The young man gave a startled look at his mother and then turned and looked meditatively out the window. His mother was thickening the gravy for the moment. She was putting in the salt and pepper, a bit of butter, and stirring it while it bubbled smoothly over the fire. Gordon turned back and watched her.
“Did she come back again?” he asked gravely, trying to make his voice sound quite casual.
“Yes, she came back, but she had stayed away longer than usual, and she was hurrying as if she were out of breath. And then about two o’clock a big moving van came driving in and went up to the house and stayed about an hour or more. I couldn’t see so well, but I went up to your window and looked out because I was troubled. I didn’t know but our folks had lost all their money and were moving out. But they didn’t stay long enough to move all that furniture. It might have been just some things that belonged to someone else, or that they were selling or giving away, so my mind was free about that. The van was all closed up, of course, when it came out so I couldn’t tell what like things they were that were taken away.”
“My word, Mother! You certainly are getting to be a nosy little neighbor, prying into other folks’ business. I never knew you to be so curious before,” laughed Gordon, albeit with a thoughtful look in his eyes.
“Well, it’s not exactly curiosity you know, Son,” protested the mother. “I just can’t bear to think of that sweet, pretty little girl having to suffer. I hope it’s not more money troubles. You know, that agent that rented this house to us said the owner had seen reverses and that was why he was willing to rent the cottage.”
“I know.” Gordon was grave again.
“But there are worse things, of course, than losing one’s house and one’s money,” went on the mother. “I couldn’t help wondering, was the child going to marry one of those men that call on her? The fat one or the gray-haired one or maybe the one with the long, thin face and foppish clothes? And maybe she just isn’t happy about it. Oh, I’d like to get my arms around her and get her to let me help her a bit with her decisions. You know that van might have come to take her things away to her future home.”
Gordon made a quick movement with his hand and almost knocked a cup off from the table. He caught it just in time but sent a spoon clattering on the floor.
“Oh, I say, Mother! Aren’t you going a little too far with your wonderings?”
He tried to laugh, but the sober look stayed in his eyes.
“Well, perhaps I am,” the mother said, smiling. “I think perhaps I am making a story out of it. Being a stranger here with not very much to do all day I can’t help being interested in what’s around me. Pretty soon we’ll get acquainted hereabouts and then it will be different. Though I shall never be quite so much interested in any other people, I’m sure. I somehow feel they are in a sense our own folks because we’re renting from them. Now, come, the dinner is ready. Let’s sit down right away. I know you are good and hungry. Listen! Isn’t that a taxi coming in the drive? Maybe it’s a wedding after all.” She laughed cheerily, but Gordon turned sharply around and looked out the kitchen window for a long time and for once forgot to help his mother put the dinner on the table.
There was a bit of delay after all with the dinner, for Mrs. MacCarroll had been so interested in telling the happenings of the day that she had forgotten to put the butter and cream on the table, and then she had to go back to the refrigerator again for pickles and jelly and to the pantry for some crackers for the soup.
Gordon so far recovered himself as to get a pitcher of water and fill the glasses, and then with another glance up at the window he remarked, “There’s no sign of any festivity up at the house, Mother, only two rooms are lit up. And there! There comes the taxi going away. Perhaps her father has arrived. Didn’t you say he was away?”
“Yes,” said the mother. “That’s probably it. Come, let’s get on with the meal. I’m afraid everything will be stone cold. Ask the blessing, child, and let’s forget the neighbors while we eat. Besides, I want to hear all about your day.”
Then Gordon MacCarroll bowed his head and asked that blessing, which was more than a mere saying of grace, and outside the tall hedge his heartfelt petition reached to the lonely girl waiting there in the dark and was imprinted on her memory indelibly.
They had a pleasant time at their evening meal; they always did together, those two. They talked over the developments of the day and Gordon’s work, and they laid their cheerful plans for the future. And then Gordon helped his mother put the kitchen to rights for the night.
“You’d better get right to bed, Son, and make up your sleep. You look dead tired. Do you have to go very early tomorrow morning?”
“No, not till eight thirty,” responded the son cheerfully. “I’m due at the office in the morning to report, and the bosses don’t care to wake at dawn to hear what I’ve done, so for once I can have a real sleep.”
When Gordon had gone to his room and closed his door he stood for a long time looking out his window toward the great house. There were lights in plenty now, from the first floor to the roof, and in a kind of consternation he watched. Then it occurred to him that a single taxi wasn’t likely to make a wedding, and he stood and laughed at himself. He was getting as curious as his mother. Besides, there, the lights were going out again!
But though he turned away and turned on his own light, trying to banish the thought of the little lady from the great house weeping with her lips against a flower, he could not get his mind at rest, and finally he just frankly opened his door and went down the stairs.
“I’m just running out to the garage for a minute, Mother,” he called, and then he went out the back door. A few minutes later he came in with a small white envelope in his hand, and his mother put her head down on her pillow with a smile. What a good dear boy he was, and what blessed fortune was hers that she should have him when all the rest of her family were gone!
And about that time up at the big house the new mistress, having adroitly put Maggie in a very bad light before her husband, had slipped off upstairs to reconnoiter with a gleam of victory in her eyes. She had accomplished her purpose of driving out her stepdaughter sooner than she had hoped.
But perhaps she would not have been so sure of her victory if she could have seen the tired, troubled look on her husband’s face when he came out in the kitchen to talk to Maggie and try to get her to reconsider her rash resignation. “What’s this Mrs. Disston has been telling me, Maggie, that you’re going to desert us? That surely can’t be right. I told her I thought there must be some mistake. I told her it must be merely some little misunderstanding. You’ve been with us so long, Maggie, we won’t know what to do without you. I never thought you would leave us.”
“I wouldn’t, sir, not for a minute if ’twas just yourself an’ Miss Diana. I’d stick by you till there wasn’t a stroke of work left in me. But it’s herself I cannot abide. She an’ I could never stay by in the same house. It was bad enough her visitin’ when the missus was here to manage, but now, her with the airs she takes, I no can bide an’ work for her.”
The master’s eyes grew stern.
“Nonsense, Maggie!” he said sharply. “I’m afraid Diana has been putting notions in your head. Diana is a foolish child who will get over her pettishness in a day or two and everything will be all right.”
“Miss Diana didn’t need to put notions in my head. I had them before she did. If you’d ever tried to get a meal in this kitchen with that limb o’ Satan around you’d know without bein’ told, and I’m no bidin’ an’ that’s all there is to it. I’m only here tonight to give you the letter.”
“Letter?” The father turned a grave, puzzled look on her.
Maggie fumbled in the capacious bib of her apron and finally brought out Diana’s letter. “I was to give it to you where there was no one else by. She wanted you should read it by your lone. After that I’ve no more to do with it. I’m packin’ now an’ leavin’ the house tonight, an’ you needn’t pa
y me the wages that’s comin’ to me unless you like. I’m goin’ just the same.”
The man took his daughter’s letter with a hand that trembled and tried to make his voice stern as he searched the face of the old servant. “Maggie, have you been helping my daughter in this nonsense? Did you help her to go away? Did you put this idea in her head?”
“If you mean did I try to comfort her when I saw her grievin’ her heart away an’ cryin’ her pretty eyes out by her lone, yes, I did. If you mean did I help her get her bit things together when she said she was goin’ away, sure I did! But for puttin’ the notions in her head, no! She had the notions herself, an’ rightly. An’ if you had not been as blind as a bat you would have seen it yourself before it was too late!”
Anger rose in the father’s face, and he lifted his head haughtily, preparing a stern rebuke. But Maggie went around the room doing little last things, hanging up her dishcloths, hanging the dishpan on its hook, closing the cupboard door with a finality that seemed to have a strange foreboding, and suddenly the master of the house realized that his time might be short and he was losing another link in the chain that had made up the home life all these years. Suppose Maggie should carry out her purpose and disappear, too, and he would have lost a valuable clue to finding his foolish little girl?
“Maggie,” he said, and there was almost an appeal in his voice, for somehow he began to realize that he must have this woman on his side, “where is my daughter?”
“She didn’t tell me aught about where she was goin’ save that she was on a visit. I gathered she might see some relatives an’ perhaps some friends, too. I didn’t ask her. I minded it was none of my business. But if you’re thinkin’ she’ll be comin’ back, you’ll find yourself grandly mistaken. She’ll not come back while that woman is mistress or my name’s not Maggie Morrison. You brought the hussy here, an’ now you’ll have to abide by your own act.”
“Maggie!” said Mr. Disston coldly. “You are forgetting yourself. You are presuming on your long connection in our home. I don’t want to hear any more such impertinence!”
“No, I’m not forgettin’ myself,” said Maggie arrogantly, “I’m just statin’ fact. But I’m done now, an’ I’m goin’ up the stair to get my bit things an’ leave you. I’ve nothin’ more to say except one thing. If you’re ever alone an’ need me, just send for me, an’ I’ll come back. But not whilst that hussy is in the house as mistress. I cannot abide her, an’ I’d not sleep under the same roof with her. She’s a hussy, an’ that’s all there is to it, an’ you’ll find it out to your own sorrow soon enough! Good-bye!” And dashing away the tears, Maggie stormed up the back stairs to her room, and the master went to his library with his letter and locked the door to read it.
And over across the lawn a young man, a stranger, knelt in the moonlight with a letter in his hand and prayed for a girl he did not know, whom the Lord had laid upon his heart.
And out through the night and the darkness, into a new country, the train was hurrying along mile after mile carrying a sorrowful girl far away from all that she knew and loved. A girl who lay with her face against a handful of pale carnations and kept them wet all night with her tears.
Anger and prayer and tears, the breath of flowers watered by bitter tears, a girl groping in terrible sorrow and darkness.
Chapter 10
The train drew into the station an hour late, and Diana, pale with weeping and the long vigil, came out into the strange station and looked around her. She had traveled often with her father but very little by herself. She was not used to looking after the details of travel, and she had never been to this city where the aunt of her mother’s lived. Now that she was here she shrank inexpressibly from meeting her. She had half a mind to turn around and go back, only where could she go? She was an exile from home, a wayfarer and a stranger on the face of the earth. The realization of what it was going to mean swept over her as she followed the porter carrying her luggage, and such a wave of homesickness and heartsickness came over her that she felt she simply must drop right down there on the platform and give up.
But instead she followed the porter to the taxi stand, gave her directions clearly, and climbed into the cab, heartily wishing she had never come in search of this unknown aunt whose only contact during the years had been an occasional letter and a gift of a handkerchief or collar at Christmas. Why had she come here to her? Why hadn’t she chosen one of her mother’s friends and confided in her? Why hadn’t she gone even to Maggie’s sister’s for a while as the good old servant had several times during yesterday suggested?
Oh, she knew the answers to all those questions. She had thoroughly canvassed the whole matter during the watches of the night, and it had seemed that this was the only refuge she could depend upon that was far enough to elude the indomitable Helen. So here she was, and the immediate future had to be faced.
Yet she was unable to find any help for her mind as she was whirled through one unfamiliar street after another, out into the suburbs. It was a pleasant street into which they finally turned, a bit old-fashioned, not in the least like the wide highway on which the Disston estate was situated. Well, she couldn’t expect that, of course. She was an exile now and must be content with what she found.
Presently they stopped in front of a large old-fashioned house surrounded by a dismal yard containing a few scraggly trees. It looked comfortable enough but a bit neglected, as if no one had cared about it for a good many years. Diana gave a quick comprehending glance, and her heart dropped several degrees. It wasn’t a pleasant outlook. Still, there was a yard, and it was not a bad neighborhood. All the houses had more or less ground around them, and there were even one or two little cottages that had almost a cheerful look. This house where she was going seemed to rather dominate the street, as if its past respectability gave it the right. Yet there was nothing really attractive and welcoming to make it seem like a refuge in her distress. It was comfortable and solid and old-fashioned, that was all.
Diana’s heart beat wildly while she paid the fare and got out of the taxi to look around her. It suddenly seemed to her a very great breach of etiquette that she had sent no word ahead to announce her coming. She should at least have sent a telegram to ask if it would be convenient. Perhaps even now she should drive back to the station and telephone to ask if she might come. Yet that would seem very odd to the taxi driver. Of course, it was none of his business what she did if she paid him, yet he would be likely to think she was crazy. Well, she was here now and of course she must go on. She could say she was taking a trip and had stopped off to see her aunt. Strange it hadn’t occurred to her to think of this before. She had been so taken up with her own troubles that this end of her journey had not been a consideration at all.
She walked slowly up to the house, which seemed to grow more forbidding the nearer she went. The taxi driver was following with her bags. She wished she had told him not to mind and tried to carry them herself, though they were heavy. Then she would be rid of him and could even turn back if she liked.
As she mounted the steps to the wide porch she noticed a dilapidated doll flung abandoned under a porch chair, suggesting the presence of a child. A child? The aunt had no children! She was supposed to be living alone with an old servant. But perhaps the servant had a child. A child, even the child of a servant, would bespeak a little cheer. Diana drew a deep breath and told the driver to leave the bags on the porch. Then she put out a timid hand and raised the old-fashioned knocker.
The knocker was loose and echoed through the house as if it were made of sounding boards. Diana shrank away from the door and wished again that she had not come. Then she heard footsteps coming, and she felt that frightened sinking in her heart again. What should she say? How should she explain her sudden appearance? How could she tell an unknown relative what had happened in her life. A stranger! This woman she had come to see was in reality a stranger! And now she remembered that her mother had said she never approved of her marriage to St
ephen Disston. She had wanted Mother to marry an older man by the name of Eldridge who had two half-grown children by a former marriage and a handsome house across the street. That must be the Eldridge house over there, built of stone with elaborate casements and ornate columns. Suppose Mother had married him and lived there! Diana shivered at the thought and turned to meet the dowdy girl who opened the door. Then suddenly Diana didn’t know what to say. Why hadn’t she planned this all out?
But she summoned her senses and asked if Mrs. Whitley was in.
The girl was frankly staring Diana up and down, admiring her clothes. There was no mistaking that look, and Diana was suddenly conscious of her heavy heart beneath her chic garments. She had a feeling that presently the girl would see that heart, too, and wonder. Then the girl came to herself and answered, “No, she doesn’t live here.”
“Doesn’t live here!” repeated Diana, startled. “Why, isn’t this Moreland Avenue? Isn’t this number 425?”
“Sure,” said the girl, “but she doesn’t own this place anymore. My father bought this place over a year ago.”