Yet she would not give in to him that night. She kept affirming that such sudden love could not be real, that they were not fitted for one another. She tried to remember her father’s good advice and the rules he had given for a perfect marriage. That first one about being unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
“Are you a Christian, George?” she falteringly asked when he had gotten her to the point that she had promised to think about his proposal.
“A Christian? I? Oh, sure!” he answered with assurance. “Is that the thing that’s sticking in your crop? Why, I joined church when I was fourteen, along with a whole bunch of kids, and I been working in church work ever since. They made me Christian Endeavor president when I was sixteen, and before I was twenty, I was secretary of the West Branch Union. Christian, I should say! I’ve sung at almost every meeting of the Branch for the last six years, and I been chairman of the Exec. For all the semi-annual conferences since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Why, sure, you and I would just hang together on those subjects. Oh, I know I’ve been strolling around with this bunch for a while, but I never really belonged. I useta sort of admire Louise, but she’s getting too sporty for me. She’s lazy, too. Take the way she always makes you do the work. And she’s selfish. When I marry, I want a girl that thinks of her home and her husband and wants to make it pleasant for a man when he comes home tired. Oh, sure I’m a Christian. You and I would just be pals on that. I admire a girl that’s religious.”
This was a long speech and seemed to leave something still to be desired in the way of Christian comradeship, but there was no fault about it that Amorelle knew how to put into words. As far as he was enlightened, he seemed to be in sympathy. Perhaps it was her work to enlighten him. Perhaps that was what the Lord wanted her to do. Of course it might not be his fault that he had not been better taught.
They came back at length to the house—without any peanuts—not because George had exhausted his arguments, but because Amorelle was so tired and cold and trembling in every limb that she could scarcely walk another step. Shrinking back from the kiss he insisted on giving her at the door, she sped up to her room and dropped upon her knees beside her bed to try and think out and pray out this new problem which had come upon her so unawares.
She had promised him finally that she would think about the matter carefully, and she wondered, as she climbed wearily into her bed at last, why marriage in so many different forms had to be thrust upon her during this hard winter.
And yet when she thought about George’s fervent words and his eager promises and that strong arm around her, those handsome lips upon hers, in spite of her best resolves there seemed to be something she did not understand drawing her almost against her will to him.
Oh, God, help me! Show me! Save me from doing the wrong thing! she prayed again and again and then began to go back over the question and try to tempt herself with all the advantages that might come to her from a marriage with George. She did not know that she was not really yielding herself to God’s guidance but was rather considering her own advantages.
Her final thought as she dropped into a troubled sleep was, Well, perhaps I’ve been romantic. Perhaps this is really all there is to love, and God has sent it. Perhaps I should not turn it away. It isn’t unpleasant. It might be desirable. It may be I’ve expected too much of love. It may be this is God’s plan for my life. Can I be content with this?
Chapter 11
George didn’t come to see Amorelle the next night, but he called her up on the telephone and called her “darling.” It startled her, but it touched her, too. She had been deciding against him all that day, but when she heard he had to take the evening train for Chicago on business for his office, there came a feeling almost like disappointment. She found she had been looking forward to his coming. She wanted to see if some of her impressions of the night before still held. For instance, that beautiful light in his eyes, that sort of tenderness that had been almost unbelievable and had pled for him against her strongest arguments. If that was real, could she afford to throw it carelessly aside, even though in many ways his upbringing had not been like hers?
She turned away from the telephone with a lonely feeling, and then hugged herself that she had it. Perhaps she did care a little for him after all. Perhaps it was as he said, that she would learn to love him in that fervid way she had always thought lovers loved.
He sent her a big, elaborate box of candy from Chicago. Louise discovered it and kidded her about it. She was annoyed as she felt the color coming into her face, yet there was a strange satisfaction in having the family know that somebody cared enough to send her something.
She thought about that afterward, searched her heart, and told herself that was just pride; it was self-love, and it was a dangerous thing to have around when she had a question like this one to decide.
Sometimes she told herself she hadn’t any question, that it was just ridiculous, that of course she couldn’t even think of marrying a young man like George. She tried to think of George as having been a son-in-law of her scholarly father and shivered a little. She saw for an instant her father’s clear, keen, kindly eyes resting on George as she had known him in these few short months, and somehow the thing seemed impossible to consider.
Yet her father had not been a snob about scholarship. This young man was in a business that was good and honorable. What was it about George that made her feel he didn’t fit with herself? She still wasn’t sure she could love him, but that would probably settle itself when she knew him a little better and had a chance to be with him and think of him in the light of a lover. Was it that there was something innately unrefined about him? She wasn’t even sure of that. All young men and girls nowadays used impudent language that was not what she had been brought up to use, but perhaps these were things that a young man would outgrow, just customs of his environment.
So she reasoned with herself during his absence and found her mind distracted from her Bible study greatly. Well, there was a point. If he would go to her Bible school with her, surely then they would have a great point of contact and perhaps grow to think alike on the big things of life, which of course was the thing that mattered more than anything else.
The morning George got back from Chicago he sent her a box of lovely pink roses, and Amorelle felt almost happy about them for a few minutes. But Louise discovered them almost at once and cast jealous glances and made caustic remarks, and Amorelle perceived that she was not to be allowed to go her way in peace, no matter how things came out.
“Well, you certainly have got old George good and fast!” said Louise. “My word! I never knew him to let out shekels enough to buy roses for anybody before. He must have fallen good and hard. He’s the most tight-fisted old wad I ever saw. I bet he got them at a bargain counter at that. That’s the reason I threw him over. He was never willing to spend a little on a girl.”
So Amorelle took her roses up to her room where their perfume spoke to her eloquently of the young man who had so surprisingly declared that he loved her, and sometimes the thought of his caresses was actually comforting to her. She wondered, could she really be falling in love with George Horton?
That morning there came a letter from Miss Landon that gave her thoughts a little interval and took her back to Rivington and her other proposals of marriage.
Dear Amorelle:
Mr. Lemuel Pike was here this morning and wanted my permission to go through your boxes of books and your father’s desk in search of a paper he had dropped when he called upon your father the last time. He said he had not wanted to trouble you those first few days, and then he suddenly found you were leaving so soon that he only had time to get your permission to go through your things and find his property.
I thought it was very strange that he had waited all these months to come if the paper was so important, but he said he hated to bother me, and he wouldn’t have come now only he found he had to have the paper at once to verify a title. I told him I had no
authority to let anyone go through your things; he would have to get a written order from you. He said he had lost your address, so I told him to write to the Rivington post office and it would be forwarded. I wasn’t sure you would want him to know your address. I wouldn’t. I don’t trust him.
It may be all right, of course, but I thought you ought to know about it. I told Johnny Brewster, and he said he was the worst kind of crook and I better not let him in. He says people all distrust him only they can’t catch him at anything. But maybe you know what it is he wants and can straighten it all out. I hope you can.
I haven’t been so well the last two months. It’s been colder here than usual. A lot of skating on the old pond back of my woods. I see them go by and think how you used to go skating with your little red cap and mittens on. I hope you are having a happy winter. I miss you, and I miss your dear father-minister a lot. I can’t get to church much anymore. I’m sort of giving out I guess.
Very lovingly,
Lavinia Landon
Amorelle wrote a quick reply:
Dear Aunt Lavinia:
Your letter just came, and I am very indignant that Lemuel Pike should annoy you. I never told him he could go through my things, and I can’t understand what he wants with them. I’m sure Father had no papers that belonged to him. There is something peculiar about it all. You know I told you somebody got into the manse just before I left? I haven’t told anybody else, but I was almost sure it was Lemuel Pike. I saw him in the light of his own flashlight. He was hunting around under the study rug. I can’t understand it at all. I didn’t tell the policeman who it was because I didn’t want to get mixed up with him in anything. I never trusted him at all. But it certainly is very odd why he should tell you that. Perhaps he thinks Father had some evidence against him somehow. He used to come to the house occasionally, and Father always looked troubled afterward. I do hope he won’t trouble you again, but if he does, just tell him I never gave him permission to go through anything of mine and I never will. I am quite sure my father had nothing of his. If he makes a fuss, send for Johnny Brewster, or the police if necessary.
If he keeps on bothering you, just tell me and I’ll have the things moved to a storage house. I can’t have you bothered when you are sick.
I have been having a busy winter. It’s not so happy. No one can take the place of my dear father, you know that. But I’m going to Bible school, which I love, and I’m studying bookkeeping, which is also interesting. I seem to find plenty to do, but I do miss all my old friends, especially you, dear Miss Lavinia. Sometimes I’m just hungry to see you. Perhaps I can find a way to visit you next summer somehow, I’m not sure. I do hope you’ll be better. I would love to come and help you and nurse you if you are sick. If I were only nearer to you I would run right over today.
Very lovingly,
Amorelle Dean
After she had mailed the letter, she had a comforted feeling of having visited Glenellen, and she wished she could run in on Miss Landon and tell her all her perplexities. She had never been married, but undoubtedly there had been admirers. Miss Landon was too attractive a woman not to have had proposals of marriage. Her advice would be good she was sure. But somehow she could not write her problems out and make them plain for her friend to judge. She just had to face her own perplexities herself.
Her heart was very heavy, her thoughts troubled. She was drifting more and more toward yielding to George. His golden eyelashes and his merry ways lingered attractively in her mind, and she was so tired of glum looks, cold orders, and a feeling that she did not belong.
Nightly she prayed that she might be shown, but daily she carried her burden herself, not realizing that she was not relying on God but relying on her own judgment to solve her problem.
Then George appeared one night with a gorgeous ring, confessing that he had borrowed her glove to get the right size.
She was not a connoisseur of diamonds, but even an ignoramus could not help but see the depth of light in its clear facets, the beauty of workmanship in its setting. And it was really a regal stone in size, too, quite a little larger than the ring Aunt Clara was wearing.
Amorelle caught her breath in admiration.
“George! What a gorgeous diamond!”
“Yes,” said George with satisfaction. “It is! It’s especially fine. I took a real judge of diamonds to help me pick it out. Put out your hand and let’s see if it fits.”
“But, George! That’s not for me! Why—I—haven’t—given you my answer yet.”
“No, but you’re going to tonight!” said George with confidence. “That’s why I haven’t been bothering you for a few days back. I was waiting till the ring got done. I wanted to put it on and get you marked with my mark the minute you said yes. Come over here on the couch where we can talk without any snoopers coming by in the hall.”
George had come in a half hour before dinnertime, the only time when one could be sure of a few minutes privacy in the house. The rest of the family was usually in their rooms then getting ready for dinner.
George drew her over on the couch and put a possessive arm around her. He stooped and almost reverentially looked deep into her eyes, then laid his lips so gently on hers, so tenderly, that she somehow could not make herself draw back. His physical attraction was getting a hold over her so she could not resist, and it came to her that it would be so much easier and happier to yield and let his love, which seemed to be so genuine and almost rare, take possession of her soul. Perhaps it was because she had resisted that she had not experienced that thrill of joy of which she read when love came to others.
This doubt that she had been feeling about the fineness of his nature seemed almost to be set at nought by the beautiful ring he had brought. The rareness of its beauty surely showed that he himself was rare, and that his love was overwhelming toward her for him to spare no money to get her the finest and the best.
Suddenly she let her lips yield to his for the first time, and he crushed her softly to himself, pressing his lips upon hers. There was a tumult of something strange and almost frightening through her being. Was it rapture? Ecstacy? Was this love? It must be. Suddenly into the wonder of yielding herself there broke a hard, cold, tantalizing voice.
“Well, really! Is this the way you two carry on behind my back? So you’re that kind of a huzzy, are you, with all our soft prating about Bible study?”
It was Aunt Clara, stiff as a ramrod, her eyes like cold steel, looking through her lorgnette at them from the threshold of the hall door.
Amorelle came down from her poor little dream of ecstasy into depths of shame, her cheeks flaming crimson, her startled eyes staring at her aunt wildly, her lips speechless. Oh, what a terrible situation she had allowed herself to be drawn into! What unspeakable things was Aunt Clara thinking about her, and how was she ever to explain?
But George, undaunted by the situation, sprang up and drew her to her feet with him.
“We’ve just been getting engaged, Aunt Clara,” he chirped blithely. “Congratulations, please, and Amorelle wants to show you her ring. Pretty little bit of ice, what?” And he led her unwilling feet close to the irate lady.
“Engaged?” said Aunt Clara with a snort. “Really engaged? You two! You don’t say! Well, I’m sure Amorelle is very fortunate!” And she bent her head condescendingly to look at the ring on Amorelle’s reluctant hand that George held out for her inspection.
Engaged! thought Amorelle with a strange new dismay and clutched for the joy that had filled her only a moment before. Had it really been joy or just a sort of fantasy in which she had lost her head for a moment? Oh, and there was no turning back now, not after what Aunt Clara had said!
But Aunt Clara was inspecting the ring carefully and lifting accusing eyes to George’s face.
“George, that’s real!”
“Of course!” swelled George proudly.
“But it’s very valuable!”
“Yes,” said George with growing pride, “that??
?s what I was just telling Amorelle. I wanted to do the thing right when I did it! Especially for a girl like Amorelle.”
“But how in the world could you, a young man just starting in business, afford to spend the money for a ring like that?”
“Oh, I have money saved up,” boasted George with a swagger, “and diamonds are always a good investment. In these times when banks aren’t so certain it isn’t bad to have a few dimes invested in a diamond. You can always turn ’em into money.”
“That’s quite true, of course,” said the lady with a sudden respect for George. “Amorelle, you’ll have to be awfully careful of that ring. You shouldn’t wear it working around the house, and you should never wear it when you go off alone at night to those strange classes of yours.”
“Yes, I was just going to tell her about that,” said George. “You can’t be too careful when you wear valuable jewels. But then, of course, mostly I’ll be with her when she goes out at night anyway.”
Aunt Clara got that, gave George a thoughtful stare, and then looked at Amorelle, as if suddenly her stock had gone up a point or two.
“Oh!” she said. “Of course! Well!”
“What’s ‘Oh, well’?” snapped in Louise, suddenly tripping down the stairs. Then her sharp eyes lit on the diamond, still held forth in George’s proud hand, and she fairly pounced on it.
“Oh, how gorgeous! George, you don’t mean, not really— that—you and Amorelle! Why you sly brutes you! And you bought that ring for her? Not bought it out and out? You didn’t get it on the installment plan? Oh, George! How simply beatific! Why, George, darling! If I’d known you would have loosened up enough to get me a ring like that I’d have taken you myself! Enoch!” she called to her stepfather, who at that moment came in the front door, “Just gaze on that sparkler!”