Then he set to work swiftly, folding the simple house dresses first and laying them carefully in a box. Then the silk frocks and dinner gowns. Somehow he couldn’t remember her very clearly in those. She seldom wore them; only when she was ordered to go out to some function that the master of the house felt would further his standing in the business or the social world.
He was not skilled at folding delicate fabrics sewed into intricate forms, but he was so determined that these things of his mother’s should not be left for her successor that he went at the business with great care and precision and finally had them folded and stowed in a small trunk he found in the attic. He transferred it silently to his own closet, hiding it behind boxes and garments, where old Irving or Mandy would never think to look, even if the new mistress should be seized with a sudden desire to clean his room. As soon as there was opportunity when he wouldn’t be seen, he must get the trunk and other things out to the garage and hide them in the haymow.
There were things in her bureau drawers, neat piles of handkerchiefs, and laces, a few ribbons. He handled them almost reverently, feeling nearer to his mother than he had since her death. His father, he was sure, would never think of these things and would not know what to do with them if he did. He wasn’t entirely sure what he meant to do with them himself, but he would find out. There were also some bits of quaint old jewelry that he knew his mother had possessed before her marriage, and carefully he took the boxes containing them and put them in with his own things, making sure that the bureau and her desk, where he found only a few letters and notes from friends, were empty of everything. He even took care to dust out the drawers. His father, if he investigated, would likely think the servants had cleared away everything.
He was so deep into his work that he was startled when he heard the clock chiming the hour. It was getting late. He was going to be late to school if he didn’t hurry. The opening exercises began at half past, and he would have to hurry to get properly dressed and arrive before the last bell rang.
He cast one anxious glance about his room. Perhaps he really ought to miss school and get everything ready for a possible exit in a hurry. He must have the work done before his father came back. But there would be mischief to pay if he cut school, so he got ready in a hurry and started on the run. As he sped along the highway he reflected that if he found he had to stay here for the present, there wasn’t any point in getting into trouble about being late to school, and Irving would be sure to report it if he dared miss school. Irving was a good friend, but he was afraid to go against his master’s orders.
Revel slid into his seat at the last sound of the gong and was studiously bent over a book when the teacher looked his way. He had made it in time. But he was trying to plan how he could save time when he got home.
There was a possibility that his father might return that evening. He often did return unexpectedly from his short trips. He seemed to like to take them all unawares.
It was good for Revel that his first hour that morning was a study period and he had a chance to compose his mind and make a few brief plans.
He remembered that it was Friday and the afternoon period would be given over to public speaking. The senior class were taking turns in giving commencement orations, and it was not his turn this week to recite. He would be merely one of the audience who were appointed to criticize, and maybe he could be excused from that. He seldom asked to go home early. So at recess he went to his teacher.
“Miss Grandon,” he said, “I’m not one of the speakers this afternoon. I wonder if you would mind excusing me from the last period. I’ve got some work I ought to do at home, and I’m afraid I won’t get it done before night unless I can have a little more time.”
Revel didn’t often ask to be excused, so Miss Grandon gave a pleasant assent, and Revel went back to his seat and began to write out notes of some things he must be sure to remember to do. Getting ready his clothes to pack for a possible flitting was only a part of it. His main anxiety was to get everything that had been a personal possession of his adored mother into such hiding that a new wife would not come upon it, nor desecrate it by even so much as a tone or a look.
And there would be things of his own that must be planned for. Why, even if he stayed at home to protect them, he would be going away to college in the fall, and a stranger would very likely think she had a right to haul out everything in the house, attic and cellar and all. Of course he had fishing rods and skis, and things like that in the attic, and all kinds of traps in the cellar. But to heck with those things. He had bought them with his own pocket money, and in the same way he could buy more if he needed them. They had nothing to do with his mother or with his present trouble. But there were other things. Books of his own, gifts from his mother, in a special bookcase she had chosen. Could he possibly manage to seclude them where they would not be interfered with? How about the loft above the garage that used to be a haymow when the garage was an old-fashioned barn instead of a garage? Certainly they would be safe up there, if he could get wooden boxes to pack them in. At least for a few days, or maybe weeks, until he could devise some other hiding place. And they were not things whose absence his father would notice, he felt sure.
While he was studying his mathematics for the next period, occasionally a thought of something he must remember would flit into his mathematical calculations and he would write down a word to bring it to his remembrance later. So when noon came he had quite a list of notes.
At noon he made short work of his lunch, not taking time to go home, and wrote out more notes, so that when he finally got free and hurried home, he had it fairly well in mind what he was going to do first.
And then, just as he was turning from the highway into the big gate of the driveway at home, the delivery car from the post office stopped beside him.
“You Revel Radcliffe?” questioned the delivery man, although he had known Revel since baby days. But he showed by the quirk of his mouth that he didn’t altogether approve of him, much less of his having a special delivery letter. That was too much importance for a lad of that age to have.
Revel turned and looked startled. Was this something from his father that would perhaps upset all his plans?
“Got a coupla letters fer you. One’s a special delivery,” said the man grimly. “Sign here!” He indicated a smudged line and a stubby pencil.
Revel accepted the pencil and paper and signed his name. Then he took the letters in a hand that had hard work not to tremble, but he managed to smile nonchalantly at the mailman as he swung his car around and started back to town, just as if receiving special delivery letters were an everyday matter with him. Then he slid inside the stone pillars at the side of the driveway and slipped into a little grove of spruce trees where he often took refuge if he wanted privacy. Here he felt no one from the house could see him. He did not want to be questioned about his letters until he knew their contents, and especially who they were from. Irving had orders to keep watch on him, he knew, for he had overheard his father giving them, so he made all his plans not to be spied upon. Revel did not get many letters, only advertisements of cameras and airplanes, and now and then a college catalog, and these were always inspected by his father before he was allowed to have them.
But neither of these envelopes had any revealing line of advertising at the top. Who could they be from? Neither was written in his father’s high scrawl. Could one be from the lady he was going to marry? If he thought it was, he would be tempted to tear it up unread. The special delivery letter was more like a man’s writing. A good strong hand, with quiet character in it.
With fingers that were cold from excitement he tore it open, reserving the one with the more feminine writing till afterward. If that was from the woman who wanted to be his stepmother, he needed time to be fortified to read it.
Chapter 5
Margaret Weldon, during the first day of her ride west, began to think ahead to the place where she was going. She had never been there befo
re, and it had been many years ago when she was a very little girl that she had last seen the aunt to whom she was going. The aunt was her mother’s sister and much older than Margaret’s mother. She had been married when Margaret’s mother was a mere child, so the two sisters had not grown up together. Margaret felt she was going into a great experiment making this journey west and promising to stay for a whole year. Now that she was started on her way, she began to wish that she had stayed where she was, a boarder in the home of one of her mother’s friends, who had been most kind, but who really needed the room she had been using. So when the invitation had come from her aunt, Mrs. Gurlie, it seemed best for her to accept it, at least for a year.
Her uncle, Mr. Devereaux, with whom she was traveling, was very kind, but a man of few words, and hour after hour went by in utter silence. Only when they came to something as notable as Niagara Falls or the Grand Canyon did he seem moved to speak and explain what it was. Margaret grew woefully tired of the monotony of silence, and now and then broke out with questions.
“Uncle, tell me about my aunt Carlotta. What kind of a looking woman is she? You know it is a great many years since I have seen her, and I can’t remember her at all.”
“Mrs. Gurlie? Why, yes, let me see. I think she would be considered a fine-appearing woman. She’s not so young anymore of course, but she’s well preserved. Rather stoutish, with gray hair very smartly arranged, my wife says. She has style and is very kindly, a bit imperious perhaps, inclined to patronize religion and the arts, frequently has musicals at her home on Sunday evening for the benefit of some poor lad who needs a college education, or something of that sort. A fine bridge player and much in demand on committees of every sort. She really is a fine woman, and I’m sure you will have a wonderful time in her home. She’ll be apt to have a regular procession of dances and parties for you, and you’ll be pretty active.”
“Oh!” said Margaret with a little catch in her breath, and then after a thoughtful pause, she added, “But I shall be in school, you know. I’ll not have time for parties and things of that sort. I want to be ready for college by the end of this year.”
Old Mr. Devereaux looked at her indulgently.
“Well, my dear,” he said with a comical little smile, “I don’t imagine Mrs. Gurlie would be one to take the thought of your education too seriously. At least your classical education. She will be much more likely to stress your social education. At least that’s my impression of her.”
“Oh!” said Margaret with a sinking of her heart. Was she going into an atmosphere that would be hard for her? Would there be a lot of worldliness? That was not to her taste. Her home had been a plain, sweet place with quiet ways and simple amusements. Margaret sat thoughtful for a while over Mr. Devereaux’s description, and then she reflected that she was to go to school, and probably things would not be as trying as she feared. At least it would not last forever. A year would soon hurry along, and she could return east to friends, till time for college. So she cheered herself and took heart of hope. Her uncle might be partly joking.
The box of flowers lay at her feet, and now and again she would lift the cover and the wet paper to see if they were carrying well, and would think of the boy who had gone to the woods so early in the morning to please her with them. More and more her thoughts went out to him, wondering how he was coming on with his problem, and what his father said to him when he got home.
She tried to think how she would have felt if her dear father had lived after her mother died, and had told her he was bringing another in her mother’s place. Only she couldn’t think of his doing a thing like that, not in the way this father had done it, at least. Her father had always been so loving and kind, and if he had felt after the years had passed, that he should marry again, he certainly would have gone about it in a sweeter spirit than Revel’s father appeared to have done. He would have felt he should carefully and gradually make her acquainted with the new mother, to be sure that they could be fond of each other, before he brought any such announcement. But of course if it was something that had to be, and there was no way for Revel to go away without making trouble, it would be right that he should stay and try to make a happy thing out of it, not a blight on his life. But somehow it did seem that Revel’s case was a hard one. A father who had never been kind and loving, but always hard and grim as he described him. Perhaps, of course, the boy might be wrong about that. Perhaps his father only had an unfortunate way of expressing himself. But anyway, if he had no happy memories of life with his father, how hard it was going to be for him to take on an unknown mother also. Of course she might turn out to be one who would make the home over and bring some happiness to him, but he was rather old to accept a new mother now, when his own mother’s memory was so very precious! But he was a nice boy, and he certainly must have had a nice mother. Presently she found herself quietly praying in her heart, Oh God, please arrange something happy for Revel, and help him to bear this in the right way.
And then she remembered how she had stepped into the woods and seen him cast down there among the flowers, his head bowed low and real tears on the startled face he lifted when he heard her step. And yet she was glad she had come. He surely needed someone to speak just a word of sympathy and to remind him there was a God. Well, it had been a precious little experience after all, leaving her with a sense of having at least relieved a trying moment and perhaps tided him over the worst, where he could look his shock in the face and realize that there were other things left, even if a dear mother’s memory did seem in danger of being desecrated.
Of course a stepmother was not always an unhappy presence. She might turn out to be a wonderful woman and make the home a pleasanter place. But yet, she could understand what the boy was suffering, and felt great pity for him. She wished that she might do something to help him. As the long hours went by, she kept going over that experience on the hillside among the sweet little spring blossoms, and remembering the look in the boy’s eyes when he had discovered her standing over him.
And then the walk home. They had seemed almost like old friends by that time, as he fell into step beside her, guiding her over the rough places, helping her over the fences. Even the memory of his good-bye kiss seemed quite a natural thing. She wasn’t a girl who liked that sort of thing generally. But this was different. Almost a holy kiss. Sealing a little incident between them. It was as if God had sent them together for that short time to be a help to each other. It was something she must put away in her memory and never forget. She likely would not see him on earth, perhaps ever again, but she must always count him a real friend, even if she never even heard from him in her life. Because when they got up to heaven, with life all past, they would surely come together sometime and talk over that day when they had found each other in the woods and got a little bit acquainted.
Margaret fell asleep for a while, thinking all these things, and when she awoke suddenly at the sound of Mr. Devereaux’s voice asking for more gas at a filling station, she realized that she had been feeling the touch of the boy’s lips upon hers. She must have been dreaming about him. Yet it did not appear to be an unseemly thing. He was just one of God’s children having a hard time and needing a friend.
So during the rest of that journey she traveled more or less in the company of the nice boy of the woods. For she found that it did no good to try to get the old uncle to be enthusiastic about the lovely view along the way. He just didn’t enthuse. He would lift dreamy eyes toward whatever she pointed out and say, “Yes, very nice,” and that was all. There wasn’t much sociability in that. So she kept her eagerness to herself and began to think what Revel might have said. Revel, who had seen beauty in the little wildflowers and had cared to get up very early and bring them to her!
There were old friends, schoolmates she had left behind several days ago. Frannie Bruce and Alton Cole, Carolyn Comfort and Minnie Waters, Jimmy Ellery, Foster Heath, Gail and Albert Rathbone, and a lot of others. They had all been in her class in high
school. But that was over. She had said good-bye, and it seemed final, a closed chapter. If they met again after years, they would be grown-ups definitely, and she wasn’t breaking her heart about leaving any of them, except perhaps Carolyn Comfort. Carolyn had been her best friend and had cried when she left. Carolyn, of course, would write her. Perhaps she would go back east and visit her sometime. That is, if she decided to stay in California. She wasn’t at all sure she would. That would depend on where she decided to go to college. But for the present she seemed cut off from all her old friends, and this boy, who had taken the pains to get some flowers to remind her of her mother, seemed nearer to her thoughts than any of the others she had left.
Her uncle stopped to telephone Mrs. Gurlie early on the morning of the last day of their journey, telling her they would arrive in time for dinner. And Mrs. Gurlie went promptly to work summoning a crowd of young people to greet her niece. It was her idea of making Margaret feel at home. So when they drew up in front of the elaborate bungalow, the front terrace was filled with a noisy crowd, in all sorts of bright array, and they flocked around her and proceeded to take her in according to their own modern ways.