But Hannah was suddenly sent for to attend her sister who had developed pneumonia. She went away, expecting the same neighbors who had stayed the night before to come again to be with Amorelle, but they, in turn, understood someone else was to be there. And so the girl was left alone in the house that seemed so silent and empty, and for the first time since her father’s death, she was absolutely by herself.
She was secretly relieved not to be under watchful eyes. Everyone had been so kind, and there had been someone continually with her. There had been no chance even to weep. Indeed she had scarcely shed a tear. So now, knowing that she was all alone, she went up to her room in the darkness and flung herself across her bed, letting her desolation sweep over her.
Then for the first time the tears had their way, breaking in a healing flood over her exhausted young soul.
It seemed a long time that she lay there, sobbing into her pillow, feeling that all the waves and billows of life had gone over her and left her alone, forgotten on the shores of life. And then like a faraway echo of her dear father’s voice, there came to her words that he had so often of late repeated to her when they were sitting together at twilight, or when he was lying on his bed during his illness.
Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God….I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.
And so, resting on the promises that she knew would never fail her, she sank to sleep at last.
It was bright morning when she woke, a trifle later than usual. She had been aroused by the sound of footsteps coming up the path to the house. Had Hannah come back? She sprang up quickly, flung on some garments, and rushed downstairs.
Chapter 2
Amorelle unlocked the front door of the manse, threw it open, and the spring sunshine flooded in and fell across the hall floor. It startled her to see that the sun could shine brightly in a world that had become so dark to her. It was almost like a blow, that sunshine going on just as if nothing had happened.
But Amorelle had no time to consider, for Mrs. Brisbane stood on the front porch, a plate covered with a napkin in her hand, her eager little gimlet eyes boring into the girl’s consciousness uncomfortably.
“Good morning. Am’relle,” she said, stepping into the hall with assurance. “I just thought I’d run over and see how you got through the night. Did you sleep much? I don’t believe you did. You look kinda peaked.”
“Oh, I’m all right, thank you, Mrs. Brisbane,” said Amorelle, summoning a wan smile. “Yes, I think I slept some.”
“Well, I suppose you’re not to be blamed for grieving. Your pa certainly was a good man, but you’ve got your own life to live, you know, and it don’t do to give way to one’s feelings. Your pa certainly wouldn’t have wanted you to do that. He was a sensible man, a very sensible man. I always said that about him, even though he didn’t have very good health recently. And then you’ve got to think of his gain, you know. He’s passed to his reward, and you wouldn’t want to bring him back, you know, into this world of sin and misery.”
Amorelle’s lip quivered suddenly, and she caught her breath in a quick way that was almost like a sob as Mrs. Brisbane’s pious tone swept ruthlessly over her sensitive consciousness. Then she set her lips in a firm, controlled line.
“Won’t you sit down, Mrs. Brisbane,” she said politely, motioning toward the shabby manse parlor. “It was very kind of you to come and inquire. But I’m quite all right, thank you.”
“Well, I always said you were a brave girl,” said the caller, giving her another searching glance as if still hoping to find some evidence of weakness. “Yes, I’ll sit down for just a minute, but I can’t stay. I’m putting up crab apples today, and I must get at it. But I just thought I’d run over and see if you were all right, and I brought you just a taste of hot biscuits I made for breakfast this morning. Have you had your breakfast yet?”
“Oh, that’s very nice of you, Mrs. Brisbane,” said Amorelle, trying to make her voice sound steady. “No, I haven’t had my breakfast yet. I didn’t seem to feel hungry. But perhaps this will help me to eat.”
She took the little plate offered graciously and lifted one corner of the napkin, trying to look interested.
“Oh, they smell delicious! You do make such wonderful biscuits always. It was very kind of you to think of me.”
“Well, I didn’t think Hannah would likely bother to make anything hot for your breakfast, so I thought I’d just run over with these,” said Mrs. Brisbane with a gratified tone to her voice. “Hannah never was one to make hot breads much, was she? Has she got your breakfast ready? Why don’t you call her to put these where they’ll keep hot till you sit down?”
“Why, Hannah isn’t here this morning, Mrs. Brisbane. Her sister was taken very sick last night with pneumonia and they came for Hannah to nurse her!”
“And she went off like that and left you all alone in the house! The first night after a funeral! Well, upon my word! And who stayed with you?”
“Oh, I didn’t need anybody to stay with me,” smiled Amorelle wanly. “I wasn’t afraid.”
“Well, but that wasn’t hardly respectable!” said Mrs. Brisbane indignantly. “I’m surprised at Hannah!”
“Oh, Hannah wasn’t to blame,” said Amorelle. “She was distressed about leaving me, but I told her there were plenty of people I could call upon, and she mustn’t think of such a thing as waiting a minute. But I really was all right, Mrs. Brisbane. I rather wanted to be alone and quiet just for a little.”
“Well, it isn’t good for you, and it mustn’t happen again. You’ll just come over to our house to sleep tonight. I won’t hear to anything else.”
“You are very kind,” murmured Amorelle with a troubled look in her eyes. “I’m not just sure what I’m going to do yet. I appreciate your invitation, but I think perhaps Hannah may be back tonight. She thought her sister from Barlow might be over to take her place. It really isn’t worthwhile for me to bother anybody else. I’m just as well off here, and I’ll be having plenty to do.”
Mrs. Brisbane’s sharp eyes went around the room surprisingly.
“Yes, I suppose there will be plenty to do, but you’ll hardly know how to go about it, will you? Didn’t I hear your father had a brother?”
“Yes, Uncle Enoch. He lives in the West.”
“Strange he wasn’t here at the funeral.” The sharp eyes searched the girl’s sensitive face.
“Why, he had a sprained knee,” explained the girl, “and wasn’t able to travel. He telegraphed. He said I was to come on and visit them for a while.”
“H’m!” said the caller. “He has a family then. One would have supposed some of them would have come to the funeral. His only brother! It would only have been decent.”
“Well, you see, Aunt Clara is Uncle Enoch’s second wife. We don’t know her very well. I don’t suppose she would have thought it necessary. My Aunt Jean, Uncle Enoch’s first wife, died over ten years ago.”
“Weren’t there any children?”
“Aunt Clara has a daughter, by her first husband. She’s a girl about my age.”
“H’m! That don’t sound so good for you. Didn’t your Aunt Clara write, too, inviting you?”
“Not yet,” said Amorelle wearily. “She’s scarcely had time.”
“Well, are you intending to go?”
“Oh, I’m not sure what I’ll do,” said the girl, passing a frail hand over her eyes. “You know I really haven’t had time to think anything about it.”
“It’s an awful pity you couldn’t just stay here,” said the visitor, looking around the room speculatively. “If they should get a young minister, and he should be unmarried, it might be just natural for him to take to you, and then you could just stay here and the manse would be all furnished. It would be a real godsend to a poor, young minister.”
“Oh mercy! Mrs. Brisbane, please don’t talk like that!” said Amorelle desperately.
“Why,
why shouldn’t I, child? It would be a perfectly natural thing for a young minister to marry a minister’s daughter, and so economical, too—save moving and buying furniture. I heard some folks talking down at the Ladies’ Aid the other day, the day your father died. They said if anything happened to him, they thought we ought to have a young minister next time. A change was a good thing. And some of them mentioned that Mr. Cole that’s been holding evangelistic services over at Claxton Center. They do say he’s open for a church, and he’s real spiritual for a young man. Of course, he’s lame in one leg, but you wouldn’t mind a little thing like that. Only some said they thought he was already engaged. Only, of course, engaged isn’t married, and there’s many a slip.”
“Oh, Mrs. Brisbane! Please,” pleaded Amorelle. “Please don’t say such things, even in fun.”
“Why, I don’t see why you feel like that!” said the woman, looking at the girl’s troubled face in astonishment. “I’m only suggesting it would be awfully convenient if things would fall out that way. You know you’d really be a lot happier if you were married. That’s a girl’s natural lot, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of about it. I said last night to Mr. Brisbane that it’s a pity some well-fixed bachelor here in the town didn’t come forward and marry you. At a time like this, you being all broke up this way, it wouldn’t be necessary to be formal and wait a long time. It would only be kind to get things settled up for you. I said to Mr. Brisbane, I said, ‘And I presume they would, only Amorelle’s always been so choosey, never really going with any of the young men, just good friends with all.’ It really wasn’t called for, Amorelle. You weren’t the minister, and you had your own life to live. I always said it wasn’t right you shouldn’t have had any beaux. Your father ought to have had more forethought.”
Amorelle fairly quailed before this avalanche of opinion. But when her caller reached the point of criticizing her beloved father so recently separated from her, her eyes flashed indignantly.
“Mrs. Brisbane,” she said with a gentle dignity, “that’s enough! Too much! I don’t want to get married! And I don’t want to hear about it now, either.”
“Oh now, Amorelle, don’t be foolish! You’ve got your future to consider, and there’s nothing immodest in a girl discussing the possibilities of her marriage. I’m only being kind to you, saying what your own mother might say if she were here. And I say that if some well-fixed young man should come forward and offer to marry you, I think you should accept him. I think the whole parish would bear me out in feeling that way. And there’s plenty here could do it, too. There’s Carson Emmons. His wife’s been dead a good year and he’s had seven different housekeepers. It really would be to his advantage to get a good wife. You’d make a good mother for his poor little, peaked twins, and you’d run his house much more economically than any housekeeper. And see how well you’d be fixed. A nice two-story house on the edge of town and a new car and everything!”
“Oh, Mrs. Brisbane!” Amorelle’s face was the picture of disgust, but it was no hindrance to the voluble woman.
“No, now, Amorelle, don’t be so modest. It’s perfectly right what I’m telling you. I haven’t a bit of doubt that if Carson Emmons thought you’d accept him, he’d come running. He just needs some good mother to talk to him, and I wouldn’t mind being the one!”
“Mrs. Brisbane!” There was horror in Amorelle’s tone now.
“No, I wouldn’t!” went on the caller, now thoroughly started on a campaign for the good of her minister’s orphaned daughter. Mrs. Brisbane loved to set the world right. She felt she had a gift at that sort of thing. “And there’s several other in our church and community that I could suggest, too. There’s Mr. Merchant! A big house and grounds, a good business, and he a nice, kind bachelor! His wife would have everything easy. Of course he’s a bit older than you are, but what are years in a case like that where people are well fixed? Of course his mother is living yet, but she’s just on the edge of the grave, so to speak, and it wouldn’t be long till you had everything just as you wanted it. I know Mr. Merchant real well. I wouldn’t mind putting a bug in his ear.”
“Listen, Mrs. Brisbane,” said Amorelle, whirling around from the window where she had been staring blindly out, trying to conquer her temper, “if you ever dared say a word like that to any man, I should be so angry I would never want to see you again. I feel as if I could never hold up my head and go around the town again after you have made such suggestions.”
“Oh, now don’t be silly, Amorelle! I wouldn’t say anything you would mind. I’d just kid ’em along. You know me. Why, child, there’s plenty in town would just jump at the chance to marry you, and that would settle all your troubles in no time and just fix you for life. There’s that Johnny Brewster! A clean, fine fellow, everybody says. Got a nice grocery business going, doing well. He owns the building, and there’s a nice little apartment over it you could live in. Course Johnny’s young, but I guess at that he isn’t more’n a year or two younger than you are, and he’s real well and hearty and sensible. Only thing, he hasn’t been to college, but you’ve got learning enough for two, and anyway, in your position you can’t afford to stop on a little thing like that!”
Amorelle dropped into a chair weakly and looked at her caller helplessly, on the verge of hysterical laughter. How could she stop that awful tongue? She felt so humiliated it seemed as if she never could hold up her head again. But the clattery tongue went right on.
“And then there’s Mr. Pike! He really needs to get married! His hair is beginning to get thin on the top. And they do say he’s got plenty of money stowed away!”
Amorelle suddenly rose from the chair, her face white with anger, trembling from head to foot.
“Mrs. Brisbane,” she said, “we will please talk about something else. I do not wish to hear anything more about marriage! I do not intend to marry anybody at present, and particularly not any of those men you have mentioned. You may intend kindness, but you make me very angry, and if you say another such word I shall go out of the house and leave you by yourself.”
“Hoighty toighty!” laughed Mrs. Brisbane. “A tempest in a teapot! I thought they said you were such a good Christian! Well, if you’re so set against marrying, what are you going to do? You might teach school, but all the positions in town are filled for another year, and you wouldn’t stand a chance out of your own county where you are known. It takes a lot of pull today to get in anywhere. You might teach music, I suppose,” she said with a speculative glance at the old upright piano, “only public opinion wouldn’t back you in taking pupils away from Miss Rucker, now that she’s lost her leg and couldn’t very well do anything else.”
“Really, Mrs. Brisbane, I don’t think you need worry about me. I shall find my place somewhere,” said Amorelle, trying to steady her voice.
“Well, I think it’s our call to worry about you,” said Mrs. Brisbane virtuously. “You’re our pastor’s daughter, and of course we feel we must see you into some safe harbor. What are you going to do about your furniture? You can’t take that to your uncle’s with you. It would cost too much to ship it so far. I suppose you’ll have to sell it. The ladies were talking about it the other day. They seemed to think it might be possible for them to buy a few things from you. Mrs. Woods spoke about that walnut bedroom set up in the front room. They were talking about furnishing a couple of the rooms in the manse. You know it used to be quite the thing to have a manse ready furnished. They spoke about your father’s library. His books likely would be a great help to a young minister just out of seminary. I think some of the Ladies’ Aid are coming in this afternoon—no, I believe it’s tomorrow they’re coming—to put a price on the things they are willing to buy for the manse. Of course they couldn’t give much, but you’d want to help out with your father’s old church, and it would really be a blessing to you to get things off your hands. Especially a lot of theological books.”
Amorelle gave a cold, startled look at her caller.
“Oh, I c
ouldn’t give up the books,” she said with decision. “I wouldn’t part with them for anything.”
“For heaven’s sake, why not?” demanded the woman calmly. “That’s foolish, Amorelle. What could you do with a lot of books, carting them over the country? Your uncle certainly wouldn’t want to pay cartage for them, and you haven’t any way to pay storage.”
“I haven’t made my plans yet, Mrs. Brisbane,” said Amorelle with reserve. “There will be a way for everything.”
“Well, of course you haven’t had much time to plan with your father scarcely cold in his grave yet,” assented the woman calmly, “but that’s why I came in this morning to say we are willing and glad to help. I don’t suppose you’ve got any money, have you?”
The color swept up into the girl’s pale cheeks and over her white forehead into her hair. Her sweet dignity was astonishing.
“I think—I’ll manage—Mrs. Brisbane! We haven’t any debts, at least.”
“Well, that’s one good thing; your father always was honest, if he wasn’t very provident. It does seem as if out of his salary, with only you to keep, he might have put by a tidy sum. I’ve known ministers with less than he had to have managed a good, big life insurance, or bonds or something. But then your father never had his mind much on the things of this world, and I suppose in a way that’s a credit to him, but somehow it doesn’t help out in paying bills. How about the undertaker? Are you figuring to pay him or were you expecting the church to pay that?”
“Certainly I shall pay it!” said Amorelle. She felt cold and numb now to her fingertips.
“Well, that’s good if you can do that. Of course the church expects to do something. I don’t know just what. I heard the men talking at prayer meeting the other night. They might give you a month’s salary if there aren’t too many bills left to be paid. That’s what the people did for the widow of Reverend Salisbury over at Greenwich last winter. One month’s salary clear! But then, you know your father was sick a good two months, and they had to get fill-in preachers as well as pay him. You’ve got to think of that, you know.”