“Let’s sit down here,” he said. “I want to ask you something. They tried to tell me you were going to be married in a month or two. Is that true?”
Amorelle’s cheeks grew rosy, and her lashes drooped. Then she lifted her eyes and tried to look natural; but somehow the flutter in her heart made it very hard to look into his eyes, and she dropped her own again.
“No,” she said, trying to speak steadily but unable to keep a lilt out of her voice. “I was—engaged—but— It was a mistake. It is broken.”
She lifted her face and smiled quietly.
“You are” —he hesitated, looking earnestly at her—“not sorry?” There was grave questioning in his voice.
Her face broke into sunshine.
“Oh, no!” she said happily. “Not in the least. It was a great mistake.”
“Well, I’m glad. Now that’s that, and we can go on. I like to know just how I stand with my friends. I hope you don’t mind my asking. And you’re at liberty to ask anything of me in turn, of course. One thing, I’m not engaged and never have been yet.”
He sprang up and caught her hand, drawing her arm within his and walking so they went on into the heart of the lovely glen.
It was just about this time, so far as the sun in the sky was concerned, that a very new flivver drew up smartly in front of Miss Landon’s gate, and a big, blond young man with a “get-out-of-my-way-and-do-as-I-say” manner got out, smashed open the picket gate, and crunched boldly up the path, surveying the sweet, little old house with a look that uncovered all its defects and put it at his mercy.
While this young man waited impatiently for Henrietta Bonsall to come to the door, he had calculated fairly accurately how many feet, front and deep, the lot was and the probable price of land a foot in that part of town.
Chapter 19
Bonny had been lying down after the excitement of the morning and was trying to keep everything still so that Miss Landon would have a good nap. It took several minutes for her to struggle into her shoes, which she had removed from her tired feet for a little while, and to smooth her straggling gray hair. The young man at the front door grew impatient. He knocked loudly and continuously several times and then called, “Hello! Oh, I say! Isn’t anybody at home? Amorelle!”
He looked quite injured when Bonny finally appeared and frowned blackly because Amorelle herself had not come.
“Isn’t this where Miss Dean is visiting?” he demanded gruffly.
Bonny drew herself up with her sick-room air of competency and admitted frigidly that it was.
“Well, where is she? I want to see her,” he said, walking unceremoniously through the door with an appraising look around the room.
Bonny backed up a step and surrounded him, as it were, her ample white apron held out a bit on either side, and so—amazingly and unceremoniously—drove him back on the porch again, sweeping the door shut behind her as she stepped out.
“We’ll just talk here,” she explained commandingly. “The lady of the house is an invalid, and she’s asleep. You mustn’t wake her up.”
There was no perceptible lowering of the young man’s voice as he again demanded Amorelle, but it was evident that he had perceived that he could not carry all before him in this high-handed way.
“Miss Dean ain’t in,” said Bonny quite collectedly. “She’s away fer the day.” Her voice was calm and dry. She eyed the stranger appraisingly. Her experience as nurse had taught her to read character remarkably well.
“Away!” frowned the young man, as though Miss Dean were deeply obligated to remain right there when he was coming. “Where?” He glanced the length of the little sunny street.
“Out of town,” remarked Bonny placidly. The glen was at least a quarter of a mile away.
“Where?” insisted the dominant youth.
“I really couldn’t say,” answered Bonny, pulling out some tatting from her ample pocket and beginning to work on it as if she had wasted time enough.
“Well, go and ask at once, won’t you? I’m in a hurry, and I’ve waited long enough already.” He spoke in the tone of a manager dictating to a new secretary and struck a match on the porch pillar to light his cigarette, turning his back on Bonny as if he expected her at once to disappear and fulfill his command.
“There’s nobody to ask,” said Bonny, “not till Miss Landon wakes up, and that might be as late as five o’clock. She don’t sleep so good, and she’s not to be waked up when she dozes off. Them’s the doctor’s orders.”
“This is ridiculous nonsense!” fumed the visitor. “I’ve already come a hundred miles out of my way, and gasoline is expensive. Woman, go and ask this Miss Landon you talk about at once where Miss Dean is to be found. I’ve got to see her on very important business, and I’ve got to start back to my city tonight. What are you waiting for? Oh, I suppose you’re waiting to be tipped. Well, here.”
He held out a quarter grudgingly with an ugly frown. Bonny gazed at it an instant. Then lifting her hand with a swift movement, she gave his hand a quick knock, which sent the quarter flying down the path, and stood facing him with ire in her eye.
“Now, young man,” she said calmly with sickroom command in her voice. “You can go on your way rejoicin’, or you can sit down in that rocker over there and wait till Miss Landon wakes up. It’s all one to me, but you need not go offerin’ me any of your dirty money. I’m nobody’s servant ef I do wear aperns.”
With that she went into the house and shut the front door.
Behind a vine-clad bedroom window off the porch, Miss Landon stifled a chuckle of delight. She had long ago decided who the visitor on the front porch must be.
George Horton, astounded, bewildered, gazed blankly at the door then thriftily retrieved his quarter. And after gazing speculatively up at the front windows, he walked slowly around the house, coming full upon the big blue automobile parked among the lilacs at one side. This he examined with car-wise eyes and much respect and then with quickened steps walked on to the back door.
Bonny was doing something at the kitchen stove and did not look up, but he boldly opened the screen door and stepped in.
“I say, my good woman,” he began in what he meant to be a conciliatory tone, “you wholly misunderstood me. You don’t know who I am.”
“Well, no,” said Bonny, turning slowly around and facing him. “I don’t know as I do, and I don’t know as I keer to. One thing I know, you ain’t no gentleman, an’ ef Miss Dean asts me, I’ll tell her so. I’ve told you once, an’ I’ll tell you jest once more. She ain’t here, and she ain’t going to be till late t’night. She won’t be home fer supper, an’ I can’t say any more.”
Bonny stopped, lifted a delicately browned sponge cake out of the oven, and set some little brown cups of custard to cool in the window. The spicy aroma of cinnamon wafted fragrantly through the kitchen. George Horton sniffed. He was hungry. He eyed the woman belligerently. Then his eye traveled thoughtfully to the window. Golden custard against a shiny background of royal blue.
“Whose car is that out there?” he demanded savagely.
“Belongs to a visitor,” said Bonny icily, “though I don’t know’s you’ve got any call to ast.”
“Did Miss Dean go in a car?”
“Well,” said Bonny slowly from the depths of the pantry where she was putting the sponge cake on a plate to cool, “she didn’t go on horseback, not that I saw.” It was mortifyingly evident that Bonny had not noticed George Horton’s fetching golden eyelashes yet, and George was not used to that.
“Is there any place around here where I can get something to eat?” he asked suddenly and hungrily, eyeing the custards once more.
“Oh yes,” said Bonny cordially. “There’s Sutton’s, down by the bridge. They have chicken dinners for automobile parties. You’ll find them on the right hand just after you pass the post office. They’re real reasonable with their dinners, I’ve heard folks say. But if you don’t want to pay that much” —lifting her eyelids with the mo
st fleeting of glances—“you can get a ham sandwich at the bake shop and a glass of milk fer that quarter.”
Bonny disappeared into the pantry again.
“Woman, look here!” said George Horton, thundering after her to the pantry door. “I’ve come a good many miles out of my way to see Miss Dean, and she ought to have been here. I want you to tell me about where you think I could find her. Did she go visiting or to the next town to buy something or what? And which direction did she take?”
“You’ve got no call to come in here,” said Bonny, sweeping him sideways back into the kitchen. “This is private property. And I’ve told you before, I ain’t in Miss Dean’s confidence. She didn’t come and ast me could she go, ner nothing. She might uv gone on business, and then again she might uv just gone for amusement. How should I know? The next town beyond to the north is Fowler’s Corner. You might inquire at the post office how to find Spillard’s. I heard Miss Landon tell her the other day she wanted to get Anne Spillard down to see her sometime. But land! She might notta gone there today, of course. Ef I was you, I’d take a room at Sutton’s and wait till mornin’. ’Tain’t likely noways she could see you b’fore then anyhow, fer it’ll be late when she gets back. Now, my work’s done, and I gotta go upstairs an’ change my dress. Ef you don’t mind, I’d like to lock up my kitchen ’fore I go. Yer welcome to set on the front porch an’ rest a spell ef you prefer that to yer car, but I ain’t got no more time to waste now.”
George Horton, keeping one firm foot inside the screen door, hesitated.
“But you don’t understand,” said George with a puzzled, baffled expression not at home on his usually assured countenance. “I’m engaged to Miss Dean. I’m her fiancé.”
“That’s all right with me,” said Bonny cheerfully, “jes’ so you ain’t got any engagement with me!”
“Could I write a note?” he asked, frowning.
“Well, I guess you know better’n I do whether you could or not,” remarked Bonny sharply, taking firm hold of the door hook.
George’s head gave a haughty toss, and he met her facetiousness with a withering scorn. Pulling out a small notebook and pencil, he began to write, leaning the book against the house. Bonny pulled the door shut and hooked it securely.
“You can just leave it on the winder-ledge,” she said comfortably. “Put a stone on it so the wind won’t blow it away, an’ I’ll see she gets it t’night sometime.” She pulled down the green window shade and disappeared up the back stairs. And presently, peering through the slats of the shutters in the room above, she watched with satisfaction as the young man climbed into his flivver and rattled away down the road. He was not going in the direction of Sutton’s. He was not going to stay all night! Bonny heaved a sigh of relief and went back to finish her work in the kitchen and investigate the note. If it had been written by Amorelle, she would have left it unread for years. But this person she considered an upstart and felt it her duty to find out what he was about, so she took it up gingerly and read.
Amorelle:
As you wouldn’t come home, I have been at great expense and trouble to come to you on my way back from a business trip; but I find you gone, and this strange old woman doesn’t know where, or won’t tell, I don’t know which. I think it’s about time this funny business ends, but I haven’t time to monkey around this way. I had something to tell you today that you would have wanted to hear, but I couldn’t wait all night, so it’s up to you to come home. See? I’ll be down at your uncle’s day after tomorrow night, and I want you there, no mistake this time! Understand? My business won’t wait any longer, so take the first train and don’t fail!
George
“H’m!” mused Bonny, folding the note carefully in its crease and laying it on the clock shelf. “I guess that’ll wait till sometime tomorrow mornin’ well enough. I’ll jest ferget it tonight. I thought ’twas him all right! I sensed it right from the start!”
Nobody had told old Bonny about George Horton, but she had that sixth sense that felt everything connected with those she loved, and she knew how to keep her mouth closed on her knowledge.
Meantime the shadows began to grow deep in the glen, and the two who had wandered to its farthest end and explored its hidden beauties came slowly back and climbed to the big flat rock halfway up to the top of the glen to eat their supper.
As they opened Bonny’s inviting lunchbox and spread the contents out on the white cloth that lay on the top of the box, neither of the two could help remembering another box they had opened together not so long ago.
“Chicken sandwiches! As I’m alive!” said Russell Garrison. “Isn’t this a kind of coincidence? Wasn’t that what we had before? I seem to remember they tasted better than any chicken sandwiches I had ever had before, but then you made those. These may be good, but those were the first we ever ate together. Perhaps that is the secret.”
The color flew into Amorelle’s cheeks, and she lifted glad eyes to meet his across the snowy cloth. This had been such a wonderful day, and he had been so much more delightful than she had even remembered. It hardly seemed possible, but it was true. And she knew there was going to be a terrible let-down when he was gone, maybe never to come back again. But she just would not let herself think about that. She would treasure every instant now while she had it, something to remember through the days to wipe out the memory of George Horton and her nightmare of an engagement with him. Just another beautiful day with a friend who felt as she did about all beautiful things, and who loved her Lord Jesus. She would not think of dull, drab days after he was gone. This day should be a beautiful jewel to deck the darkness of other days.
So her eyes answered to his eyes and took the sweet thrill at his words of praise as a gift from God to measure the poor counterfeit love she had discarded before it was too late.
All day these two had been growing more and more into a knowledge of one another. Like two children, hand in hand, they had started to explore a wonderland, and it had opened before their eager feet as the beautiful hours sped by, without a single disappointing episode.
And now, when the tempting little supper was laid out on the cloth, and while a wandering ray from the setting sun somehow penetrated down to their nook and touched Amorelle’s hair, lighting it like a halo around her sweet face, Garrison bowed his head and gave thanks.
“Our Father, we thank Thee for this beautiful day Thou has given us together. We thank Thee that Thou has let our lives touch and brought us to this sweet fellowship. We thank Thee most of all for Thyself and that Thou hast saved us both and brought us to know Thee. We thank Thee that we both know Thee, which has made our fellowship so much the sweeter. And now we thank Thee for this evening meal, and wilt Thou let us feel Thy presence here with us, Thy love about us, Thy guidance in all our thoughts and actions. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus, our Savior.”
Amorelle sat with bowed head, her heart thrilling. What a privilege to be one in a prayer like that! What a friend to have who could pray that way! How hallowed a friendship that could be cemented in praise to God! How utterly wonderful that God had a day like this in store for her all the time she was worrying and fretting and puzzling over how to make George Horton over to suit her own vague dreams of what a lover should be! She had tried to snatch eagerly after what she yearned for, when all the time God had this beautiful friendship waiting for her as a wonderful surprise. And when it came it did not come by any effort of her own. Why, one day of a friendship with a man like this was worth a whole lifetime filled with the rough courting of a man like George Horton, even though he was good-looking.
She lifted her eyes when the prayer was ended and saw that this man, too, was handsome, but in a very different way. He had fine features, but they were also strong, and there was nothing bold about the steady, gray eyes that met hers with such a wonderful smile. His smile did not rollick all over his face, but it was bright and tender and warm, and there was a peace in it that rested one just to look at it. Ah! She cou
ld not compare this rare man with George. She was done with George forever, and her heart sent up a glad thanksgiving that her eyes had been opened in time. So she met the smile that shone upon her like a benediction, with a smile as free and glad.
“There is something different about you,” said the man, looking at her steadily, rejoicingly. “I noticed it the minute I saw you today. The shadow is gone from your eyes.”
“It’s gone from my heart, too,” said Amorelle softly. “I’d been going through an awful experience for several weeks, trying to find out what was the matter, not knowing what was the right thing to do about it, and I never realized that God would give me all the wisdom and knowledge I needed until you told me. Then what a load rolled away from my shoulders. You don’t know what you did for me that day.”
The glad eyes searched deep into hers.
“And I like a fool tried to stay away from that picnic that day.” he said. “I thought of every excuse I could, but finally I saw that my relatives were terribly pleased that they had got up some young company and a little entertainment for me while I was visiting them. So I went, but it was the last thing I wanted to do; and when I saw the crowd I felt still more aversion, until I saw you. I just couldn’t understand how a girl like you had happened among those others. But then I found out that nothing happens, that God had brought you there and that He had brought me to find you. At least that’s the way I felt about it.”
They were eating the sandwiches now and drinking the bottle of orange juice that Bonny had prepared. Delicate bits of celery and tiny sweet pickles were vanishing, but the two didn’t know what they were eating. It was all nectar and ambrosia. Apple turnovers and cream cheese, they ate every crumb. But they were more interested in their sweet conversation, and they sat talking until the twilight began to deepen in the glen.
Then hastily they gathered up the cloth and napkins, made their way down to the little spring below them to wash their hands, and turned to climb up to the top again to be in time for the moonrise.