© 2014 by Grace Livingston Hill
Print ISBN 978-1-62416-323-4
eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-62836-375-3
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-62836-376-0
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.
All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Cover Design: Faceout Studio, www.faceoutstudio.com
Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.barbourbooks.com
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.
Printed in the United States of America.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
About the Author
Chapter 1
1930s
Jane Arleth sat slowly down upon the extreme edge of her Pullman chair and looked hungrily out to the tiny mountain station she had just left.
There it was in the early morning light, every line of its rough gray stone as artistically in harmony with its woodsy surroundings as a lichen on a log! There was the nest of tall plumy pines that surrounded it and gave it background. There was the trim, tidily painted summer bus that had brought her down from the hotel a few minutes before, waiting now for a few chance passengers. There was the road it had come, the winding mountain road, fern-fringed and enticing, climbing back out of sight into the cool upward shadowed curves. Beyond and above, there would be the glimmer of the lake sparkling like a sheet of sapphire in the morning sunlight, tilting the canoes that rocked and lapped along its edges, slapping the sides of the larger boats anchored a little way out, bearing softly on its blue bosom the flock of white sails that, a little later in the morning, would be billowing in the wind across the little island.
Already, perhaps, Jeff Murchison and Rex Blodgett were out diving. Gayle Gilder and Sally and the rest would be going down for their morning dip in a few minutes. There would be cool blue shadows on the north porch where the pines were thickest about the hotel, a wonderful spot to come with a book before the world generally was astir. There would be the aroma of coffee, honeydew melons and toast, hot rolls just out of the oven, and a hint of brook trout frying in deep fat. And off to the left lay the golf course, already spotted with earnest devotees, and a match on for today. She was to have played with Overton Maybie, a great honor, she knew, that he should have asked her. And there was a mountain climb on for the afternoon, with a moonlight supper at the top, and a night in the log cabin or camped under the stars!
All this. And she was leaving it. Why?
The train gave a lurch and jolted her against the window as if to shake her awake to what she was doing. The bus driver lolled against the cushions and lit a new cigarette, lazily turning his head to watch the train. They were moving now.
Jane clutched the arms of her chair. But yesterday she had been one of a party who came down to see a comrade off. She leaned closer to the window to strain her eyes up the winding road. Perhaps she hoped against hope that even though she had taken all precautions to steal away without their knowledge, somebody would have discovered her absence and followed, just to give her a wave of the hand. But no, the road wound emptily up with not a soul in sight, and now the little stone station was slipping into the background, and the train was plunging into the forest. She was going away from all the beauty and fun, going a whole week before her vacation was over, with no necessity upon her, and stealing away like a thief in the night. Oh, why had she done it?
The station was out of sight now. She watched breathless for the opening in the trees where one could catch a glimpse of the ninth hole on the golf links, far away like an emerald bed, spread with patches of gleaming sand and a ripple of blue that was a water hazard.
She held her breath and bent low to look up at the one place where the hotel could be seen, perched like a great gray bird upon a spur of the mountain. And then as it, too, swept out of sight, and the train made rapid descent to the valley land below, she sat straight and looked about her, almost desperately! Her long-awaited vacation! Her wonderful vacation that she had slaved for and anticipated so many hard-worked months, was being cut short a week, and by her own act. Why had she done it? Was it possible that she had lost a little piece of her mind for a few hours since last night?
Down at the foot of the mountain there was another little station, not a lovely artistic bit of architecture, just a little wooden shanty where two lines met and exchanged baggage and passengers. She could still get off there. It was not too late. No one would know she had gone. They would think she had slept late. Ten minutes more and the up train would come along, and she could take the same bus back to the hotel that had brought her down. If she was discovered they would merely think she had been down for the ride or to mail a letter or send a parcel.
Suddenly her reasons for this abrupt flight seemed foolish, childish, crazy. Why had she done it? She sat back and tried to think it over.
It wasn’t just her little sister’s letter. Betty Lou had written very guardedly, though her cheerfulness was almost too thickly spread on to be real. Jane took the letter out and read it hurriedly, keeping her mind alert for the shanty station at the foot of the mountain where she might get off.
Dear Jinny,
We have had a lot of hot weather since you left. You certainly went away just in time. I went down and slept on the floor in the sitting room. It was 103 on our front porch yesterday afternoon. Mother had a fainting spell after lunch. She had been doing up raspberries but not so many this year because they are awfully high on account of the dry weather. But Mother would have some because you like them, and Tom likes them, too. But she is all right now, only Father came home last night a little hurt. He was in an accident, but it isn’t very bad. The man that hit him took him right to the hospital and had the bone set, and it’s going to be all right they say, and you are not to worry. It’s his right arm, but he says it’s lucky he is left-handed or he couldn’t keep on his job. He can write without hurting him very much, and I guess soon it won’t hurt at all. He cut his face some, too, but that’s not going to be serious, only just his back aches a little, and Mother thinks he’ll soon be well. She told me to say you are not to worry and not to come back a day sooner than you planned. Tom is staying home one week of his vacation anyway. The boy that was going fishing with him can’t get off right now, and Tom says he can’t see going alone. So Tom is going to help Mother with what Father usually does, and you are not to worry a bit.
I got your lovely postcards, and so did Mother and the rest. That must be a wonderful hotel. I suppose when you come home it will seem dry having just cereal and coffee for breakfast when you’ve been used to brook trout every day. But I guess someday we’
ll all get rich, and then we’ll go up to that same hotel all of us and spend a whole long lovely summer, won’t we? And I’m going to have a pink silk made just like the one you described in your last letter, the one that Bingham girl wore. I wish you would make a real good drawing of it so we can remember how it was made when we get money to have one.
My little kitten is dead. The milk wagon ran over it. I buried it down in the backyard. I don’t think I’ll ever try to have a kitten again, it’s so hard to keep it alive in a place like this. The two little boys next door tied firecrackers to its tail last week. They had some left over from the Fourth, and Azalia was so scared I thought for a while she would just die then.
I found a lovely pink rose on the sidewalk in front of our house yesterday. Somebody must have dropped it. I put it in your crystal vase in the parlor window and I’m awfully careful of it. You don’t mind, do you? I pretend our parlor is big and cool like the hotel one you told us about, and it smells just heavenly. Mother says it makes her think of “the spices that blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle” out of a hymn she sings—you know what one. She was lying on the sofa with a palm leaf when she said that, and smiling tired, the way she does sometimes, you know. I guess she misses you a lot, but we are all glad you are having such a wonderful vacation. Mother says it rests her just to think about it. She says it’s all-our-vacations because you are getting what we’ve wanted for you so long.
I’ve learned to iron, and I’m going to iron Tom’s shirt. He’s taking a girl to ride in the Ford this evening. Mother kind of worries about the girl. She has her lips too red, she thinks. But she wears nice clothes. I saw her pass when I was coming from Sunday school last Sunday. But now I must go. Mother says to tell you don’t forget we all love you, and I do, too, awfully much. I’ll be glad when you’re home again, but I want you to have a good time, too,
So good-bye,
Your sister,
Betty Lou Arleth
Jane folded up the letter and looked anxiously out the window again. No, it wasn’t altogether the letter. They would not want her to come home until her time was up. They would be disappointed not to have her get the full benefit of her vacation, even though it was hard work to get along without her, even though they might be having harder times at home than they were telling her. She understood that fully. She knew and loved her dear ones, and knew they felt about her just as she would feel about them under similar circumstances. No, it was more than just the pathetic little letter that was sending her home.
Her mind went back to the day before when she had received it.
She had written Betty Lou at once a long letter, describing all the things she loved best to hear about, trying to put the cool breezes into her letter for Father and Mother, trying to put fishing and swimming and boating in for Tom, and let them enjoy her good times, at least through her letters.
And then she had mailed her letter and gone out to play tennis with Rex Blodgett.
How Betty Lou’s letter had crackled happily in her pocket, giving her a sense of the dearness of her family and their loving sacrifices for her sake, making her feel that she must get all she could out of this playtime because, in a sense, she owed it to them.
So the morning had sparkled in her soul and given wings to her feet and brought back the skill to her racket that had been a bit unpracticed since she had become a woman of business. To her fingertips, she felt that she was alive, and her skill was coming back in good form as in the days when she was at school and had had the name of being the champion of her class.
Carol had come down to the court—Carol Reeves who was really the instigator of this wonderful vacation. For Carol had invited her to go in their party, offered to share her room with her and make the expense less. Of course it had turned out that Carol had to take her younger sister in her care, and therefore could not carry out that part of the plan, but Mr. Reeves had kindly arranged for a smaller room for her without more expense, and the Reeves family had been charmingly cordial to her, making her feel as if she really belonged with them.
Yesterday Carol had come down to the court with Sally Loomis and Gayle Gilder, and presently the boys had sauntered up and sat down, watching the game and Jane felt stimulated by their presence so that she made some wonderful plays. The wine of excitement mounted to her head, and made her wish that she might always live this carefree life, might always be free to play tennis whenever there was opportunity, play around at anything with these butterflies of fortune, and never again know what it was to feel that dead exhaustion that came from driving herself hard all day in the office, trying to do sometimes twice as much as was humanly possible in a day.
They had gone swimming after the tennis, and again Jane had been conscious of renewed vitality that the three weeks in the mountains had given her. Her diving was cleaner and in better form than she ever remembered it to have been. As in the tennis match, again and again they cheered her, until her head was very nearly turned with their kindly admiration. How glorious it had been to feel that power over her own muscles, to know that she was moving gracefully, easily, through the water, to have perfect assurance that whatever she attempted to do she would accomplish. She had been in an exalted mood that carried her through the morning in triumph, with a light in her eyes and a look of utter happiness on her face.
Had she been a bit self-conscious when she came down to lunch in the little blue frock worn for the first time, a dress she had been saving up for some special occasion? She knew it was attractive because of its heavenly blue and because of its utter simplicity.
Lew Lauderdale had been waiting at the door of the dining room with evident admiration in his eyes. He had paid her not a little attention during the three weeks that were past, and she could not help feeling flattered. She knew that all the other girls were eager for his company. He was a little older than the other young people, stunningly distinguished looking, with handsome eyes and a somewhat haughty bearing. He drove a car of fabulously priceless traditions, had his own yacht, and was making up a party for next month to take a trip. Of course that was out of the question for a businesswoman who had but a month’s vacation, and even that month was a special dispensation for this year—but it would be nice to be able to boast an invitation, and he was a fascinating companion when he chose to pay attention to a girl.
They had walked down the slippery path beneath the resinous pines, and he had seated her in a lovely nook where a view of lake and forest and opposite distant mountains made life seem like one beautiful dream. He had taken her on lovely walks several times before, but there seemed to be something different about this one— the cozy seclusion of the place where they were seated, the intimate air he assumed, the way he looked at her and smiled. She found her senses quickened and felt the color more than once leaping into her cheeks. And once, when she lifted her eyes full of laughter to meet his, she found his glance holding hers in a quick meaningful way that gave her the instant assurance that he was singling her out in a little more definite way than he had ever done before, and her heart went racing along with pulsations that almost frightened her for a moment, like a pleasant intoxication. She had not stopped to question what it meant or what he meant. It was just a gladness that he liked her, and that the day was fine, and she was here. A happiness to be a part of this company who could go anywhere they liked and do what they pleased, and yet were willing to play with her, a plain little business girl who had her living to make in the world. Just an unconscious bit of pride that the man whom the other girls openly admired and wanted had chosen to spend this lovely afternoon with her. She was casting about even then in her mind to know just how she could get this across to her adoring family without seeming to make too much of it. Mother was keen to see into the heart and meaning of everything.
But what was this he was saying, about her eyes and hair?
“I’d like to have you painted in just that pose, with this very background. Turn your head a little to the left. That’s it, just so. Li
ft your chin a trifle! There! Like that! I wish I had brought my camera. Do you think you could hold the pose till I run back and get it?”
“Oh, dear me, no!” she had told him. “By the time you got back I would have the most self-conscious smirk you ever saw on human face. Let’s talk about something else. Let’s admire that mountain over there!”
But his glance continued to hover over her face as a bee sips honey from a flower, until she felt almost uncomfortable under his intimate gaze.
Suddenly he asked a question. “Where do you live when you are home?”
She told him, and instinctively her hand stole to the little silken pocket of her sports frock and touched the soft crackle that was Betty Lou’s letter. There was something glad about remembering her little sister and the dear home ones just now while she was having such a wonderful time; and yet, did there somehow seem to steal a mist over the brightness of the day as she remembered her mother lying on that couch and almost fainting? Her father with a broken arm, trying to hold down his job, knowing that at his age one did not ask for time off on account of accidents. A sudden grip of fear touched her heart fleetingly.
The young man quested more definitely about the street where she lived, and suddenly it came before her mental vision in all its sordidness; the cheap little street of cheap little houses in twins; the twang of the cheap Victrolas and homemade radios; the voices of angry mothers berating angrier children; the cries of the ashman and ragman and hucksters; the clang of the trolley car at the corner, that most necessary article of conveyance for a family that boasted only one little secondhand Ford; the dusty geraniums in the flower box that Betty Lou loved and neglected and nobody else had time to attend to; the scrawny kitten that Betty Lou had hurried in the tiny backyard below its former favorite seat on the fence; the yelping little puppy next door that was always getting underfoot and clawing appalling runs in one’s new stockings as it squirmed in welcome; the boy across the street who was learning to play the cornet during the evenings; and the other neighbor who burned his garbage late at night and filled the air with an undesirable smell!