And when she could no longer put away the memory of looks and words she had heard at the meeting, she recklessly drank, glass after glass, knowing that she was on the way to being very drunk but feeling that at least her thoughts would no longer torment her.
The third day she came to herself. After a long sleep and a delicious breakfast for which she had no appetite, she looked about the elegantly appointed room with distaste and turned sick to the soul with the thought of the life she was living.
As clearly as if he stood there at the foot of her bed she seemed to see her brother, looking at her with those keen, earnest eyes, reproaching her with having somehow missed the meaning of life. Then she seemed to hear an echo of the song he had sung in the meeting that night.
Around her then trooped the members of that unique lovely family of Shannons, knit together with a beautiful love that she had never seen anywhere else. The people she was with now were all for themselves, each striving to be livelier than the other, each trying to prove that hearts did not ache nor courage fail, that there were no sordid things in the world, that all the days were rolling joyously by toward a common natural desirable end and nobody had longings for anything better. But oh, it was not true. This was not joy. This loathsome physical lassitude; this intermittent fever of riot. What was there about it all that was desirable?
If she went on and married one of these companions who waltzed through the days and settled down contentedly to a continuous round of this sort of thing, how could she endure it through a normal lifetime?
Suppose she married Errol, and went to live in one of his fabulous castles abroad, and went on and on through the days? A castle might be interesting for a few months, but even that would pall in a short time. Just the old round of pleasure, with no real pleasure in it! Why did one have to live anyway? Why not just find a comfortable way out? There was so much that was sordid and useless!
She shuddered and pushed the handsome tray of food away from her. Well, at least she had escaped Ivor and Errol for a few days, and that was worth something. But tomorrow she would have to go home. The house party would be over, and everybody else would be going. And there would be Ivor and Errol once more, and the problems all to be dealt with again!
She sighed as she reached for a cigarette and then suddenly withdrew her hand. This was only part of it all. To dull the senses for a few more minutes! To go on with the round of wearisome entertainment. Why carry on any longer? Why not find some way out, or around, or over it all?
If only she knew how to be like Dana. Or like his friend Bruce. But it was likely too late for that. That kind of life that was so clean had to be started when one was very young, of course. If she tried to go that way now, she would be pulled down by the weight of all her past.
Perhaps, if she went to work, some kind of work, she might manage to be different.
These thoughts idly drifted through her mind as she prepared for the day. She could tell pretty well before she went downstairs just what each hour was going to bring forth. She wondered what those others would be doing. Dana and the rest. She did not wonder about Lisa because she well knew every minutest detail of the program at home. But she tried to think out those others whose lives she knew so little.
This was Sunday, and they would likely be going to church. Would it be like that meeting she had attended? No church she had ever known was like that, of course, but then neither were the Shannons like the other people she knew. It was thinkable that they would find a church like themselves.
Well, suppose she were to try to carry out a program like theirs, how would she begin, say, today? Suppose she were to go downstairs and tell them she was going to church? How they would laugh! They would tell her of their plans. Walks and rides and picnics, maybe a hunting party, billiards, cards, tennis--or was it too cold for that?--swimming in the indoor pool that the house boasted? And if she persisted in going to church they would try to send her in a car. No telling how far it was to the nearest church. Or, if she insisted on walking, there were at least three young men who would want to go with her, unless she could succeed in evading them all.
Oh, why bother? It was best just to take life as one found it and let it go at that. Perhaps when she got back to the city she could make changes, find that mission again and find out what was the secret of those happy, contented faces. Maybe it was only that they were prosy people who were easily satisfied and took small things as a foundation for pleasure, things that would not satisfy her any better than her own present life.
Still, there was Dana. He must have inherited some of the same nature as herself. And there was that Mr. Carbury. And there were the Shannons!
Over and over again she went, always coming back to that strange meeting she had inadvertently attended.
When she finally went downstairs the morning was well gone, and there was no time to consider doing any of the erratic things her mind had suggested as possibilities.
The casual breakfast at the hour a later meal should have been served, the lazy excitable company, the carelessly informal clothes, all combined to make her feel the hedge of worldliness that was about her life. The oppression of custom, of group-habits and opinions, the hopelessness of disentangling herself from the order that she had known all her life! Why not drift with the tide?
So she took her place among the guests, tasted of the different delicacies, toyed with her wineglass, and finally left it by her plate with only a sip or two missing. There came a great distaste in her soul for all that she had yet known, a longing to get away and rest till this ache went out of her heart and she could see things more clearly.
As the day progressed she kept comparing the group about her to her brother and his friends.
They rallied her on her silence, her lack of appetite, and called to her to come and join their lightness. But as the afternoon waned and liquor flowed freely, she withdrew from the revelers about her and went and sat down by an older woman, with a sudden longing to ask an older and wiser one what was the meaning of it all and why one had to live.
But when she had taken the chair opposite where she could watch her, she saw a look in her face that she recognized as like the look in Lisa's face, and she had to prod herself to carry out her purpose.
"Are you happy?" she asked the woman suddenly, right out of the round of laughter and forced merriment that surged about them.
"Happy?" chanted the woman. "Happy? Say that again, girl! I'd almost forgotten there was such a word. Happy? She wants to know if I am happy! Well, listen, young thing, I haven't been happy since the day when I was five and sat under an oak playing tea party with acorns for cups and green leaves for plates, and my nurse came out and told me my mother had been killed in an accident."
"But you've lived a long time since then," said Coralie anxiously. "Hasn't any of it brought you happiness?"
The woman looked at her almost stupidly and laughed, with a bitter ring in the end of her mirth.
"Happy? Oh, maybe a day now and then. Of course, I've been married three times, but they were all alike. They loved themselves more than me, and I was left with dead hopes and no memories worthwhile. Happiness! Is there ever any happiness in earth? Ask the waiter to pass me another glass, won't you? I can't bear to think about it."
An ardent man, who wasn't quite himself anymore, took her out for a walk in the grounds at sunset, but she had not been drinking enough herself to enjoy his foolish gabble and was glad to get back into the house again. Back to the babbling, the games, the foolish talk, the aimless shouting and empty laughter. Was it always like this? How strange it was to be among all these and not be a part of them, and to have in place of her former high spirits a bitterness toward life itself! How did she get into a state like this? Was it just because she was comparatively sober?
With a sudden resolve she slipped away to her room. No one was noticing her. Even the young man who had been asking her to dance had been easily appeased by another girl.
Hidden away in
her room she lay down in the dark behind her locked door and faced her situation, with a brain too weary by her round of thinking to suggest any way out of her present mental state, or her present situation. In the morning, before the others awoke she would steal away and take the early train.
To that end she arose very early, before daylight, hastily packed her belongings, wrote a blithe note of farewell and apology to her hostess, and went boldly out of the house and down the drive toward a little nestling village where a train might be supposed to be, carrying her own suitcase, a thing she had never done in her life before.
Somehow she felt like a new being as she walked briskly along the drive and down the silent road, with the shimmer of rose and gold heralding the sunrise all over the sky. There was excitement and exhilaration in the adventure of escaping without attendance, almost like that she had felt sometimes in school carrying out some episode.
The exhilaration stayed with her almost all the way to the city, and then as the first sight of the New York skyline came into view a vision of the home she was going to struck her, and she was suddenly weak with the dread of it. All the thought of the apartment, room by room, came to her, each one drearier than the preceding one, and a little shiver went over her. She didn't want to go back. The whole place would be lit with the lightning glance of Lisa when she found out about the money. Would it have happened yet? Would Mr. Brewer have telephoned her about it Saturday after she left him? No, for Lisa would surely have called her up at the house party. So it would likely happen today, late this morning, and it was going to be an ordeal to meet, any way she planned it. Lisa was always very cross and easily irritated on Monday, for Sunday was a heavy day at the apartment and often continued till the small hours of the night--or morning. Lisa's nerves would be shot, and she might go to all lengths. She certainly would make it as hard for her daughter as possible, and keep at it until Coralie gave in and let her have all the money she wanted.
But she wasn't going to do that this time. It was high time she stood up to Lisa. For if Lisa kept on this way, and married Ivor, and then perhaps got sick, Coralie knew she would have to take care of her. Ivor never would. He would likely vanish. And if she didn't save the money now, there wouldn't be anything.
Almost the girl thought of such a possibility with calm, because she would rather have anything than to have Ivor in the scene.
When they reached the city Coralie was still perturbed in her mind. For now she saw unpleasantness looming imminent, and she didn't know just how she was going to meet it. Should she go into the fury, as had been her habit on occasion, and try to outdo, or at least equal, Lisa in a tantrum? No, she had never got anywhere doing that. Lisa was at her best under such circumstances, and eventually she herself would weary of the clamor and turbulence and give in. She had always done so. For Lisa was stronger; she knew it, and Lisa knew it. There was always a place where Coralie would weaken and give in. There was in her a lack of hardness, which Lisa never lacked. Therefore Lisa could always triumph when she wearied her antagonist to the limit. No, she must think up some other method. Of course, she could threaten to tell Ivor or Errol, but that might involve her with them, and she would rather give up every cent she had than to have anything further to do with either of them. No, she must think this thing out and have a regular plan. Oh, if she only had a wise one to help!
There was her brother, of course, but there was still some pride left in her. She couldn't go to him and tell him everything. She couldn't bear to let him know the sordid life they lived. For she had caught enough vision of what his ideals must be to make her shrink from lowering herself in his esteem. Just why she felt this way she didn't know. She hadn't time now to argue it out with herself, but she couldn't go to Dana except as a last resort. Though it was a comfort to remember that he was in New York and would in all likelihood do something to help her if she did call for help.
But why should she need help? She had always been sufficient to herself in emergencies. She could carry this through somehow. Only she seemed to have lost interest in life. Why did she want to carry it through? There was nothing that thrilled her anymore, nothing that she really cared about.
She drew a deep sigh as she stepped from the train to the platform and followed the crowd up the stairs.
But in the great station she stared about her aimlessly. She didn't want to go right home. She wanted to come to some decision first, plan some line of action and go home to carry it out at once, not go home as undecided as she was when she went away last week. Nothing could be decided at home. Lisa dominated everything there, even one's thoughts. She must outline her course and then follow it, no matter what anybody else said.
So she went into the waiting room and sat down, but her thoughts were just as much at sea as they had been all the way down in the train, and at last she got up and began to walk about impatiently, pausing at the newsstand to glance over the magazines with unseeing eyes, drifting on up the marble stairs to the shops on the street floor, stopping at each window and looking at each object displayed, without comprehending anything. Finally she arrived at the flower shop almost next to the street door. Just outside was a taxi. She should take it home and in a very few minutes be in an atmosphere that would dispel all this doubt and uncertainly and put her right back into the deadly despondency and desperation that had sent her off to that house party. But she didn't want to go back yet. She wasn't ready to face Errol and fight against his attentions. She wasn't ready to meet Lisa's storm of fury when she found out what she had said to Mr. Brewer.
Yet, if she turned and went down those stairs again to the waiting room and sat there for hours, she wouldn't be any more ready than she was now. Because she hadn't it in her to be ready. She needed something outside of herself to help her face this, but she didn't even know what it was she needed. It was no use! She was destined to be unhappy no matter what, and why did she try to protest against it? This was what Lisa had wished on her when she carried her away with her, carried her out of her natural home and inheritance! If Lisa had only left her with her father, she would perhaps have grown up like Dana and had some knowledge of how to deal with the hard things in life.
Suddenly it all came over her how hopeless and forlorn she was, and most unexpectedly two great tears burst forth from her lovely eyes and splashed down her cheeks.
She wasn't a crying person, and she was furious at those two tears. What was the matter with her anyway? She had cried before Dana, too. It was too childish! Why, she never used to cry, even when she was a child!
Frantically she plunged her hand into a trifling pocket and brought out a handkerchief, which she was about to stealthily and delicately apply to the splashes of tears on her cheeks, when suddenly she felt a touch on her arm! She turned startled, indignant, and looked up straight into the eyes of Bruce Carbury!
Then a great light of wonder blazed into her eyes, and she stared at him as if he were not real.
Chapter 13
"Oh!" she said in a pitiful little cry that was wholly involuntary. "Oh, how did you happen to be here?" There was something almost like fright in her voice, and he looked at her with a deep tenderness in his eyes.
"Please excuse me," he said gently. "I shouldn't have intruded perhaps, but I happened to identify you just as those two tears rolled down, and I wondered if you were in trouble and I could be of any assistance. I don't want to annoy you, but I'd greatly like to be counted friend enough to help if there is anything I can do."
"But, I don't understand," she said, lifting bewildered eyes to his face. "How could you happen to come along just when I was needing you? Just when I was wishing I could talk to someone who would understand and explain?"
He smiled down at her.
"Were you wishing that?"
"Oh, yes!" she said with a quick little gesture of desperate need. "I was wishing so I could see you or Dana and ask you something. It seems so strange you should have come just now. How did you happen to be here?"
&nbs
p; "Why," explained Bruce, "I am on my way to a train, and I looked around and there you were! And then those tears came, and I couldn't go by and leave you in trouble. Come! I have at least fifteen minutes before my train leaves, perhaps twenty. Let's walk down to the waiting room and find a quiet corner. One can say a great deal in fifteen minutes."
He took her arm quietly and folded it under his own, turning her away from the window, and fell into place with her.
"But--I oughtn't to take your time!" she gasped, even while the sound of her voice showed her relief.
"That's all right," said Bruce. "What time there is before my train leaves is at your disposal. Don't waste words protesting. Tell me your trouble as briefly as possible."
He watched her face as he spoke. It was like a child's grasping at a hope in the midst of a bewildering trouble.
"Well," she said, "then tell me how to be what you call 'saved.' I've been thinking about you all, and the faces of the people I saw in that meeting, they looked so happy, and I've figured it out that perhaps being saved is what makes them different from us. You see I've never heard of this being saved before. I've never been happy, though I've always been grasping after happiness."
Bruce's eyes were fine with tenderness, and his voice husky with feeling, as he laid his hand gently over hers and said: "Poor little girl!"
The tears almost came again at his sympathy, but she was coming back to herself, struggling with this unwonted feeling. Also the time was short before he would leave, and she must get all the information possible to help her to face her own problems.
Then after an instant's thought he spoke.
"The way to be saved is simple," he said, "and you're right, it makes all the difference in the world between sorrow and joy."
"Yes?" she said eagerly. "I wondered. Well, what must I do?"
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved," answered Bruce quietly, speaking very slowly and gently.
Coralie seemed to hang on his words, but she still looked bewildered.