But the more he thought it over, the more Dana felt that he could do nothing. Perhaps he had already fulfilled whatever there was in his father's mind by just bringing that letter to his mother and by telling his sister what a wonderful father she had. Perhaps he might as well go home tonight and get back to work.
Yet his mind was not easy. He had a feeling that if he should go at this stage of things he would always think perhaps he should have stayed. At least a few days longer.
What had his sister wanted with his address? Would there be a note from her tomorrow, or in a few days, that would settle the matter for him, and give him freedom to go?
As he thought of his mother he had a strange desolate feeling that he had done all he could and that she would never accept him, or be influenced by anything he said. But he realized that this contact with her had cleared up a matter once and for all for him, and that was whether his father had been mistaken in his judgement of his mother. Perhaps he had never realized before that at times all his life, after he was old enough to reason at all, he had had moments when that thought clamored at his consciousness and insisted upon being heard. And always he had put it by as something that was disloyal to the father whom he all but worshipped. But now he realized that it had been a relief to him when his father asked him to go and see his mother and take the letter to her. Had the keen, tender mind of his father sensed that his son would wonder about the mother who had been so seldom mentioned between them? Or had he planned some means to see that she, too, knew the way of salvation? Anyway, for whatever reason, Jerrold Barron had so far been able to impress his son with the burden that was upon his soul, that he had given up everything else and come across the continent on this mission. And now that he was here it seemed so utterly hopeless. A sister like that! A doll! No, worse than a doll! An utter worldling who didn't want to be anything else.
He had known before he came, of course, that it would be so. Yet he had come! And now that he was here, what could he do? As well to go home and get to work. Work out his own life and find a way to work for his Lord. Make a place in life that was his own.
Could he ever do that? With his father gone could he go back to that town, and that apartment where he and his father had lived together, taking their meals together downstairs in a cozy little restaurant? Could he go back and sit at the same table and eat alone? Lonely days and long evenings with nobody to talk to. Margery? No, Margery and he were done. Not that they had ever been really engaged. It was just a tacit friendship that had lasted from their high school days, through college, and a few months afterward, and then their ways had parted so definitely that it seemed useless ever to try to patch things up.
He had come home from college expecting sometime soon, when he got a good job, to ask Margery to marry him. And then had come the growing anxiety about his father, and his own absorption in him to the exclusion of other things. He hadn't gone very often to see Margery. He had stayed a great deal with his father, feeling that his illness would soon be over and he could get back to normal living.
But his father had got no better. He had only grown frailer and more dependent on him. And when his father urged him to go out for an evening, and he yielded to please him, Margery seemed to have so many other interests, foreign to his own ways, that he had felt they were growing apart. She told him that he was too serious, that he was getting to be a regular grind. She wanted to go into the world, the world that neither of them had been brought up to care for. College had made a great difference in Margery.
One day he had made a business of trying to find out just where she did stand on a lot of questions upon which they used to agree, basic questions that seemed to him more important than anything else. He discovered, after serious questioning, that she had lost her faith, the faith in which she had been reared. She no longer thought the Bible was the word of God, as she used to believe. It was only a lot of traditions strung together in very beautiful language, but nevertheless only traditions. She seemed surprised to find that he still believed in it.
"That's the result of going to a 'hick' college," she said scornfully. "If you had gone to one of the great universities you would have come into contact with the kinds of professors I had, and you wouldn't have come home with any such out-of-date ideas as you have. I can give you a list of books we had to read, and I can tell you from my notes a lot of things you ought to know. It would positively change all your ridiculous ideas. You need a lot of philosophy and science. I can't understand how you could have got by in any kind of college and kept your weird, impossible religion. Going to church every Sunday just as you did when you were a child!"
"Well," Dana had responded indignantly, "I'm certainly thankful I didn't attend that kind of university if you think there is any possibility it would have made me willing to stay away from church. But I don't believe any college could have done that. God has meant too much to me all my life, for me to be willing to give Him up for any course of study the world can offer, and going to church is going to His house with His people to worship Him."
"Oh, well," she said loftily in the low throaty voice she had lately acquired, "just going to church in itself wouldn't be so bad if you would pick out the right kind of church. But that old-fashioned chapel where your father has always gone is simply impossible. It isn't such a bad thing to go for a little while, say an hour or two a week, into an up-to-date place of worship and let your soul get a real rest, sort of come into touch with the infinite. That isn't so bad. They say it is often beneficial to the whole system. The quiet beauty of a proper edifice where lovely lines of architecture, perfect workmanship in fittings, light falling through exquisite stained-glass windows designed by real artists, perfect music from costly instruments played by musicians of great attainments, singing by highly trained choirs of priceless voices, wise precepts spoken by eloquent men, all combine of course to soothe the wary soul and give it new strength to go on and attain greater heights. That would be a good thing for mind and body alike. But to go to that cheap little clapboard building that sadly needs a coat of paint, and sit on hard unpainted wooden benches looking at those ugly rough plastered walls, that uncovered wooden floor, the ugly square boxlike pulpit, the light falling through those horrid cheap colored-glass windows, and hear that illiterate boy pounding out anathemas of hell-fire, to listen to such funny little jazzy songs to the accompaniment of a wheezy cabinet organ miserably played, that is simply unspeakable! I used to think you had a good mind and would amount to something, but that sort of practice would poison my mind."
"So you think my mind is poisoned, do you?" he had asked, looking steadily, thoughtfully at her, his face almost white in its intensity, his eyes their darkest blue, looking at her as he had never looked before, seeing a shallowness in her that had never been apparent to him before.
"Oh, not hopelessly, perhaps," she said, laughing lightly. "But any mind, no matter how brilliant, exposed to the kind of twaddle that you get at that chapel, must poison in the final analysis. The trouble with you is that you are too much under the domination of your father. You need to get out and get away from him and his influence. Just because your father has always gone to that chapel you think you must go, too. How can you ever expect to be up-to-date if you continue to do just what he says? Your father is a dreamer and idealizes even that awful little chapel. There is nothing practical about him and he has no idea about getting on in the world."
"Is that so?" Dana had said sternly, meeting her cold young eyes with a look as keen as her own.
She colored a little but went boldly on.
"Well now, Dana, you know your father is no scholar, or he would not expect his son in this age of the world to accept and be satisfied with outworn dogmas and traditions, which is all in the world the Bible is. Your father is determined to hold you down to his type of religion. Any kind of religion is rather out-of-date, at least the kind of thing we used to call religion when we were young. Why, very few people even believe there is a God anymor
e. Of course, I don't go as far as that."
"Indeed?" said Dana coolly.
"No, I still believe there is an omnipotent force, and I still go to church. But it is a marvelous church, that new one on the avenue. Have you been in it? It is like a dream in architecture, wrought like exquisite lacework of stone. It is a rest just to look about its costly colorful interior. The windows in subdued tones, almost visibly blending with the music. They say the quartet and soloists are the highest paid singers in the city, and the organ is one of the finest in the world. The young preacher is said to be one of the most eloquent men that ever graduated at his seminary, and he's handsome as a picture. He gets a twenty-thousand-dollar salary. And you will pass up a place like that where you might get real refreshment for mind and body and go to that miserable little old chapel! Why, I'm so interested at this new church I'm even considering taking a class in Sunday school." Margery finished with a sparkle of enthusiasm in her eyes.
"Yes?" Dana had replied. "And what, pray, would you teach them?"
Margery colored annoyingly.
"Well, certainly not that old-fashioned Gospel stuff you and I used to be so wild about when we were children. It's a thing of the past. It's absurd! We used to go on mere emotional jags every now and then! I'm done with it forever, and I wish you were, too! But I know you. You're too stubborn to give anything up. You're tied to your father's apron string. He's a regular old granny and the kind of religion he wants to hold you down to is entirely out-of-date."
Dana had stood it all, with only a calm word now and then, but when she began to cast aspersions upon his beloved father, and when she sneered at his deepest convictions and called them out-of-date and outworn, his face grew stern. And though he listened to the end of her lively tirade, for she seemed determined to see this thing through and conquer him once and for all, not once did his expression soften.
Blithely she went on, giving him glance for glance.
"You know," she said arrogantly, "the ideal Christ would never utter some of those cryptic sentences that were a part of the patter we used to quote in those old days when we thought we were such saints. But I'm quite sure if there were a Christ at all today He would be up-to-date. He would not be behind the times!"
Dana's voice was very solemn as he answered, still looking unflinchingly straight into her eyes: " 'Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.' I guess that'll be about all, Margery. I guess we're done. I'll say good-bye."
And that had been the last time he had called upon her. Soon after that his father had been taken worse, and he had not time to think of anything else. He had been by his bed almost constantly until the end. Two or three times Margery had called up, asking him to this and that, evidently thinking that it was about time that he saw things in a more modern light, but it happened that the nurse usually answered her call, and Dana was either out or busy with his father. On the occasions when he answered himself he would always say: "Thank you, it is quite impossible for me to go anywhere tonight!" That was all, and always in a grave tone.
She wrote him a pleasant little note when she heard his father was at death's door, and another when he died, and she sent flowers to the funeral. Dana never knew whether she came to it herself or not. It did not matter to him anymore. Margery was a person of the past. And he was only glad that his father had known that and had been relieved by the knowledge before he left him.
So it would not be for Margery's sake he would return to his Midwestern home. He was not even sure she was there now anyway. She had written of a trip abroad and that she was engaged.
But somehow with the element of a girl out of it, and with his father gone, it seemed a sad place to return to. He was not interested in the place anymore and no longer had the heart to cope with old associations, at least not at present.
And yet, why stay here longer? Wasn't it perfectly obvious that his mother and sister had no further need for him? His father's wishes had been carried out when he presented the letter to his mother. Surely there would be no further call for him to go and see them again.
He sat there a long time in the comparative stillness of the park away from the city, trying to think his way through to what he should do next. Of course, there were a few errands. He must see that Mr. Burney. He had promised. And, of course, he wanted to have a day with Bruce before he left. But where was he going? Back to his job? Back to the old rooms where he and his father used to live? No, for they were rented, their few possessions in temporary storage. Well, that would all have to be decided. But he was strangely weary. The interview with his family had been even harder than he had anticipated. It was one thing to know conditions; it was even more startling to see them with your own eyes.
At last with a weary sigh he got up, and as he stood he glanced down at the bench, and there close beside where he had been sitting lay a little delicate crumpled handkerchief, with a bit of brilliant embroidery in one corner, cunningly interwoven with a snarl of flowers. That was his sister's handkerchief!
He picked it up and the touch of the fine linen gave him a sense of still belonging to something, although perhaps it was nothing he could ever prize. But still this represented something he had to do. Get that little white rag back to its owner. Did that mean that God had reason for him to stay here yet awhile, perhaps do something more? No, that was foolish. He could enclose the handkerchief in an envelope and send it to her by mail. He wouldn't even have to write a word. She might remember where she had left it, or she might not. What difference?
So he stuffed the handkerchief into his pocket and started drearily on his way back to the room he was occupying with Bruce Carbury. He didn't even remember that it was near lunchtime and he had not eaten yet. All he wanted was to get back to a bed and lie down and sleep. Everything else could wait until he was rested.
Chapter 5
Valerie Shannon was Irish, on one side at least, and she had the great dark blue eyes and black curly hair that went with that race. But she was also Scotch on the other side and had a levelheaded good sense and staunchness of faith, so that she was not influenced by the present-day carelessness of morals and ideals. She had a bevy of brothers and sisters who kept things merry. Some were in school and some were doing good honest hard work and some were married. They were all born in this country but had been back to the old countries several times to visit, which gave them a world-sense as well as an intense love for their native land. The last time they came home they had brought the Scotch grandmother to live with them, and her untarnished faith and her keen way of discerning the truth of a matter, and of expressing herself in no uncertain terms, helped to keep them up to their original quality.
Valerie had finished high school and two years of college, and then stopped college to take over her sister's job in the publishing house of Burney and Company when her sister Mavis got married. Valerie had proved to be even more satisfactory to the head of the firm than Mavis had been, and he promptly made her his private secretary. Valerie was only nineteen, but she was "smart as a whip" her grandmother said, and her employer said the same, in other words perhaps.
Valerie was always neat and trim. Some of the other girls in the office called her "smart," but there was a womanliness about her attire that made the word smart seem too sophisticated to use in connection with her appearance. She was always sweet, gentle, and womanly wherever she was, in office or church or on the street, or even in the kitchen where on occasion she could shine with the rest of her family in concocting delicious meals.
The Shannons lived in an unfashionable street in a large old-fashioned brownstone house that years ago used to be an elegant mansion, but now because of its commercial surroundings was no longer considered desirable. But the house was large enough for their family, and the rooms were pleasant. They made the inside look like a real home even in the heart of the great city. The high ceilings and large rooms gave a spaciousness that was needed for such a large family. There were funny old-fashioned borders and f
rescoes on the ceilings, with cupids and roses and designs of the past. Some people scorned the house. Said it was too "Victorian." But the Shannons loved it all. Patrick climbed up on a stepladder and colored the roses pink, and the ribbons blue, even tinting the cupids, giving them yellow hair and blue eyes.
They had no grand paintings to hang on these lofty walls, except one oil portrait of the old Scotch laird, one of their grandmother's forebears. It was the one fine heirloom she had brought with her from Scotland, and it occupied the place of honor in the living room over the white marble mantel. The heavy eyebrows and the firm chin of the stern old man were a sort of hallmark of the integrity of the family. Even the Irish ones were proud to have a share in it.
The other picture in the room--oh, there were photographs besides, of course--was an engraving of a thatched cottage in Ireland.
Things more modern came and went in the house, but these two pictures remained and set the pace of the house, as it were, reminding of a life set in sterner times, and a God-fearing family of high repute who had taught their children that life was not all to be lived on this earth, that even strong souls must look to heaven for eternal bliss and not try to grasp it down here. The Shannons found much joy along the way, but it was not the chief end and aim of living.
So the children had come up sturdy souls with a mind to consider righteousness rather than selfishness, and with a will to work joyously and not fear.
That afternoon Valerie had reached home a little after five and hurried up to her room to finish a bit of sewing she was doing. For they were all thrifty children and did for themselves as far as they could, rather than spend their hard-earned money on trinkets. But what they made was always beautifully done and well fashioned. A pause at the window of some great store far beyond her purse, a sweep of the eye through the display, particular notice of some attractive garment or accessory, and Valerie had it photographed carefully in her mind to carry home. There was that old dress of five winters ago that she had cleaned and carefully folded away in tissue paper. That could be altered, and there were bits of trimming in the carefully hoarded leftovers of other days that would embellish it in this new style. That was how Valerie often managed to look as if she had just purchased a whole new outfit. She never let a good adaptable model get by her without notice.