Brentwood (34 page)

Ted came home in the middle of the afternoon with a box of candy he had bought for her journey. Father said he couldn’t get home early enough to see her before she left, but he would step over to the station and meet her at the train to say good-bye. Sunny and Bonnie each scribbled a quaint little letter for her to read on the train, and Bud took some of his cherished Christmas dollar he had found in the toe of his Christmas stocking and bought her a magazine to read on her way. The her mother folded her in her arms and kissed her, fastening a thin little gold chain around her neck with a tiny gold locket on it.

“It was mine when I was a child,” she explained. “Wear it till you come back to me, dear! Maybe it will remind you of me. It is long enough to drop down under your dress and not show. You won’t be ashamed of it, will you?”

“Ashamed! Mother dear!” said Marjorie, on the verge of tears. “Oh, Mother, I think it is all wrong of me to go back at all. I should just take you all along, and then we could pack up together and do as we like about everything.”

“No, no, dear! It’s right for you to think it over. I’m not crying! There! Go quick! They are calling you. The minister has come. So nice of him that he is going partway with you. I shall feel better about you. I know Ted was terribly disappointed he had to go to work and couldn’t see you off!”

And so at the last minute she hurried away, smiling and waving and throwing kisses to the children.

But Ted was at the train after all. He met Gideon’s car at the curb, and stood there grinning, to open the door for his sister.

“They had to send somebody down to the station to get a reservation for the boss to go to New York tonight,” he said, “and didn’t I volunteer! I’ll say I did!”

A few minutes later Marjorie and Gideon were seated in the train as it moved off, waving to the father and Ted. Then the train swept out of the station and they were alone.

“Isn’t this wonderful of you!” Marjorie said. “You can’t imagine how forlorn I felt going off alone like this after I’ve had such a nice big family! It seems like a miracle arranged entirely for my benefit that your cousin should select tomorrow for her wedding when there were all the other days of the year she might have chosen from, and it wouldn’t have affected me in the least.”

“Well, of course,” said Gideon. “I felt that the benefit was all mine; however, I won’t grudge you a share. And now, what were those questions you wanted to ask? I’m eager to hear them.”

“Oh,” said Marjorie, “I want to know how to walk with God, and I want to know how to study the Bible, and then all about grace.”

Gideon laughed.

“Rather a large proposition for one short evening,” he said, “but those are the best things I talk about. Where shall we begin?”

They settled back on the comfortable cushions and began a talk that neither of them would ever forget, and the record of which is surely in heaven.

The minister got out his pocket Bible, and again and again the two heads were bent over the text. Marjorie took out her pencil and notebook and wrote a great many references to help her when she got back to Chicago alone. So the time flew fast. It seemed only a brief space before Gideon had to put on his overcoat, seize his hat and suitcase, grasp her hand for a quick instant, and hurry to get off at Harrisburg.

He waved to her from the platform an instant, and then the train moved on and she was alone. A great desolation came over her. Would she ever see him again?

But he had her address in Chicago, and he had promised to send her some booklets to help her in her Bible study. That was something to which to look forward.

Then the porter came to know if she would like her berth made up, and she was glad to put her head on the pillow and rest, thinking over the evening and all the wonderful days since she had come out on this pilgrimage to find her family! Her dear family!

Ah, she did not need to take even a week to consider whether she wanted to be with them. She knew now. Just this brief separation had made her sure, if she needed even that! She thought back to the tiny house on Aster Street and wondered if they were all sleeping now. Had they missed her during the evening? Had the children in their evening prayers remembered her as they had so earnestly assured her they would do? Were he mother and father talking about her now, considering whether she ought to come back?

Then her mind went to Gideon again. How handsome he had looked as he stood there waving to her on the platform. How suddenly hard it had become to see him go!

It was strange the next morning to awaken and find herself almost back to Chicago, to dress hurriedly just in time to get out and find her own chauffeur waiting at the station with her car according to orders, to drive through the familiar streets and see everything just as it had been when she left it. It was as if she had been moving in a happy dream for a season and now was awake again. Would the joy vanish as quickly as the dream was doing? Were her father and mother perhaps right? Did she really need to come back in order to get a practical vision of things? In order to find out what she really wanted? She put the thought from her frantically, a kind of fear growing in her. No, it could not be that she would ever be content to go back to the old life, even with all its luxuries and amenities, and forget her beloved family, to settle down to a life here where she had always been. A life that would include Evan Brower instead of them all! Evan Brower instead of the wonderful man of God, who understood the precious, vital things of life! No! A thousand times,
NO
!

And suddenly she knew what she was going to say to Evan Brower.

The house was immaculate, the servants all there in their places, welcoming her, thanking her for their holiday, apparently ready to go on with life as she had left it. She could settle down now and every day would go smoothly, engineered by these trained workers. She wouldn’t have a care except just to please herself. But oh, the emptiness of it all!

She ate her dainty breakfast, and heard them tell her what a happy time they had had, and how they enjoyed the Christmas remembrances she had given them. Then she began to wonder what she was going to do about them, supposing she sold the house and went away? It was not thinkable that her father and mother would want a horde of servants trained by others. She did not want them herself, although she was in a way attached to them all. Yet she felt it would be so much better that there should be new servants in the new life if she went away, servants that her mother should choose. Was this another of the elements that her wise father and mother had known she would have to meet and reckon with in her decision?

After breakfast she went from room to room and tried to take up the thread of life. For this one week at least, she was committed to do nothing definite about leaving her home. But that did not include Evan Brower. In the afternoon she wrote a note to him.

She mailed it late in the afternoon. He would not get it until the next morning. She could have telephoned him, of course, but she wanted one free evening to consider what she should say to him. He could not likely come until the next evening.

Next morning she went up in the attic and went over the things there, considering what should be looked over and given away whether she went or stayed. There was no point in wasting all this week. Some of the old papers and letters and garments might as well be put out of the way. Also, she could write out lists of things she wanted to get rid of if she went away.

The morning passed very quickly, and in the afternoon she went to see her lawyer and check up on business matters. Then just after dinner, Evan came.

She had been reading the little book that Gideon gave her, sitting in the library before the open fire, when he was announced. His coming brought her suddenly back into the present, exchanging the memory of Gideon Reaver for the reality of Evan Brower.

Evan had brought her flowers, dignified long-stemmed aristocratic roses, dozens of them. Thelma, the waitress, knew just what to put them in, one of the deep crystal rose jars. She brought them presently and put them on the low table between Evan and Marjorie. Marjorie had a quick thought of how it would always be like this if she married Evan. Always sitting here or somewhere else with Evan, always the most expensive flowers on all occasions, the best music. He had suggested a concert the next evening he thought she would like to attend. He took it for granted she would. Their life together would be well-ordered and peaceful, meticulously perfect in every human way. But he would have no thought of the things that had come to mean so much to her. She grasped the little book warmly. It seemed to her a bond between herself and the things she had left behind her in the east. Was it going to be humanly possible for her to cut herself off from those things for even a week, and with unbiased mind consider what she had promised her parents to consider?

Evan told her of the news since she had been gone, spoke pleasantly like the old friend he had always been, with no mention of their differences when he had seen her last. He told her of affairs that were going on in their social world, said his mother wanted her for a quiet visit, suggested things they could do together, and then at last he got out the little velvet box again.

“Marjorie,” he said in a calm voice, “I want you to put my ring on now and wear it. It will be a sort of protection for you while you are alone, and I shall feel a great deal better about you if you are wearing it. I do hope you are willing to see things in a reasonable way by this time and that we can soon get our affairs settled. I hate so to have you unprotected. Of course, if you feel that you must wait a little longer to get married, I will be willing, though I am quite sure everyone will see that it is the sensible thing, alone as you are. No one will criticize you, I am positive, for having a quiet wedding so soon after Mrs. Wetherill’s funeral. She would have wanted you to do this, I am certain.”

Then Marjorie grasped her little book softly, like a talisman, looked calmly at Evan, and answered in a clear voice.

“Evan, I do appreciate your kindness and your thought for me, and I feel sorry that I had to be so uncertain in the past when you talked to me about these things. But now that I am home again, I have thought it all over and made my decision. Evan, I am not going to marry you, either now or at any other time. I am quite sure that I do not love you as a woman ought to love a man she marries. Perhaps I ought to have known this before, but I didn’t. But now I know, and it would not be right for me to keep you waiting any longer.”

Evan looked at her steadily, calmly, and slowly put the ring back in its box and the box away in his pocket.

“Very well,” he said quietly, determinedly, “if you haven’t come to your senses yet I can wait, of course, till you do. Undoubtedly you will get over this phase pretty soon and be sorry. In the meantime, I am at your service. Are you willing to be friends? Are you willing to go to the concert with me tomorrow night? It is a very quiet affair, and we can sit in Mother’s box at the Opera House. You will not necessarily be in the public eye.”

Marjorie looked at him and smiled.

“Yes, Evan, I’ll be glad to be friends. Friends just as we used to be. That will be nice. And yes, I’ll go to the concert tomorrow night if you want it. You are really very kind.”

He did not stay long. He was a lawyer and canny. He thought he saw that he must take a new line entirely and drop back into his old role of friendship without urging her into anything new at this time. She would change presently, of course, when she got used to the idea of his being her constant attendant everywhere. He would be patient.

So presently he took his leave, and Marjorie went happily back to her new study with her little book in her hand and her Bible open on the low table before her, and forgot entirely that she had just refused one of the most sought-after young men in Chicago.

T
he week of probation dragged its slow length along, and Marjorie began to realize how impossible it was to really fix her mind on the question at hand. Somewhere in the back of her mind, the matter seemed to be settled and sealed, and there was no more possibility of considering it.

As the days went by, developments made her feel more and more that everything was working out to show her that her conclusion had been right. To begin with, the third day after her arrival, Thelma came to her, blushing, and told her that she was going to be married, and she had to give notice.

Marjorie congratulated her, and did not feel the sense of loss as she would have if she were convinced she was going to remain in the Wetherill house. That was perhaps the first happening that made her see clearly that she wasn’t even considering staying.

She went out two or three times with Evan, and was sweet and pleasant with a kind of vague-eyed detachment that much annoyed that entirely assured young man, but he shut his lips thinly and went forward in his campaign as he had planned. Marjorie would be his in the end. She didn’t seem to care for anyone else; why shouldn’t she turn to him eventually?

The fourth day after her homecoming, the old Scotch housekeeper, her former nurse, came to her in great distress with an open letter in her hand. Her youngest sister back in the old country was very sick with a lingering illness and wanted her to come home and nurse her. Tessy felt that she ought to go.

So Marjorie gave Tessy her blessing and sent her on her way to catch the next boat. Another tie to her old life was broken without her lifting a finger! God was working her way out for her.

But, suppose at the end of the week there should come a letter from her mother saying—oh, very sweetly, of course—that they felt it was best for everybody concerned that she should not come to them? Well, yes, she would then be rather cut off from everybody who could serve to make her life pleasant—Evan, and the servants. But she hadn’t done it herself, and there would surely be some way, even if it were a way of heartache.