before. No one ever cared.”
He was silent for a moment and then went on, “Of course I don’t remember an awful lot. I was only a kid when she died, but what I do remember belonged with glory. That’s why a sunset like this one always makes me think of her.”
He was silent for a moment and then went on, “Her people were well off—like yours, perhaps. They lived out west. I never saw the home where she lived. She had a good education. So did my father. They met in college. My father was working his way through. He didn’t have an easy time. Grandfather was sick and old and not able to help. Then the First World War came and took Father. He and Mother married just out of college. I was only a little kid when Dad sailed for France, and he never came back. He was killed in action.”
“Oh!” said Laurel pitifully. “Then you don’t remember your father?”
“No,” said Pilgrim sadly, “not very well. And it nearly killed Mother. It broke her heart. I don’t believe she ever got over it. I can remember how sad her eyes always were, even with the glory in them. She worked pretty hard to keep us, for the money she had inherited had all been used up by her unscrupulous brother. Then, finally, Dad’s mother and father found it out and sent her money to come and live with them, but she died soon after we got here, and the rest of it had to be used to bury her. Grandmother died soon after that, and I had to live alone with Grandfather. So there you have my story. You see, I’m rather a nobody, and my story isn’t very exciting.”
“But you came up a good man,” said Laurel with conviction, “and a brave, strong one.”
“You don’t know that,” said Pilgrim. “You’re just imagining. Just trying to be nice and polite.”
“No,” said Laurel, “I’m not. Of course I’ve heard a lot about Phil Pilgrim in college, what a scholar he was, and how he got quite a name in athletics, but those things don’t count much in real life. Do you think so? It’s what you stand for, the standards you have set for yourself, the plans you have made, whether you are steering for real things or just want to have a good time and let it go at that.”
“I see,” said Pilgrim. “And how could you possibly tell by your brief contact with me what my standards were?”
“Why, it’s written in your face.”
“Say, now you are complimenting me. But I think you are all wrong. I knew a few fellows in college who had perfectly heavenly faces and perfectly rotten hearts! Not that I’m under the impression that my face is saintlike, but I’m merely trying to show you how little real reason you have to go on in judging me.”
He was grinning at her now, and the line of his white teeth flashed at her pleasantly. Yes, he was very good-looking, but that wasn’t all. There was something fine and dependable below it that made her sure she had not misjudged him.
“Well,” she said with an answering flash of humor in her own smile, “at least I have my woman’s intuition to go on, and that tells me I have a right to depend on you!”
“You win!” he said with a twinkle. “And thanks awfully. But by that same token—that is, a man’s intuition—I knew that you were worth saving when I decided to lift you above that herd of cattle. I took time to figure it all out, of course.” He grinned. “But now, we haven’t completed our family biographies yet. Won’t you tell me about your lady-mother and your true-hearted father?”
“Oh yes, of course,” said Laurel. “I’m pleased that you are interested. They were sweet, both of them. My mother was a lady. you have said it. Gentle and lovely always, never saying harsh things about people or to them, that I can remember. Everybody loved her. All the servants adored her. The people in the church loved to defer to her. They came to her for help in every activity, and she always helped. She had a lot of board meetings to attend, committee meetings and things. She was active in the hospital work and in helping poor people, getting food and clothing for them, but she always did it so quietly we never even knew much about her work of that sort even at home. It was after she had gone that people came to me and told me about it. And at home she was so wonderful, the very heart and life of us all. She always had time to help us children in our play and in our lessons, and we came to her with everything. She was so sympathetic and understanding. She played games with me and helped dress my dolls and was better than another child for company. All my early memories are so closely associated with her. And with my father, too, when he was at home from business. We used to take trips together. Sometimes they were business trips for Dad, but he always found time between to go about with us some when we went along with him on a trip, and so I grew up as their close companion. We went to church together; we took journey together; and we talked over everything together. My older brother was away at college when I was growing up through high school days, and then, later, he was killed in an air crash, and I was the only child left.
“It was two years after that that Mother died of pneumonia. She had never been very strong. And after that Daddy was broken. His heart played out. And then when he knew his business was involved, he went to work harder than ever, trying to save things. He was so worried that I might be left penniless. And he did manage to save some of the business. I am not entirely penniless, only just almost. But I didn’t care about that. If only Daddy could have stayed with me. He went very suddenly at the last. Perhaps it was the way he would have chosen if he had had his choice. But—it was very hard for me, of course.”
Laurel’s voice caught with a soft little sound like a sob, and the tears were raining down her face, though Pilgrim could only see them as now and then a car passed and the headlights made them glisten like jewel flashes on her cheeks.
“But—excuse me! I shouldn’t be weeping,” she said suddenly. “My father taught me to be brave. He didn’t want me to grow up a sob sister, he said,” and she dashed the tears away.
“You poor little girl!” said Pilgrim, his hand going out to close over hers again with a quick warm clasp, which she returned and murmured a fluttery little “Thank you!”
“Now,” she said, “that’s about all. I’ve been
staying with some distant cousins in the city since I graduated from college, but I wanted to be on my own, and so when I heard of this job at the Carrollton school, I hustled after it. I ought to be very thankful I got it so easily. But more thankful that you saved my life and gave me a good friend to take care of me until I got my bearings. I’m sorry you have to go away so soon. I have a notion you and I could be pretty good friends if you could stay around.”
“Thank you,” said Pilgrim with a sudden pang at his heart. “That is good of you. I only wish I could stay. But perhaps there will be furloughs or something occasionally. If you will let me see you a few minutes sometimes, I’ll be grateful.”
And so quite happily they began to talk of the future and to discuss the war, which was beginning to seem so real to them right in the near future.
As the distant lights of the city, which was their present destination, began to show ahead, and it became apparent that their drive was almost over for that night, they began to talk of the next day.
“What time do you have to go back?” asked Laurel suddenly. “That Mr. Banfield said he wanted to see you not later than ten in the morning. That would mean you must start back about eight or a little earlier, wouldn’t it?”
“No, I think not. I shall go and see the lawyer first, as soon as I can get in touch with him—tonight if possible. And then either tonight or early in the morning I’ll be telephoning Mr. Banfield,” said Pilgrim. “And you? I suppose you will go back tomorrow night, or Sunday? What are your plans? I’d like to see you once more before I leave this part of the world if possible, perhaps at Carrollton for a few minutes. I want to be sure you have suffered no ill consequences from your excitement today.”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Laurel said, laughing. “I’m not a lily. The excitement won’t hurt me in the least. But certainly I want to see you again as much as it is possible. I haven’t so many real friends that I can let a new one go unnecessarily soon. Especially as you are a soldier! But it doesn’t matter in the least when I go back. My packing can be quickly done, and I’ll be ready to take you back to Carrollton whenever you say. Yes, certainly”—as he began to protest—“this is a round trip, and you can’t get out of it. I have to get back to Carrollton as much as you do, and I’d much rather go with you than go alone.”