All that day her heart was a little lighter because of the letter which she knew had started on its way; and by dint of keeping herself well occupied and always around with the family, she was able to forget for a little while the tragedy that had so filled the last week of her college days.
Her trunks and boxes arrived and had to be unpacked. She enjoyed putting her things away, though she was constantly coming on something that reminded her of Doris. For one cannot live in the same room with another girl four years and not have every little article they have shared in common bring back experiences.
But her mother and grandmother came back and forth into her room, and Frank dropped in now and then to look over her photographs and question about who was in her class, and the day got itself comfortably away.
Ruddy was sulking. He did not appear in the evening as she had rather dreaded he would. She was not in a mood for her former playmate. She was glad of the family gathered together in the little summer house in the garden behind the house after dinner. Even Grandmother was there in a special chair that Frank brought out for her, soft with cushions.
They sat and watched the garden grow dusky with evening, watched the colors blossom in the sky and in the flower beds. Father discussed the possibility of getting a new car, Grandmother told about her own garden long ago when she was a child, and Frank played about with his dog and came to rest occasionally at his sister’s side with his hand on the dog’s head. It was just a happy homecoming time and Constance was glad in it. She felt like a little girl once more without grown-up problems to decide, the little girl she used to be before she went away to college and learned to doubt, before she had ever come into the presence of death and knew what it was to be afraid of the future.
Then when the dew began to fall they picked up Grandmother, chair and all, she on one side, Frank on the other, and carried her into the house. Afterward Frank got out a new picture puzzle and the two sat over it till it was completed, a great beautiful hunting scene with dogs and horses and red hunting-coats scattered over a lovely landscape.
It was late when Constance went up to her room with a little-girl contentment in her heart.
But when she turned on the light, there was Doris’s photograph on her desk where she had placed it, and there before it lay the little, soft leather Testament that Seagrave had given her, and which she had not read as yet. Then the whole terrible tragedy rushed over her again, and Doris’s pictured eyes looked at her sorrowfully, while Doris’s voice seemed to be speaking to her, “What are you going to do when you die?”
Well, what was she?
Suddenly the imminence of death came back to her in full force again. Death was always just around the corner, and one never knew when it might strike. One must be ready! But how could one be ready?
As if it were a lifeline lying ready at hand, Constance reached out and took up the little Testament, dropping down in a deep upholstered chair and snapping on a reading lamp. She had promised to read this, and it likely held some solution to her problems, yet she was afraid of it, exceedingly fearful of an arraignment she might find within those pages.
It was to John 3:16 that the pages fell open of themselves. How strange! She remembered that old Emil’s book had done the same. Was there something peculiar in the binding of Testaments that made them open always to that verse? Was it the middle of the book or something? No, it was only about a third of it. Did the other third open naturally like that? She closed the book and tried it. No, it must be opening from habit. The owner had turned much to that spot. Had he read it to other dying ones?
Constance began to read and discovered that she knew the words. They were graven deep on her mind. She closed her eyes and repeated them to herself and her consciousness, every word, every little incident, including the fright and terror in Doris’s eyes, and then that inexplicable peace that entered her face before she died. And once more Constance had to face that thought of death herself.
She went back to the beginning of the chapter and read it through. And there was that verse, marked heavily, about being born again, that Seagrave had read on the hilltop that first morning of their acquaintance.
She fluttered the leaves through, remembering how the little book had looked in its former owner’s hand as he turned the pages so familiarly and seemed to know just where to find what he wanted. Why, there were many marked verses! How interesting! It would give her a key, as it were, to his habits of thinking to see what verses he had picked out to mark. Here was one, quite a long passage marked with a single line at the side, and the verse at the beginning and end each heavily underlined with blue pencil: “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. “
She stopped, startled. She was an unbeliever. That was what she had tried to tell him on the hillside. He had not understood. Ah! But when she told him about the pearls he would thoroughly understand.
“For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?” asked the rest of the verse, “and what communion hath light with darkness?”
The verse stabbed her with its truth. Of course, she had known it from the first. He was righteousness and she unrighteousness. In God’s eyes, if there was a God—and she now began to feel there was—she would be counted unrighteous. He was light and she was darkness. It was quite true, and somehow it hurt her.
She read on through the bracketed verses, vaguely understanding the separation line carried through them, and then the other underlined verse made its appeal; she almost felt as if it were spoken directly to herself: “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.”
Yes, but at what price! Coming out and being separate! Was she willing to do that? Forgo the world with all its brightness when she was just for the first time in her life in a position to fully enjoy it? The world to which she had looked forward?
She drew a quick, annoyed breath and turned over to another marked place: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
Crucified with Christ! She shuddered. Was that what Seagrave felt he was? The pleasures of the world, didn’t they draw him at all? What a waste it seemed of a splendid fine life to be like that! Why, that was fanatical, peculiar! Yet he did not seem fanatical. Rather he seemed an unusually strong character with something great behind his belief. Oh, she wished he were here to tell her what all this meant. Of course, one had to die sometime, yet she was young—so young.
But Doris had been young, too. Doris had been a year younger than herself. Youth had not saved her.
She tried to tell herself that that was an unusual happening, an accident. After all, there were not so many accidents. It was not likely that she would die young. And she wanted those years of brightness on earth. She wanted them so very much!
Yet it had been good to have a man like Seagrave near when death came. She shuddered again to think what death would have meant to Doris if Seagrave had not come and talked with her and prayed. Oh, it had been a real something, what he had brought, and she could not help a yearning to have it for herself, only—she did not want to be crucified with Christ. She did not want to shut out all the fun.
She closed the little book and got into bed, but her thoughts were still filled with the words she had read, and when she woke in the morning it was with a feeling of gloom upon her, a burden of death—and yes, sin—upon her. She simply must snap out of this! She must do something to forget her gloom. She had promised it—well, of course he didn’t mean just read it once. She would be fair. She would keep her promise and read it every day from now on. She would read it every morning, and then she would have the whole day to forget it.
So she sat down and read a chapter, choosing it at random, mainly because the page did not seem to have anything marked in it, for she was afraid of any more of his marked v
erses. They probed too deep.
She read through the first twelve verses complaisantly, her mind turning over meanwhile what she should do that morning, and then when she turned the page she started, for there were a lot of verses marked, and they stood out amazingly: “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.”
The very words that Seagrave had quoted to her in that memorable talk in the tearoom, when he had told her that the Lord was coming back again and would raise and bring the bodies of those who sleep in Jesus.
Ah! That would be Doris! She was asleep in Jesus. Nothing else would describe the look she wore in her casket. And God was going to bring her back again! Constance had a sudden conviction that it was all true, that she believed. She was startled at that. She read on curiously, eager to know what it all meant, wishing Seagrave were here to explain more. Of course she had heard this passage before at occasional funerals, though she had never gone to one if she could help it. But the words hadn’t meant a thing. Just picture language, poetry to soften a hard hour.
She read on through the description of that wonderful meeting of God’s own in the air, the church of Christ called home, till she came to those strange words: “Wherefore comfort one another with these words,” and she wished she knew how to get the comfort that the words seemed to imply, but they meant nothing to her but alarm, a dread of something uncanny that she did not understand. The only comfort connected with those words was the memory of Seagrave’s hand upon her head.
She sighed deeply as she closed the little book, laid it down almost impatiently, half wishing she had not read it, yet knowing that the memory of what she had read would cling to her through the day unless she did something strenuous to obliterate it from her mind.
She hurried downstairs with an air of joyousness upon her which she was far from feeling, determined to dispel this cloud that hung over her.
Frank was swinging glumly in the hammock on one end of the porch looking over toward the Fairchild place.
“What’s become of Dillie?” his sister asked him. “Did you succeed in making a contact there?”
“Dillie’s gone to her aunt’s for a visit,” he said gloomily. “She won’t be home till tomorrow.” He spoke as if all the universe must halt until Dillie returned to her home.
“Oh, well, that won’t be long. How about some tennis this morning? Like to play me?”
“Oh, gee! At the country club? Say, that’s great, only—Aw, gee! We’ll just get started and Ruddy or some other dumb egg’ll come along and you’ll go off again.”
His tone was deep dejection. It was his first week of vacation, and he felt that it was beginning like a failure.
“Say, what do you think I am? A quitter?” his sister inquired brightly. “No, sir. I’m engaged to play you all the morning or till you want to stop. And we won’t take anybody else in unless it’s someone you pick. However, I’d rather play singles if you don’t mind.”
“Don’t mind!” said Frank, springing up with alacrity. “Where’d you get that? Don’t you s’pose I’ve heard about your tennis scores? But I didn’t suppose you’d stoop to play with a mere brother.”
“A mere brother is a good thing sometimes,” said Constance with a sisterly grin. “Come on and let’s get breakfast over so we can have a choice of courts before the angry mob arrives.”
“Okay with me!” said Frank with a light in his eyes.
So they played tennis at the country club all the morning, developing such good form that the benches around the court became filled with observers, and more than one young man, old friend, former schoolmate, or neighbor, ventured between sets to petition Constance for her company, but Constance cheerfully refused every one.
“My brother and I are trying each other out after a long separation,” she laughingly told everyone. “It’s a singles contest, and we’ll be at it all morning.”
She could see the sparkle of admiration growing in her young brother’s eyes, and she wondered why it had never occurred to her before to get acquainted with him and try to have something in common between them. He played well, and after his first few self-conscious games began smashing the balls across the net like a professional. Her admiration for his quickness and exactness grew, and the audience on the benches was moved to occasional applause.
They finished with a dip into the pool and drove home just in time for lunch with keen appetites, both sides voting the morning a success.
“Now,” said Constance as they entered the house, “how about driving out this afternoon to that nursery Mother’s been talking about and getting her plants and shrubs for her? We can take the old car and fill it full.”
“Okay with me!” said Frank joyously. “I’m not dated up for anything. Bill Howarth is down to the shore till Monday.”
“Well, I thought we might as well enjoy each other’s company while we had the chance,” smiled Constance. “After Dillie gets back I don’t suppose I’ll see much of you. I have a hunch she’s going to be a pretty good pal.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Frank offishly. “She’s only a kid yet, you know.”
“Oh, I know,” said Constance, “but she used to be pretty good at tennis even when she was twelve years old. I remember her playing with her uncle all that summer he was here.”
“That’s so,” said Frank excitedly. “I don’t suppose we could play on the country club courts though. They usually act kind of high-hat if any of the younger people take the courts.”
“Oh, we’ll get Dad to fix that up for you,” said Constance.
“Say, you’re some sister!” said Frank, wholly won over now. “Tell you what. Dillie’n I’ll practice up and play you an’ Seagrave when he gets home. What?”
Constance’s face flamed scarlet to her great annoyance, but she tried to laugh it off.
“Sure, I’ll play you, but of course I can’t answer for Mr. Seagrave,” and she caught a little breath of a sigh and smothered it. When she got done telling Seagrave what she had to tell him, he wouldn’t want to play tennis with her, she felt certain of that. And she was the more certain since she had read that Bible verse which he had marked, about being separated from the world. He wasn’t one who made friends with unbelievers and unrighteous people, except to try to help them, as he had done for Doris.
Constance was surprised that afternoon at what a good time one could have with a mere brother. Somehow all the ranking and criticism that had grown up through the years since she had left home and gone to school seemed rooted out and swept away. They had a merry time and came home laden with many plants and shrubs and spent the time between dinner and dark setting them out in the garden under their mother’s direction.
“Now,” said Constance, drawing a long breath and feverishly wondering what she could do next to keep from that intensive thinking that had seemed to seize her at the slightest unoccupied moment ever since Doris’s death, “now, what shall we do this evening? This is our day, and we must finish it off in a regular way. Shall we do another picture, or would you like to get your guitar and play duets?”
“Both!” said the eager brother. “Say, you’re great! I wouldn’t need anybody else if I had you. But of course it can’t last. Ruddy or some other poor fish’ll come around and you’ll be off.”
“And you’d get good and tired of just me,” laughed Constance. “You just aren’t used to me, that’s all. But I’m glad we’ve had this nice time together. And we must keep it up whenever we have a chance,” she added with a promise in her eyes.
So they played until they were tired, played all the old songs from high school that Constance used to know, all the new jazzy ones of modern days, a lot of college songs, popular things from radio programs, and then dropped into a sacred tune or two for Grandmother who came down from her room to listen an
d sat smiling, well pleased.
Constance, drumming away at accompaniments of things she had never heard and never hoped to hear again, smiled to herself. She was really pleasing Grandmother and Frank, and in fact the whole family, for they sat around adoringly and seemed too happy to think of bedtime. Perhaps things like this would somehow atone for her joining the church just to get the pearls. Perhaps by the time Seagrave came home she would feel it was quite all right not to tell him at all. She would keep up this good work. It made her feel quite righteous and self-satisfied.
And then she went up to her room, and there was the little book lying on her desk, drawing her irresistibly to open and read again.
Chapter 13
It was remarkable what a hold that little book got on Constance. She was almost afraid to go up to her room at night because she knew inevitably she would read that book; afraid to wake up in the morning because there was the book again, and she had made a kind of pact with her conscience that she would read it night and morning. She was making a virtue of it, building up good works to atone for the past hypocrisy.
On the other hand she was filling her days and evenings just as full as could be, far into the small hours, to keep from having to think, for the little book was slowly, steadily getting her. She had begun to know that she was a sinner! Not just to fear it but to know it.
The Bible had never been an unknown book to her. She had been sent to Sunday school as a child, had gone to church regularly until she went away to school, had been taught many Bible stories at her grandmother’s knee, but never had the old truths of sin and death and salvation through the atoning blood been made very plain to her until that memorable night when she heard Seagrave explain it all to Doris in those few breathless moments while Death tarried at the door to take her.
Oh, she had known these things in a general way, but not in any way that touched herself at all, so that when she came under the influence of unbelief it had done its withering work quickly, and what little truth had been implanted in her heart when young had soon died out. But now, just reading that book and hearing an echo of the clear, believing voice that had spoken some of those words into dying ears seemed to bring her a strange new knowledge of God. She hadn’t as yet much knowledge of what it was all about. The plan of salvation was but vague, the reason for it vaguer, but somehow what she gleaned from the little book was more disturbing than she cared to own even to herself, and to antidote it she plunged into the world with all her might.