Then she heard soft, distant music, voices sweet and clear, and looked up sharply, thinking she must have fallen asleep and was dreaming. It seemed like angel voices on the soft night air:
Abide with me! Fast falls the eventide!
The darkness deepens, Lord, with me abide:
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!
The voices grew clearer with every phrase, till they were almost before the house, just halfway between the Fairchild house and theirs to be exact. She could see one of those big buses. Frank was helping Dillie out and bringing in her things, and now the people in the bus were driving away singing “God be with you till we meet again.”
She could see Frank upstairs in the lighted rooms of the Fairchild house putting down the suitcases, smiling at Mrs. Fairchild and saying good night. Then he came whistling across the lawn and through the hedge, picked up his own things which he had swung over the hedge when he got out of the bus, and came toward the house. But the tune he was whistling was “Lord, abide with me!” Had Frank caught it, too? Could that be possible? How pleased Grand would be if it were so!
“Oh, hello, kid!” was the lad’s half-embarrassed greeting as he suddenly realized his old familiar surroundings and began almost to withdraw into his same old shell.
“Well, what kind of a time did you have, buddy?” she asked, moving over to make room for him to sit down beside her in the hammock.
“Swell!” said he eagerly. “Oh boy! It was great! Say, kid, I wish you’d been along. I do really! You’d have liked it, I’m certain you would. They’re a crackerjack gang of kids, and they had a great line of speakers and leaders. It was swell! Simply swell!”
Then he began and told her about it, eagerly, pell-mell, jumbling things all up, fried potatoes and prayers and how many people got saved and what a swell teacher they had for the class in Hebrews and how all the fellows and girls called him “Bill” but not to his face, of course, and how they loved him and would do anything at all for him, simply anything at all! And how he made the Bible a grand book, simply like a storybook! And he was funny, too, sometimes. Why, he even told funny stories on himself that made you laugh till you cried, and then suddenly you found you were laughing and crying at your own self, and it hadn’t been him at all you were seeing in the verses he was illustrating, but you in your everyday life. He showed you how you forgot God and wanted your own way and didn’t really pray when you thought you were. It was so simply told you couldn’t forget it, just had to think about it the next day when you went around. It made you see just what kind of a fool you’d always been about things you’d always thought were all right.
He talked himself out at last and lay back in the hammock, thoughtfully remarking, “Well, I guess I gotta get at work pretty soon. I don’t wantta waste any more of my life the way I’ve been doing. I’ve got my eyes partway open at least.”
Connie, not knowing exactly what he meant and hoping to lead him on to show just what was in his mind, said, “I suppose you’ll be going to college in the fall. Have you definitely decided which college?”
“I thought I had—” he answered slowly and then sat up sharply. “But no, I don’t know that I’ll go, at least not yet.” He brought out the last words crisply as if they were a sudden decision.
“Not go?” questioned Constance. “Has Dad persuaded you to go into business instead? I knew he had some notion of that sort awhile ago. He thinks a lot of boys waste their time in college doing everything but study.”
“No, it’s not that,” said Frank slowly. “Dad said I might do as I pleased. Said he wanted me to choose my own future, after he had given me a lot of good advice on all sides. But I’ve got a new idea. I think I’ll go to college later, but I’ll go to Bible school first.”
“Bible school?” said Constance in amazement.
“Yes,” said he simply, “Dillie’s going and I think I’ll go, too. I know most folks think it ought to be the other way around and you ought to go to college first. Maybe it ought for some people, but not me. I’ve never had any real teaching about the way God looks at things. Oh, I know Mother and Grand taught us to say our prayers when we were kids, but this is different. I kind of think I ought to get to know a lot more about the Bible first and get a little real solid anchorage on the true foundation before I go into the world and get to studying what men think about things and get all muddled up. Men’s minds can make so many mistakes when they get thinking. I’d like to be able when a new question comes up to know right off the bat what the Bible has said about it so I can keep my bearings and not get switched off.”
“But,” said Constance in a daze, “I don’t understand, buddy. I never heard you talk like this before.”
“Well, I know. I’m different. You see, I’ve been born again, Connie. I’m looking at things from a different angle from what I did. Up there in the woods you sort of have to get saved or quit. There’s no halfway spot, and Dillie and I both accepted Christ. And we promised we’d do the Lord’s work if He wanted us. That’s why, see? I wantta be able ta tell others about it, and I can’t waste time on other studying till I know how, see? Why, Dillie and I might even go to the foreign mission field or somewhere, and we need to get a lotta Bible knowledge so we can keep it in the back of our minds all through any other studies we’d havta take. And, why, the Bible isn’t a bit dull as I supposed it was. It’s a swell book! It really is a swell book! No kidding!”
When Constance went up to her room that night, she looked at the little Testament with new reverence. It must indeed be a great book when it had been able to catch and hold the attention of her young brother. Frank a missionary in a foreign land! Could anything be more inconceivable? But wouldn’t Grand be glad? Would wonders never cease? Her brother with the light of something strange and wonderful in his eyes! Another added to the list of those who understood and turned to God for peace and joy. Seagrave and Doris and Emil and Harriet Howe and Grandmother, Dillie, and Dillie’s mother, and now Frank! What made it? How had it happened? Was there some mysterious law by which it came to some people and not to others?
Then she opened the Testament and read, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”
The next morning when Constance opened her curtain and looked out on a new day, she saw a messenger coming in the gate with a yellow envelope in his hand. With sudden alarm or premonition she sprang down the stairs to open the door. And when she saw it was a radiogram for herself, she could scarcely hold the pencil steady enough to sign her name she was so eager to get alone to see what it was.
Of course it might be any one of the three of her college classmates who were gone abroad and were perhaps cabling her to join them, as they had often talked together of such a possibility. But then it might not be any of them at all, and her heart beat wildly as she started upstairs to her own room.
Chapter 20
This is perfectly ridiculous!” said Constance aloud to herself as she reached the seclusion of her own room and slipped the bolt of the door.
But ridiculous or not, she had to own that she was trembling as she dropped into a chair and held the envelope in her hand for an instant, trying to discipline herself into steadiness before opening it. Why, a cablegram was nothing! There were dozens of friends any one of whom might have cabled her to do something for them while they were abroad. What was it she was really expecting that she was so excited? Not Seagrave. Of course he would not cable anything. That was absurd!
And why should she care anyway? Seagrave was nothing to her. A stranger. The significance of his homecoming, if this should be an announcement of that, could not make so much difference to her now. She had confessed to her grandmother and had been forgiven. That was all that was necessary. After all, Seagrave didn’t need to know now.
Yet the pounding of her heart
told her that she was hoping this was a word from Seagrave and that she could not bear to open the envelope lest she would be disappointed.
So she tantalized herself still more by coolly hunting for her paper knife under the confusion of letters on her desk. She really must do something about this. She mustn’t get notions about that man. Perhaps she would go abroad after all—that is, as soon as Grandmother was strong enough to be left—and get this foolishness out of her head.
Then she found the paper cutter and slit the envelope and there was Seagrave’s name signed to the message!
The bright color flooded into her cheeks and her heart leaped with a great unbidden bound of joy. Oh, she was glad, glad, glad! He had answered her letter after all!
She sank back into her chair again, closing her eyes and drawing a quick breath, and then read the brief message.
It was dated from his ship.
“Letter just received. Will you go with me to a meeting I have promised to address the night I reach home, Thursday, this week?”
Suddenly it seemed to Constance that the world had begun again just where it left off the night he said good-bye in the moonlight at college.
For a moment she was just dizzily glad, sitting there and staring at that bit of paper with its few words, and finding herself engulfed in a great wave of happiness.
It was humiliating for a girl who had always prided herself on keeping her heart well armored to find that it had surrendered thus unasked to this violent interest in a stranger. She tried to steady herself, tried to reason it out, tried to make herself believe it was wholly her anxiety to confess to Seagrave and get herself cleared, but she knew in her heart it was more than that. She knew that it was something she had never felt for anyone before, this tide of joy that had her in its grasp. She knew that she cared awfully! That if she had not received some word from him soon it would have gone hard on her. And she knew that she would rather be asked to go anywhere in the world with Seagrave than to be invited by anyone else to the greatest fete on earth. Right or wrong, ridiculous or not, it was true. It would have to be dealt with summarily, of course, but just right now she could do nothing but let this great joy flow over her, this great relief. She found there were tears in her eyes and a swelling of laughter in her throat. Finally she put her face down on the paper and laughed softly to herself.
Then she read the message again several times, her heart leaping with every word. He had asked her to go with him the first night he arrived!
Well, she mustn’t think too much of that. Hadn’t he told her he didn’t know many people yet? And he had sailed so soon after they had first met. Still, there had been plenty of time after she went back to college for him to get to know other girls.
So her mind flashed back and forth, exulting and fearful, till finally she gained a measure of self-control and gathering up her message went down to the telephone and sent her answer: “I will go.” There was a lilt in her voice as she sent the word throbbing over the wire, and the starriness of her eyes was wholly wasted on the dark telephone, but she mounted the stairs again afterward on feet that were as light as wings.
She locked her door again and sat down to have it out with herself. Seriously she called herself to order. This was no way for a sane person to act. Of course she had been through a heavy strain, two strains in fact, and that would probably account for her nerves and notions. And of course it was natural that Seagrave, having been the one who had helped her during that terrible time of Doris’s death, should be somewhat idealized by her. But it was high time that she looked facts straight in the face. It would not do to set him on a pedestal this way because when he arrived it wasn’t in the least likely that he could measure up to her first impressions of him. Oh, he was religious all right, of course. She had come to know there was no doubt about that! He probably was an unusual young man in many ways, and it was undoubtedly true that he knew a great deal of his Bible and really lived up to his faith in a conscientious way. One could not look at the purity of his face without being sure of that. Then, too, she had the testimony of what Frank had told her about his standing with the firm for which he worked. All that was undoubtedly proof of his good character.
But she had to remember that he was just a plain young man and that her first impression of his dress had been that it was shabby. Not that clothes mattered so much, only as they were an indication of one’s background. But he had a good job and had likely shed his shabbiness by now. In fact, her remembrance of him when he came to college was that he was immaculately tailored, although of course she couldn’t remember his attire. All she could remember were his words and the light in his eyes. And probably because of her distress she had exaggerated that. She must prepare herself to be disappointed in him when she saw him in the light of everyday living. Not everybody who could talk like an angel was likely to be a pleasant, congenial companion for every day.
Platitudes like these she told herself and swallowed them whole, trying to down that feeling of exultation in her heart, yet that heart went right on soaring like a bird, rippling out songs of joy in glad little trills. And at last she gave up. Well, nothing could take away the illusion till he came; she might as well go on and enjoy the anticipation of his coming while it lasted. Disillusionment would likely come soon enough.
And then an inner voice would remind her sharply that she was planning also to disillusion him about herself, if indeed he still cherished any illusions about her now. So really there was nothing to worry about! Why not just enjoy his coming? Enjoy that one evening with him, and then things would naturally adjust themselves. Probably she would have had enough of him and he of her before that was over.
Then she fell to wondering what kind of meeting he was taking her to. An odd place for a trysting place. An uncomfortable idea hovered on the edge of her mind that perhaps he wanted to show her that he had very little time for her confidences and was making the time and place for them most public. He was probably wanting to make it plain that his friendship with her was to be on a strictly religious basis hereafter. And of course after she had done her part and shown him what she was, he would be even more anxious to do that.
Yet in spite of all these plain facts that she laid before her mind and accepted bravely, her heart would lilt right on and her eyes look glad. At least she could ask him a lot of questions about his little book in which she had been reading so faithfully. She decided to write out a list of questions and have them at her tongue’s end to ask him on the way into town. Then she would be sure to have the answers before she ended everything between them.
There would be the meeting also which he was to address. It would be rather wonderful to hear him speak in public. She felt he would do it well. Perhaps his address would even be on a subject that would answer some of her heart-longings.
She spent some time going over the parts of the Testament that she had read the most and writing out questions that had perplexed her as she read. He might think her a fool for not knowing all these things, but somehow she felt he would answer them fully and sympathetically.
The next few days, though often full of palpitating premonition, severe self-judgment, and self-warning, were very happy ones. The family saw an immediate difference in her. There was a song on her lips from morning to night, a smile on her face; her eyes were starry, and the lilt was constantly in her voice. Her mother said, “She is so glad about her grandmother’s getting well.” Her father’s eyes dwelt upon her with great tenderness. Her brother observed her with increasing satisfaction from day to day as he saw her continued interest in her home and heard her various refusals over the telephone to invitations here and there. Was Connie really getting sense? He wondered.
But her grandmother watched her placidly and breathed a soft prayer. “Perhaps the little girl is learning to know her Lord,” she told herself as she sat quietly in the twilight and watched the pink glow of sunset fade into the deep star-set blue of evening.
Every night when Constance
read the Testament, she came on more things which she did not understand, verses that she longed to know the meaning of, and her heart crooned a little melody softly. Well, he was coming. She might ask him. Before she confessed what she had done and put up an inseparable wall between them forever, she would learn much.
He would probably be willing to answer questions about the Bible even if he didn’t want her for a friend. He was like that. He would want to help anyone, even a poor little hypocrite like herself.
Yet often as she reminded herself that she must not count on any lasting joy from his homecoming, her heart would not give up its soft singing. Well, she conceded again, she would just enjoy that one evening to the full, anyway, whatever came after.
So the days slipped by, one after another, and seemed each one a month long in the going.
Constance was with her grandmother a great deal, reading aloud, frequently reading the Bible to her, and often longing to pause and ask questions about what she read, only a great shyness was over her. The silence had been broken once between these two but had somehow grown together again. There was new confidence, new understanding, new tenderness, but it would take something out of the ordinary to make either cross again that dividing line of reticence that had existed through the years.
The evenings were the hardest. Frank was busy with Dillie, over at Dillie’s house a good deal of the time, taking Dillie’s mother here and there in her car, relieving her of the driving and incidently companioning with Dillie.
Young Howarth arrived home, too, and took Frank’s time. One evening Constance wheedled all three—Dillie, Frank, and Bill Howarth—in to work over a new picture puzzle she had ordered for the occasion. They finished up the evening with singing, and Ruddy Van Arden dropped in and looked them over in puzzled gloom. He couldn’t make Constance out at all. She had declined going anywhere with him. She wasn’t even with Whittemore at the dance from which with a tainted breath and hazy, smoldering eyes he had stolen away to find out where Constance was. And he found her singing hymns with three kids! He couldn’t understand it.