“No, I don’t have to get married ever unless I want to,” said Laurel with a lift of her chin that seemed like a challenge. “Why do you say I’ll have to get married sometime?”
“Why, Laurel, be sensible! Who would support you? You have nothing of your own—or, that is, practically nothing. Who do you think would support you? Goodness knows I can’t. John’s very likely to lose his job and have to take a less lucrative one, and Grandma Howson has just enough to get along on as it is. So, of course you’ll find out what you have done—probably when it’s too late! But honestly, who do you think will support you if you don’t get married? I’ve been doing everything I knew how to make a good marriage possible for you, and you act this way!”
Laurel gave her cousin a look of amused astonishment. “For heaven’s sake, Carolyn, I’ll support myself, of course. What did you think? I certainly never would have come here at all if I had known that you had any such idea. I only came for a little visit, anyway, and it is high time I was leaving if you’ve got an idea you have to bring in suitable husbands for me to get me off your hands.”
“Now, Laurel, it isn’t like you to be bitter and resentful,” said the indignant cousin. “You’ve lost your head and your temper. You will regret this, Laurel, and be writing and asking me to forgive you and let you come back.”
“Sorry, Carolyn, I’ll ask you to forgive me now if I’ve done anything that has hurt you, but honestly I don’t want to come back. I’ve definitely decided that this kind of life is not for me. Now don’t let us part in anger. Kiss me good-bye, dear. I’ve got to go now, but I’ll be writing you when I get located, and let you know where I am.”
Laurel put her arms softly about her cousin’s neck and pressed a gentle kiss on the cold, haughty cheek, and then, picking up her handbag and her little overnight bag, she hurried out the side door to the garage, got into her car, and drove away to meet Phil Pilgrim down in front of the post office.
Cousin Carolyn heard the car go down the drive and waited an instant for it to stop in front of the door. Surely Laurel wouldn’t go off permanently that way. Surely she would return and try to argue the matter out, and she of course would be able to show her how impossible it was for her to run away from such great opportunities as were opening up before her. Surely she would be able to make her understand, too, how mortifying it would be to herself to have such a thing happen, after this precious prince of an Adrian had given signs that he was more than pleased with her and was ready to let it be known that he had a special possessive right in her. Surely—
She listened, but Laurel’s car went right on down the street. It did not stop! And Cousin Carolyn rushed to the front door and began waving her napkin, which she had snatched from the dining table, frantically.
“Laurel! Laurel!” she called, her voice rising above its usual ladylike cadence. But Laurel’s car had turned the corner, and she was on her way to meet Phil Pilgrim, her heart singing for no reason she could even try to understand just then.
And in a moment or two, Cousin Carolyn became aware of a pompous neighbor who had stopped in his daily promenade around the block with his daughter’s two Pekingese pups. Lifting his hat, he gracefully inquired if there was anything the matter, and where was Miss Laurel? Could he do anything about it? Which way did she go?
“But I don’t see her car anywhere, Miss Carolyn,” he said, flustered almost to confusion. “Where do you think she has gone? Would you like me to go into the house to the phone and call the police?”
And then Cousin Carolyn became aware of other neighbors looking out their front doors and a general flutter of excitement in the street, and was suddenly aware of her curlers and hairnet as she had arranged it before bed last night.
“Oh no, thank you,” she managed in her most approved manner, “it’s really of no consequence whatever. Just a little matter that was forgotten, but it will do when she returns.”
And then Cousin Carolyn retired behind a firmly closed and locked front door and went without breakfast back to her room to reflect on what a very foolish girl had done to spoil her best laid plans to bring affluence into the family.
But Laurel was sitting in front of the new post office watching for Phil Pilgrim.
Chapter 8
Laurel parked her car in a vacant space before the new post office and sat watching for the approach of Pilgrim, thinking over the twenty-four hours since she had started out toward Carrollton in search of that position as a teacher in the high school. Suppose she could be set back twenty-four hours, and knowing all that would occur, what she would go through, what she would find in the woods, on the highway, in town, in the office of the school board, and all that she would now leave behind in the city and miss out of her life afterward, would she have gone? She looked the question firmly in the face with the echo of Cousin Carolyn’s last few paragraphs still ringing in her ears, and answered in her heart promptly, firmly, eagerly that she would.
No, she was not sorry that she had taken the step. Uncertain as she had been when she started, she would not go back if she could, now, and have it undone. She was glad she had gone. Glad she had signed the contract and agreed to take the position in the Carrollton high school, glad she had packed her belongings and faced her cousin, and started. It might not turn out to have been the finest thing she could have done, but she had no regrets. Not even when she thought of Adrian’s wealth. She did not care whether she ever saw Adrian Faber again or not, except perhaps to apologize again for having deserted the party at the last minute. In fact, she preferred not to have to, for she was morally sure that even if she got in touch with him if only by telephone, he would somehow contrive to hinder her and coax her into something, and she did not wish to be annoyed that way now. Also there was another thought. She had something pleasant to finish, the time for which would soon pass by and might never return her way, and she simply must not let anything hinder her in it. She would not have missed knowing Phil Pilgrim for anything else the world could hold. So she waited in her seat and kept well to the side of her car, not putting herself in a position to be readily recognized by anyone she knew who might be passing, and faced the thought.
She had never known any young man exactly like Phil Pilgrim, and she wanted to study him, to find out if he was really what he seemed. She must. She felt it was imperative and would have a bearing on all such questions as she had just been discussing with her aristocratic cousin. And to her mind, there came a memory of his sunny smile that seemed to tangle in her heartstrings and create a lovely song.
It was then she saw him coming, a suitcase and a brief case in his hand, walking slowly in earnest conversation with another man.
She liked his looks again as she watched him approach. She was glad he was good-looking, of course, but she had a feeling as she thought about it that she would have been just as pleased to see him coming even if he had been quite homely and lacking in manly grace. She would have known at least that he was someone whom she could trust.
And those other men with whom she had been going about more or less of the past six months, she had never felt she could quite trust. Oh, not that they would not usually tell the truth, except perhaps on occasion, but they were none of them, not even that minister, men of whose reactions to grave questions, even of right and wrong, she could always be sure, unless it was obviously to their own personal advantage. Their standards were not the ones by which she had been brought up.
Of course Cousin Carolyn would sneer at that and say those standards were outmoded and that times had changed since her mother and father were young and had the jurisdiction over her. But she knew better. She knew that those old-fashioned standards were dependable in times of stress, trouble, and uncertainty. She had seen it tried, and she knew there would be no peace in trusting men whose standards were otherwise . As far as she knew, since she had come out of college she had not seen many young men whom she could even think might be dependable in a time of disaster. Phil Pilgrim was the only one
she felt sure had even approached to the standards she knew.
Oh, she was not searching the world over to find a trustworthy man to marry. She was not considering marriage now. Perhaps she never would. She was only trying to adjust her world to a set of friendships on which she could rely. If one could not have a few young friends in whom one trusted, what was life worth? And so she wanted to study Phil Pilgrim and see if he was really what he seemed to be. There was no harm in that. He would soon be gone out of her neighborhood, and there was no danger for either herself or him in having a friendly investigating talk for a couple of hours as they went on their way together. She wanted to settle the question once and for all whether a young man in this age could be what he had seemed to be.
And then he stopped opposite the car and, turning, looked at her an instant and gave his bright smile. That look in his eyes made her heart give a wild little plunge, just as it had done yesterday. Well, perhaps it hadn’t been wise in her to come after all. One could miss a look like that, a smile like his, terribly, if one got too used to it. Yet she was glad she had come, and she felt a restful sense of protection as he stood there for an instant talking with the man who had come with him. Then the stranger turned, lifted his hat slightly, said, “Well, I’ll see you this afternoon,” and went up the steps of the post office and out of sight.
Laurel slid over to the right of the driver’s seat, and Pilgrim got in, shut the door, and quietly threaded his way through the rapidly increasing traffic and out to the highway that led from the city.
“Now,” he said when there was comparative quiet, “is there anything you want to do before we leave this region, any errand? Perhaps I should have asked you sooner, but there is plenty of time, as far as I am concerned, to do a few small errands yet and still reach our destination in time.”
“Oh no, thank you,” she said. “I haven’t any errands that I can’t do later by mail or telephone, and I’m only too glad to be done packing and be on my way. You know this isn’t my hometown, and so I’m not breaking my heart over leaving it.”
She gave him a quick bright look and saw he was studying her earnestly.
“Then you didn’t meet with any opposition from your friends and relatives about your going away so suddenly?”
“Oh yes, a little.” She laughed lightly. “They thought I was an awful fool for going to work instead of loafing around and playing through a brilliant social season. That is the reason I am glad to be gone as soon as possible, lest I may meet some more of them, and that kind of opposition wears me to a frazzle. Their ideas and enjoyments are so entirely different from mine. What makes me happy would be boring to them. We aren’t constructed on the same lines. So I’m glad you arranged to start early, because I’m certain that if I had lingered around a little longer, there would have been a strong opposition organized, and this way they don’t know where I am and can’t even try to stop me until I am thoroughly established in my work.”
“Have they any right to stop you?”
“No, not a particle. They are just cousins whom I have been visiting this summer. They would like to run my life for me. But I’m of age you see, have been for six months, am not in any way dependent on them. They haven’t even the right of close beloved relatives who really love me. They are merely fond of me, like to have me around. They do not really love anybody but themselves.” She spoke more as if she were arguing out the matter for her own satisfaction than to be giving information to her companion, and she ended with a pleasant little laugh.
“I see,” said Pilgrim with a friendly smile. “I’ve known people like that. There seem to be a great many of them in the world. Well, in that case, we don’t have to feel sorry for them, do we?”
“Not at all,” laughed Laurel. “And yet it seems rather awful of me, doesn’t it, to be talking that way about people who have really been very kind to me and done their best to have me meet the best people in their social class. I shouldn’t have said all this, but I’m fresh from a pretty hot scorching conversation with my cousin, and I feel a bit indignant at her.”
“Well, then, we won’t include her in the conversation at present. Wouldn’t that be best? May I tell you about what my lawyer advises?”
“Oh, do, please. I’m very much interested. Did he think the sale would go through all right?”
“Oh yes. He thinks it’s great that I have this opportunity to sell. But he thinks I should have a better price than even Banfield suggested. He insists that he will arrange that. He seems to know what the government is paying for such lands, and he thinks Banfield is planning to make a pretty penny out of it himself. I think he may find himself grandly mistaken when he meets up with Banfield, but he wants me to let him manage the sale, says he is my lawyer. And of course I’m glad to do that. He was a good friend to my grandfather, and it happens he knew my father before he went away to war.”
“Oh, I’m so glad!” said Laurel, exactly as if she had been really a friend over the years and not just an utterly new acquaintance.
A pleased light came into the young man’s eyes.
“It’s good of you to care,” he said. “You don’t know how pleasant it is to feel that there is somebody interested in my affairs. You can’t be in the army for very long without feeling very much alone at times when it comes to private affairs. And, you see, I haven’t been there long enough to search out a few close friends yet.”
“Why, certainly I’m interested,” said Laurel. “You see, in a way I’m much in your position. I have cut loose from the things and people I have been with of late, and I’m going into a new world, even though it happens to be in the same vicinity where I spent my childhood. Still, it has changed a lot of course, and the people I knew either aren’t here anymore or else I haven’t found them yet. We’ll just play we’re two babes in the woods today, finding our way, shall we? And I certainly am glad the matter of the sale of your property is going through all right.”
“Yes,” said Pilgrim. “It certainly will be nice to have a little money in the bank, instead of utter nothingness, when this war game is over, if it ever is! It will make all the difference in the world to know I’m not absolutely penniless. Of course Grandfather hoped his land would be worth something for me someday, but he never dreamed of anything like this kind of a situation, the government paying good money for that old isolated ground.”
“But what about the two graves?” asked Laurel gently, thoughtfully. “What will become of them? I think I shall always remember those two white headstones with the soft light sifting through the crimson foliage on them. They were sweet. I think, if you don’t mind, someday I’d like to take some flowers up there and lay them on those graves. Of course I know the two people buried there couldn’t know about it, nor care—me a stranger to them! But maybe God would see. He might even let them know about it, how I enjoyed doing it, because you, their grandson, had helped me when I was so frightened. It’s just a thought, a little gesture of gratitude, I know, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to do it. A kind of memorial of the day we met.”
Her face was very earnest as she spoke, and she lifted her eyes to his and met the deep tenderness there that was almost like hidden tears.
“It is a lovely thought,” he said, his voice deeply stirred. “It is something I never could afford to do. In fact, I never thought to do it. There were not many flowers in my life, especially not in those days. I put the stones there as a mark of respect. It was the only way I had to express my sorrow and my gratitude for what they did for me. But to answer your question about the graves, I had thought of them, and I have been hoping I can save that lot on the other side of the road from the house where they are located. At least until sometime later, when I would be able to have the graves moved to some more permanent place. But now, if this deal goes through, I can afford to have them moved at once perhaps. Maybe that would be better. But I do appreciate your thought of the flowers. It will hallow the spot for me whenever I think of it, just because you have s
poken of doing it.”
She looked at him and smiled understandingly, a soft pink flush in her young cheeks.
“But there is one thing I must insist on,” he said after a thoughtful moment of quiet. “I want you to promise me that you will never go up to that lonely place alone, especially after this munitions plant is started. You know there might be a lot of rough characters around while building is going on, also dynamite and gunpowder. It wouldn’t be safe for you then. Will you promise me that?”
She gave him a startled look. “Oh! Do you mean our country is going to get like that? Not safe to go anywhere?”
“I don’t know,” he said sadly, “one can never tell what war may bring—if we are invaded. But around munitions factories, I wouldn’t say it was a place for women to go, at least not in as isolated a place as that. I don’t fancy you’ll find cattle prancing around so promiscuously as yesterday, perhaps, but until things get going so you can be sure what you are getting into, I wouldn’t like to think of your going alone even for some beautiful attention to my dead relatives.”
“All right!” she said quietly. “I promise. Although I’ve been so accustomed to think of old Crimson as a safe place that it is hard for me to realize it could be anything else, even in war.”
But she sat very still thinking for some minutes after that. Finally, she asked, “About what time do you think you’ll be through with your business this afternoon?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I shouldn’t think it would take long. Why? Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Well, I’m not sure, but I thought if you had time, I’d like to get you to go with me somewhere. What time do you have to leave for camp?”
“Oh, well, I should be back there Sunday night, but the captain told me if the business was not completed until Monday I could have another day, so there is no special hurry. We are likely leaving our present camp in another couple of days, so there won’t be so much to miss, and evidently word had got to the captain that I was needed here till the deed was fixed up, a lot of little formalities to be looked up and so on. So I’m reasonably sure I shall have time to do anything you would like done.”