© 2014 by Grace Livingston Hill
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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.
Published by Barbour Books, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.barbourbooks.com
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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
1940s
Rose Galbraith folded her work dress and apron neatly and laid them in the top of the packing box. With a trembling and determined hand she drove in the nails that were already stabbed through the missing board, then she cast a quick desolate glance about the room. How empty it looked! How different from a few days before!
In imagination, for an instant, the dear old furnishings came back. The muslin curtains at the windows, terribly worn in places, but delicately darned so that their defects became adornments. The faded old rugs, one of them a hooked rug her mother had made when Rose was a little girl.
And over at the far side of the room, the fine old bed and bureau and wardrobe that had been her mother’s wedding present from her father’s side of the house and on that other side, the corner cupboard with the frail lovely china that dated back a whole century. In the middle, the leaved table that was their dining table by day and their sitting room table around which she and her mother had gathered evenings. Oh, those days, and those precious evenings, gone now forever! But she would never forget them! Her whole life would center about them as long as she lived.
She turned away from gazing at those empty places. She could not bear it. A great tear slid out and rolled down her cheek, falling with a splash on top of the box that now held so many of the things that had made up the background of her life. Curtains and pillows and blankets and quilts, several of which her grandmother, her father’s mother in the “auld country,” had pieced and quilted. Tucked in between things there were pictures and dishes and a few cherished books and trinkets.
They had sold the little gas hot plate with its tiny oven that had served them so well during the lean years since her father died, sold it to a secondhand man for a dollar and seventy-five cents!
“If I should ever be able to come back, perhaps we could get a more modern one,” her mother had said with a brave smile as they made the decision, for even a dollar and seventy-five cents meant a lot to them just now.
And that was only ten days ago!
Rose drew a deep quivering sigh and then shut her lips with firm determination. She must not break down!
The cheap upright piano that her mother and she had prized so much had been sold to a little music pupil of hers. Her mother had always hoped that someday they would be able to get a better one. But now all those hopes were over. Her mother would never get any more meals in this scant little room that had been a home to them for four long beautiful years. She would never bring any more music for the dear old piano! She had gone to spend all her days in the bright eternal home where she would go out no more forever! She would not even take this trip to Scotland for which they had planned so long, to see the old home, and the old folk who were left back in the old country. The trip for which the tickets were all purchased and tucked away in the pretty little handbag that had been her mother’s last gift to Rose, her birthday gift! And now Rose was going to have to take that trip alone! It seemed appalling to her!
It was too late to change her mind. The tickets might be returned perhaps, but where would she go? The tiny apartment had been definitely given up. The dear old furniture had gone to storage in the house of a friend. This box of leftovers was to follow in an hour. There would be only her own two suitcases left, and they were now packed and ready to leave.
Her coat and hat were hanging in the closet, the pretty coat and hat that matched her suit. Such a pretty suit, and Mother had loved it so, and insisted on buying it for her, because she said she wanted her family to see her girl looking the best she could. That blue suit was the kind she had always wanted to get for her child. But Mother hadn’t been willing to get anything much for herself. Somehow it seemed as if she must have known even when she had bought the gray tweed suit for herself, that she wasn’t to stay here long, for when Rose begged her to get a few more things that she needed, she shook her head determinedly.
“No, dear! No! Just the suit will do for me, and when we get over there I can buy some more. We’ll get what we like cheaper. We’ll maybe run over to London some day and shop!” And then she flashed a brilliant loving smile at Rose that almost made her feel that some of these daydreams might come true after all.
Rose had grown used to having to wear plain, made-over garments. It had almost seemed wicked to her to have her mother buy this suit for her. But when she saw how much it meant to her mother to dress her child up for her relatives, she said no more.
Yes, surely Mother must have realized that she couldn’t stay long. It came to Rose with a quick sharp thrust how that last morning before Mother died, she had called to her with sudden strength in her voice.
“Rose, dear, I want you to get that tweed suit and do it up to be returned. The ten days will be up tomorrow, and I’ve decided that I don’t want to keep it.”
“Oh, Mother!” Rose had said in distress. “But I thought you liked it so much!”
“Yes, I liked it,” she said with a faint smile, “but somehow I got to thinking about it in the night. I believe I’ll find something I like better—”
Her breath was short and she closed her eyes wearily, as if the effort was more than she was equal to. But she roused herself a little later and begged Rose to tie up the package and ask the woman who lived next door and was a saleswoman in the store to return it for her. And because she had been so insistent, Rose had done it.
It hurt her now, as it had hurt her while she was wrapping the package, that her mother never had that suit. Yes, surely she must have known she was going, even before the final symptoms came that made the doctor lose hope. And her mother had sent that suit back quickly to make sure Rose would have that little more money for her solitary trip to Scotland. Dear Mother! It seemed to Rose that she would never be able to spend that money for anything for herself! It seemed sacred money. Yet her mother would never have wanted her to feel that way, she was sure.
She drew another deep quivering breath and tried to steady her lips, and her gaze. The mover would be back in a few minutes. She must not be weeping. He did not know that her mother had gone away from her and left her utterly alone. He was
a man from down in the city, one she had found from the telephone book.
She gathered the last few things together for him to take: the screen that had disguised the old gas hot plate, the decrepit wastebasket, a few remaining chairs, and the little tool chest that had been her father’s. She put the hammer and the screwdriver carefully away in it and locked it, putting the key in her suitcase with other keys. Then she went to the closet and got her coat and hat and the white blouse that was to be used on shipboard alternating with the blue one she was wearing now. She laid the crisp white one in smoothly, touching it tenderly. This was the last thing her dear mother had worked at, ironing that blouse, doing it late at night when she ought to have been in bed, handling it so lovingly, almost as if it were something holy. Could she ever bear to wear that blouse and take its crispness away? Oh, how was she going to bear the days of her journey without her mother? Why did she have to go now? Why couldn’t she just stay here? Those people, her relatives in Scotland, didn’t know her, and wouldn’t care. How could she go and meet them all without her mother, who had counted so much upon it?
But there had been cables back and forth, and they had been insistent. They had regretted that they could not come and bring her back with them. They were old, and not very well. And she knew it would be her mother’s wish that she should go to them.
Besides, if she tried to stay, where would she live? Get a job? But it wasn’t so easy to get jobs today. She might have to wait months, and she had but a very little money besides those tickets. Of course, she could turn in Mother’s ticket. She meant to do that as soon as she reached New York. Perhaps she should have written to cancel it sooner. But there had been so many things to do, and Mother had only just gone! She couldn’t think of everything at once.
Then she saw the moving truck stop in front of the house, and she hurriedly put on her hat. Her heart was beating wildly. This was the last minute that she had anticipated so many times during the days since they had decided on this trip. This was the moment when she had hoped to go forth so happily on a real adventure! And now her young soul shrank back. How she dreaded it. How she was going to suffer all through this thing that had been meant to be a pleasure.
Then she opened the door for the mover, and he soon cleared the room of everything.
When he was gone she gave one last desperate look around the devastated room, and then with a quick motion took the key from the inside of the door, slipped it into the outer lock, stepped out, and closed the door sharply, turning the key with finality.
She had already set her suitcases outside, and now she took them and hastily marched down the path and out on the sidewalk, hurrying toward the corner where the trolley would be stopping soon. She was thankful there was no one in sight. She could not bear the thought of prying, curious eyes. She wanted this last act over quickly. She must not go away in a deluge of tears.
There was no one in the trolley whom she knew even by sight except an old woman who did some scrubbing at the high school, and she was sitting wearily looking out the window with a lack of interest in her face. She wasn’t looking toward Rose. Their ways had never crossed, even casually. Rose had only seen her on her hands and knees scrubbing the cafeteria in the high school building. She drew a long breath. She didn’t want anybody to be looking curiously at her now, when she was leaving all the things that were known and dear to her. But she had no realization that scarcely anyone, even the neighbors, would have recognized her in her new blue suit and hat, with the handsome new coat over her arm, its lovely silver-flecked fur collar glorifying her whole outfit. She wasn’t thinking about her new clothes now. All the joy of them was gone, now that the mother who had planned for them and selected them was not there to enjoy seeing her in them. She was only thinking of the great pain in her heart, and the heaviness of having to go out alone. Praying that she might go bravely, as befitted the daughter of the mother who had planned all this for her.
She left her suitcases at the station in care of the old station-master whom she had known since she was a little girl. He had arranged about her ticket to New York and told her about the trains.
She went across the street to the little real estate office where they paid their rent, to leave the key of their apartment, and then she came back to the station and sat down drearily on the bench that ran across the front of the building. There was no one about there with whom she could claim any degree of intimacy, although there were a number whose names she knew, and where they lived and what was their general station in life. But they had probably never heard of her, nor even seen her to notice her, except as she might have passed them on her way from school in a group of girls.
The conductor helped her lift her suitcases onto the train, and she dropped into the seat nearest the door. It wasn’t far to the city where she would get her New York train. She didn’t care where she sat.
But then she looked out the window, catching her last glimpses of the post office, the grocery stores, the drugstore, the little shoe shop where she had had her shoes mended so often, the garage, the church spires in the distance among the trees, the college on the hill, and lastly, as the train gathered full speed and swept around the curve out of town, the big stone high school where she had gone so regularly. She might never see it again. Would she miss it? Although it was nearly two years since she had graduated, it still seemed closely associated with her life, the background of all her contacts with young people her age.
There were the new tennis courts. There were people playing on them now. She couldn’t tell who they were. Perhaps not anyone she knew, for this was vacation, and there were likely to be strangers in town.
Then the train passed on and they were lost to view. She had a sudden quick yearning for one more glimpse of the old schoolhouse before it passed out of her life forever. She leaned forward and stretched her neck to look back, catching only a far flash of the old gray stone building; then the long low shed where they parked their bicycles hid it from view till the tall hedge wiped it out entirely. They went around another curve, and the old life was gone, gone!
She closed her eyes, and the big sunny room of her school days flashed into her vision again. She saw the long aisles. The long pleasant stretch of blackboards, with windows at intervals, the neat separate desks. How interesting it had all seemed to her! How she used to love to describe it to her mother when she came home.
She saw again the rows of students, heads bent to books, others staring around and smiling. There was the first row; during her last year, Annette Howells was in the front seat, because she always needed watching, Rose had thought. She never was still. She seldom studied. She was pretty and knew it, and was always trying to attract the attention of the boys across the aisle.
Behind her was Caroline Goodson, a solid, solemn girl, overgrown, and slow of mind. Annette would never bother to chatter to her. Then Shirley Pettigrew, so pretty, and so well dressed. Who sat next? Oh, Jennie Carew, and those girls from South Addison Street. Then up to the front row her mind jumped again. Mary Fithian, then Fannie Heatherow, and then herself.
She went down the line behind her, and wasn’t sure of some names. She hadn’t been one who turned around much.
The third aisle was all boys. Johnny Peters, Harry Fitch—how they used to carry on whenever the teacher’s back was turned as she wrote on the blackboard! And next was Gordon McCarroll across the aisle from herself. Everybody liked him. Everybody had a smile and a cheerful word for him.
Gordon belonged to a wealthy family. He might have gone to an expensive school, but it was whispered that his father preferred the public school. And certainly Gordon never acted as if he were trying to be better than anybody else. He had a genial way with him that showed he counted himself one with them all. Rose was naturally shy, and she rarely went to the school parties, or she would have known him better, she supposed. But though she did not know him well, she had great respect for his bright mind and his straightforward, manly attitude. Of course he had
always said “Hello!” to her when he came to his seat in the mornings, but that was about all the contact they had ever had. No—there was the day she had been asked by the teacher to read her essay before the class, and they had clapped so enthusiastically. Gordon had looked up as she came back to her seat and said in a low clear voice, “Swell!” There had been a look in his nice gray eyes that she had not forgotten. That had been the extent of their acquaintance.
Yet now, as the memory of the last year of her school life came so keenly to her heart, his was the only face that stood out vividly.
It was ridiculous, of course, because she didn’t really know him at all, and all the fancied virtues she had put upon him might be from herself, and only figments of her imagination. Yet, of them all, he was the only one she felt she would truly miss. Of course she never would have had the opportunity to be real friends with him, even if she stayed in Shandon. Why should she? She had merely lived on the outskirts of Shandon, and he lived on the Heights, in a big lovely stone house, so screened with evergreens that one could scarcely see it from the street. He lived in another world, and had only touched her world in those few school contacts. Someday he would be a great man perhaps—she felt sure from her estimate of him that he would—and she might hear his name and be proud that she had sat across from him at school. Well, that was that!
There was poor Jane Shackelton. Jane was a good girl—not the brightest student, but she always did her best. Rose had often helped her with her mathematics. She didn’t even know where Jane was now. She had moved to another part of the state. She had promised to write to her, but Jane wasn’t much of a writer. She probably would put it off so long that she wouldn’t think it worthwhile. And even if she did, it might not get to her now, though Rose had filled out the card for the postmaster to forward her mail, in spite of the fact that she didn’t really expect any. She hadn’t had time to be intimate with anybody. There had always been somebody’s babies to mind after school, to bring in a few extra dollars to piece out mother’s small earnings. And since she left school she had been busy teaching her little music pupils. Well, it didn’t matter anymore. Everything was over, Mother was gone, and somehow she didn’t have much interest in the new people who would be waiting on the other side of the water.