Maris (23 page)

Maris looked at him wistfully.

"I'm so glad you're like this," she said suddenly. "I didn't know there were any men, not any
young
men, anyway, that talked this way, that felt as you do. Tell me, how did you get to know God? You weren't interested in such things when you were in school."

"No," he said sorrowfully, "I was going my own way then, just having a good time, the world all before me and everything just lovely. I never thought of God. And then when sudden sorrow came, two sharp blows one after the other, I began to think that God was cruel. That He hated me! I almost doubted what I had been taught, that He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to save us. But one day I heard someone say that it is because people live in the things they possess instead of in their relationship to God that God seems at times to be cruel. And then I began to think. I began to reach out to God. For I had pretty well tried out everything else that appealed to me. They all had turned to dust and ashes, and I felt God calling me. And as soon as I was ready to listen, I found Him ready to reveal Himself to me. You see, I wouldn't listen to Him as long as I was happy and comfortable and had everything I wanted. So He had to send sorrow to bring me to Himself."

"I wonder," said Maris thoughtfully, "if that isn't just what has been happening to me. Oh, you're helping me a lot to get my feet on solid ground. It seemed to me at first when all these things began to happen at our house that I was utterly dumbfounded. Everything I had believed in or rested upon had failed me. I wondered if there was a God. And yet I had no other refuge. But you are making me begin to get a little glimmer of light."

"Oh, I'm glad!" said Lane, with a lilt in his voice. "But now let's go to His Word. That's better than any explanation of mine. I've been digging deep in this treasure store of late, and God has shown me some wonderful things. Turn to the first chapter of Ephesians and let's see what God says about what we are to Him."

So they sat and studied for an hour and a half. Others might have discussed a trip to Europe, the best modes of travel, the best places to stop, the best side trips to take, but they were deep in the Word of God, talking about the things of another world.

If Tilford Thorpe could have looked in upon them from behind the hedge that shut away the street, he would have been hard put to understand what they were doing. With their two heads bent low over their Bibles, fluttering over the leaves, discovering new thoughts, Lane with his Greek Testament casting new light on old familiar words, talking with wonder in their voices of a spiritual world that was as real to them as if they could see it, shyly comparing similar heart experiences in the Lord's dealing with them. It would have been as inexplicable to Tilford as if they had been discoursing in a foreign language concerning some previously undiscovered country that they hoped someday to find and dwell within. He would not have understood it at all.

They talked until the little boys finished the door and the steps and came triumphant and clamoring, daubed with paint from their eyebrows down and demanding that their idol should come and see if it was all right.

Maris suddenly discovered that it was time her patient had her tray and she must leave at once. But the two separated with one quick glad look into each other's eyes. It was only good night they said as they hurried away, but each realized that it was a good night that they had discovered this great bond of interest in the Word of God.

Maris, as she crossed her own lawn, marveled at the thrill in her heart as she thought on all she had been hearing and reading. It occurred to her to wonder how different things might have been between herself and Tilford if they could have had such sweet converse on the deeper things of life together. But it was scarcely conceivable. Trying to imagine Tilford studying the Bible with her was perhaps the most enlightening vision that had come to her yet, to make plain to her how far apart she and Tilford were concerning everything of real value. They would never have been one, no matter how hard she tried. They had so few points of contact. It would have been herself that would have had to measure to Tilford's standards, for it wasn't thinkable that he would be willing to measure to hers, nor even to try. He was all for this world and had apparently no interest in another life.

Was it possible that she could have brought him to know the Lord? She stared at the question in her mind, realizing how far she had been from ever trying to get him to think of another world. Perhaps God had meant her to do that when He let her get to know Tilford. Perhaps she had utterly failed Him. Oh, it was all a terrible maze, and there was just one thing she could do now, and that was to take God at His word and go forward, learning to know and trust Him day by day, feeling her way with her hand in God's, believing that He knew the end from the beginning.

As she entered the house, it suddenly came to her that tomorrow was to have been her wedding night and she hadn't once remembered it all day! That in itself was startling enough. If someone had told her three weeks ago that that could happen, she would have laughed him to scorn. She would not have thought it possible. And now here she was with the whole thing taken out of the picture and herself fully established in another kind of life, as if that had been a dream.

She had a passing wonder about Tilford. Where was he? What was he doing? Was he hurt and sorrowful? She couldn't imagine it. Only angry, and still stubborn. Why was it that she could see that trait in him now so clearly, and only a short time before she did not see it at all? She had thought him charming and admirable in every way. Why, oh, why did all that have to happen? Why did God let her go through all that experience only to put it away from her forever? Could it be possible that this wasn't the end after all? Was God perhaps going to send Tilford back to her and give them a new life and new interests in better things together?

But to her amazement she found a shrinking in her heart. Was she, then, just angry with him for the way he had treated her in her trouble? Was she perhaps not being fair to Tilford? Had she ever tried to put herself in his place and realize what his side might be? Or had she taken it all out in finding fault with him? Instead of talking things over with him and giving him a chance to suggest that of course she must stay in her home now when they were in trouble, she had given her ultimatum and handed back his ring. Was that right and fair toward the man a girl had accepted? Could he help it that he had a disagreeable, managing, meddlesome mother who overly influenced him? Maybe she should have been more gentle with him and realized that his upbringing had been quite different from hers. Maybe she should have sent for him again and talked it over with him before turning him down so completely.

Of course, he had been unsympathetic and heartless, but there were influences at home behind that. Maybe she was all wrong. Maybe the new life to which she had just been committing herself as she read the Word of God with enlightenment would require her to ask Tilford's forgiveness, to go on with her marriage possibly, sometime later when conditions at home would allow her to leave. Could that be what God wanted of her?

All those thoughts followed her like a deadly miasma that arose in her path and seemed to smother her whenever she gave them space.

All the evening as she read to Lexie, who was growing restless as her normal health returned, as she did the hundred-and-one little tasks that filled the end of the long, wearisome day, these thoughts pursued her. As she went to her room at last to prepare for rest and tried to read her Bible and recall some of the precious things that had gripped her heart, even as she knelt to pray with that new sense upon her of knowing her Lord as she had never known Him before, she kept thinking of Tilford. A great depression filled her spirit, like a premonition of some looming trial yet before her. She tried again and again to shake it off. She tried to regain the joy that had filled her while she was studying that afternoon with Lane, in that clean, healthy, happy atmosphere of sacred things, where heaven was almost as if she could see it with her natural vision.

At last, unable to banish these things, unable to fix her mind upon her prayer, she cried out in great earnestness, "Oh, Lord! Show me definitely if I am right in what I have done. Show me once for all whether Tilford is a man with whom I could walk through life. Don't let me misjudge him, nor be unfair to him. Show me my own heart. Show me if he really loves me and whether I could love him. I am all bewildered, and I want to do what is right. Should I go back to Tilford sometime and try to lead him to know You?"

It was a strange prayer, for somehow it seemed to be going against the promptings of her own heart, but she was so tired and didn't understand herself. At last she arose with a feeling that she had put everything in God's hands and could trust and rest.

 

 

The sun shone forth gorgeously on June the thirtieth, Maris's wedding morning that was to have been. The fact came to her and challenged her attention the first thing when she woke up. Where was Tilford? Was he feeling dreadful about it? Ought she to feel sorry for him? Somehow she couldn't summon any sorrow on that score.

There was something, however, in the atmosphere, or in her own heart, that tinged the day with regret, some pitiful little harking back to the airy things of the world that had occupied so much of her time lately. How she had hoped for a beautiful June day like this for her wedding day! How she had quoted to herself that foolish little saying "Blessings on the bride that the sun shines on!" and hoped it would be hers. Not that she was superstitious, but it was so nice to have all the silly sayings of the world fit in and be promising.

And now was the day she had hoped for, a sky without a cloud, a pleasant breeze blowing just a little, the world full of roses and beauty--and no wedding!

A few tears of hurt pride and broken romance stole out to picket the outpost but were sternly remanded to their own place. Maris meant to have no nonsense today. Not a soul should suspect that she was shaken by the beauty of the day. Indeed, she wasn't even sure she was shaken. It was only that it had come to her with such force last night, and again stronger this morning, that perhaps something more was required of her before this matter was buried forever out of sight. And yet what could she do? Her position had been right. She couldn't have a wedding when Mother and Lexie were sick. That was settled long ago. Even if they were well by some marvelous miracle, well enough for the wedding to go forward, there was no wedding, for there had been no invitations and there were therefore no guests!

Over and over, these pestering thoughts went rampaging through her mind. She could not understand it. She had been so happy last night out there, turning her thoughts to heavenly things. She had felt that never again would she need to be upset by the things of the world, and now here this morning she was all out of sorts. Not exactly regretting what she had given up, but beset by tormenting thoughts and uncertainties. Tilford would of course have told her that she was worn out nursing her sick sister and taking unnecessary burdens upon herself. But what would Lane Maitland say if he knew? And what would God tell her?

She did not yet know about the besetments of a Christian life, nor realize that Satan immediately attacks the way of any soul who leaves the ranks of his followers. But at last she realized that to trust God fully was all she could do.

As the morning wore on, the sun rose hotter, and the air was full of birdsongs and perfume from flowers, but Maris resolutely put all thoughts of disturbing things out of her mind. The matter was settled. It was in God's hands. It was definitely out of hers. If there was anything wrong with what she had done to Tilford, God would surely show her.

She noticed that her father and Merrick looked at her anxiously when she came down to breakfast. They saw the shadows under her eyes and wondered if she were sorrowing. They could not help but notice that Tilford had not been there for days.

They were at the table together for a few minutes, and neither Sally nor the nurse was in the room. There was a bit of constraint upon them all, for everybody realized what day this was and what it was to have meant to them as a family. But it was left to Gwyneth to voice the feeling in all their hearts.

It was just as Sally went out with the empty plate after bringing in more griddle cakes that she mustered the courage. That had been Sally's idea of a proper wedding-day breakfast, griddle cakes and sausage. Sally wanted to make the day as pleasant for Maris as possible.

"This would have been an awful pretty day for your wedding, Maris, wouldn't it?" Gwyneth said in a wistful little tone. She had been upstairs the night before trying to find her own maid of honor dress and hadn't been able to locate it.

Maris drew a little quick gasp of a breath and forced a smile.

"Yes, darling, it's a lovely day," she said, trying to pass it off casually.

Merrick looked up with a frown and kicked his sister Gwyneth under the table.

"Tough luck, Maris!" he said in a tone that tried to sound sympathetic.

Maris looked up with a sudden thrill of pleasure that Merrick, who so obviously had disliked Tilford, should be offering her sympathy. But before she could answer him, her father spoke.

"Maris, I haven't been saying anything. There really wasn't anything to say. But I want you to know that I--that we all--appreciate the beautiful way you have sacrificed yourself and given up your plans and gone sweetly about the new order of things without a murmur or a sign that you were terribly disappointed. It is a great grief to me. It will be a great grief to your mother when she gets well enough to realize what has gone on, that you should have had to put off your wedding. It seems as if we could never make it up to you. But I hope and pray that the Lord may somehow in the future years give you a good measure of blessing, pressed down and running over, for the hard things you are passing through now."