Maris

  And this desolate feeling.

  It wasn't just anxiety now. One can get used in a way to the monotony of a long-drawn-out anxiety. It wasn't just weariness nor yet a longing for the pleasures of the life she had been living for the last six months since she had been engaged to Tilford. It was the sense of having no one in heaven or earth to depend upon.

  Everyone to whom she would naturally turn now to rest her soul had to be carefully guarded for their own sakes. Father, how frail he was! Not so stooped and tortured looking perhaps since he had that note paid and some bills out of the way that had tormented him, but still it seemed as if a breath might blow him away. He would not get over that, of course, till Mother got well.

  Merrick mustn't have any more anxieties. He was only a boy anyway. He had finished his last examination and was to start driving his bus route tomorrow morning. She mustn't load her trials on him. He had a responsible job and must keep his mind free from worry. And of course Merrick wouldn't understand all her problems anyway.

  But it wasn't just problems, either, this afternoon. It was just a hungry longing for something that satisfies. The feeling was strong that she had given up the life that had stretched out so enticingly before her, and while it was the right thing to do, of course, and she couldn't have done anything else, wouldn't have wanted to, would do over again all that she had done, yet now in the late afternoon waning of the sun, while the shrubbery made long shadows on the grass and the poppies and roses were still and lovely in the garden and the sky so heavenly blue, the heart of her cried out for some part in the beauty of the world, some real joy that pain and sickness and peril could not take from her.

  She paused to watch a big velvet bee roll and tumble and wallow around in the heart of a scarlet poppy with a deep black center and ruffle of white. Then he bumbled up and buzzed across the bed, creeping deep into the heart of a purple iris and dusting his coat with yellow pollen from its sleek purple walls. Was the bee happy? she wondered. Did God think of bees, or were they all just a part of a great creation that He had started and then left to go on its careless way? Oh, she knew better than that, of course. She knew the Bible said that not even a sparrow could fall without Him. But she couldn't get the sense today in her weary, lonesome young heart that God really cared about her and the uphill road she had started to walk.

  It had been interesting to ease her father's financial difficulties, to see the furrows of his brow relax and a look of relief come into his eyes. It had been good to feel that Merrick trusted her again. Although neither Merrick nor any of them knew yet that she had given up Tilford, it had been restful to have some of her troubled doubts settled by her definite stand for her family. But what was life going to be as it went along, a long, lonely stretch, bearing a mother's cares and anxieties, without the help of a strong love in her life?

  Well, her heart was still too angry with Tilford to wish him back. He had been too appallingly indifferent to her desires for her to get over it so easily. Yet fragments of her broken dreams came often, floating tantalizingly just over her head, lovely things of gauze and rainbow, making her heart cry out to catch at them and draw them back again into her grasp.

  She wandered on past the neat rows of the kitchen garden, where Father, with sometimes the help of Merrick and the hindrance of the eager, erratic labors of the little boys, had growing things in abundance for his household. Dear, hardworking Father! They must watch out that he didn't drop someday as Mother had done. Working late at the office and then coming home to snatch the very last minute of the daylight to work in his garden!

  As she walked around toward the side of the yard next to the Maitland place, she thought she heard the echo of the boys' voices in the distance. Were they still painting the house? What a grand friend Lane was, to let them do things like this. The very importance of it, she knew, must greatly intrigue her small brothers.

  A little path in the grass led over to the hedge that shut the Maitland property away from the Mayberry place. She followed it to the hedge, lured by the cool quiet under the hemlock trees, and as she paused and looked toward the Maitland house wondering if she could catch a glimpse of her young brothers painting, a voice spoke:

  "Hello there, Maris, is that you, really out of doors for a few minutes? That's good. You've been shut in too long without a break. I asked Merrick last night if there wasn't some way we could get you out for a breath of air and a bit of sunshine. But the sun is hot yet, isn't it? How about stepping through the opening here and trying our new garden chairs. I ordered them by telephone, and I think they're very comfortable. Come see if you don't think so."

  Smiling, she stepped through a thin place in the hedge and sat down in the long easy chair he offered her, finding surprising resilience and restfulness in the curious structure of steel that seemed to lend itself to every curve of her tired body.

  "It's grand!" she said, putting her head back and relaxing. "Oh, isn't this a lovely place? What deep lovely shadows of almost blueness up there among the feathery hemlocks."

  "Yes, I always loved this spot. Mother used to love it so. She used to talk about building an arbor out here so that she might come often and rest. But I'm not sure but I like just the trees above me rather than a roof."

  "Oh, so do I!" said Maris, taking a deep breath of the resinous pine about them. "How beautiful this is. Somehow I've never had time to stop and look at it. But you're making it look as it used to look when we were children. I remember I always thought your lawn was the loveliest stretch of greenness, with that great flower bed of your mother's, always bright with flowers."

  He flashed an appreciative look at her.

  "Do you remember Mother?" he asked, after a brief moment.

  "Oh, yes," she said. "I used to think she was the loveliest woman I knew, next to my own mother. You see, in those days I used to think all mothers were like your mother and mine."

  A floating shadow of disillusionment crossed her face.

  "And you have found out differently?" he asked.

  "And how!" she said with sudden emphasis.

  He waited but somehow knew she would not go on. This was something that had to do with a part of her life in which he might not share.

  "Your mother is precious!" he said. "My mother used to think she was wonderful."

  "She--is--!" said Maris, struggling with the sudden unreasonable desire to cry. "You don't know how I miss her, just these few days since she's been sick."

  "Don't I?" said Lane Maitland with a tender wistfulness in his voice.

  "Oh, of course you do!" said Maris with sudden compunction.

  "But it's not as if my mother was lost," went on Maitland. "I'm expecting to go to her someday. We've been wonderfully blessed with parents, you and I. Not everybody has that. Both our mothers and fathers know the Lord."

  "I suppose that does make a difference," said Maris half shyly. "I never thought of that before."

  "Of course it does. It makes a difference to everybody. But I don't know what I should have done if I hadn't had the Lord Jesus Christ and been conscious of His presence with me all the time. I couldn't have lived through that first loneliness when they were both gone."

  There was a long silence, and then Maris said wistfully, "I wish I could sense God's presence. I feel as if I were so alone just now. I've tried several times to pray and read my Bible, but I don't seem to get anywhere. It's like saying empty words to a brass sky. And the Bible doesn't seem real when I read it."

  She paused, half hoping, yet hardly daring to think that this young man, fine though he was, would have any definite help for her hungry heart. Her head was down in her hands, and she could not see the gentle, yearning look that he turned upon her.

  "Perhaps you were asking things that you had no right to ask yet and expecting light when you hadn't yet met the conditions. You know the condition of having understanding given by the Holy Spirit is that we shall come with a willing heart to believe what we find in the Book, and, too, God has never
promised to answer the prayers of any but His own children. But you really did take Jesus Christ as your Savior that time a few years ago when you united with the church, didn't you, Maris?"

  "Oh, yes," she answered in a puzzled tone. "And I believe He is my Savior, of course. It's just that I can't seem to get any joy out of it. I can't seem to meet Him personally the way I'd like to, the way I believe my father and mother do. I used to be quite sure there was something very wonderful, a communion with Him that one could have in this life. I'm just not so sure anymore that that is for just ordinary people."

  "God said 'Whosoever will,' didn't He? I'm quite sure the fellowship with Him is for anyone who wants it."

  "Then why don't I have it? When I was saved that time, I thought everything was going to be wonderful. Do you remember how the evangelist spoke of the joy of Christian living and painted everything in bright colors? Yet I've never been conscious of that."

  "Do you remember," he said, "how visiting speakers in school used to give us lectures on how wonderful it was to have good parents? Yet it was sometime after I grew up that I became truly conscious of my father and mother, conscious of loving them and understanding them and wanting to be with them. In fact, it's only since I've lost them that I've learned to long for their companionship."

  Maris looked up then as if she was startled.

  "Why, it's just the same with me," she said. "I think I never was conscious of how I loved my father and mother and wanted to be with them until lately. I've been going my own way. But these last few days I've been seeing how I've failed to appreciate them and how I have hurt them so many times. Now a few minutes with Father means so much. And a word from Mother would mean everything, now that I don't have her."

  "Yes, I know," he said sadly. "And the Christian life is often like that. Understand, I don't mean it's necessary for a person to live years after he's been saved before he learns to walk with the Lord. It's not normal or right. But if it has been so, I think there comes a time when God brings us understanding, perhaps through trouble, and we realize then that we don't have the fellowship we might have had. We see how we have grieved Him and how we have walked into the world, in ways that He would not go."

  Maris nodded sadly. "Yes, I've done that!"

  "It is then we wake up to how much we want Him," went on Lane. "And that's what He's been working toward all the time! To draw us after Him! Isn't it gracious of Him to want us?" Lane spoke tenderly, with awe in his voice.

  "And then," he went on, "as soon as we find out how much we want Him, He delights to make Himself known to us. At least that is the way it has been with me."

  "Does He? I wish I understood. He hasn't done it with me. What do you mean? Do you hear voices or see visions, or what?"

  "Oh, no." Lane smiled. "That is not His way of speaking to us now, because He doesn't need to anymore. There is a far more intimate and wonderful relationship now than there ever was when He had to speak to man through the physical senses. Now"--he sat up eagerly--"He is in us, you know."

  Maris looked blank.

  "I guess I don't understand," she said mournfully, "or else He isn't in me."

  "Yes, He says He lives in everyone who has accepted Him as Savior. That's why I asked you if you surely had. You see, when you accept Him, you're not just getting a ticket to heaven; you are receiving His life. You were dead in sin; now you are born from above. The third person of the Godhead comes into your heart to dwell. Don't ask me how. I only know it's so--because He says so, and also just as you know who is living in your house, even though you don't see them all the time. I found some years ago that the reason I wasn't having real fellowship with the Lord was because I was looking for Him outside somewhere. I wanted to talk to someone at a certain distance. I wanted to hear or feel something. When all the time He was living in me, quietly waiting for me to recognize Him and yield to Him. It made all the difference in the world.

  "And when you get to counting on the fact of His presence within you," went on Lane, as Maris sat listening wide-eyed, "you find that you get to depending on that 'Other' all the time. You are conscious of His personal, intimate love as never before, you're conscious that He is speaking to your inmost soul more clearly than ever you heard a voice, and you are conscious that He is continually pointing out things in His Word that you never saw before when you tried to read it by yourself. And the only thing that can hinder all of this is your own will, wanting your own way."

  Again Maris was still a long time, thinking over the possibilities of such a walk with God.

  "And you really think just anybody could have that? Even someone who had--gone--their own way--a long time and paid no attention to Him?"

  "He said so. 'If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.' I know that's true"--Lane's voice was low and gentle, but it rang with glad certainty--"for I found it so, and there's nothing, not anything, that can satisfy your heart like that fellowship with Him."

  Just then Maris heard a cautious voice calling, "Maris, Maris." It was Gwyneth sent by Sally to say that dinner was ready.

  "Oh, I'm sorry! I'll have to go! I had no idea I had stayed so long. But--I'd like to hear more about this. I'm really interested."

  "We'll talk again," said Lane eagerly. "Anytime you have a spare minute, just give me a call on the phone and I'll meet you here."

  "All right, I will!" said Maris happily. "There are a lot of questions I'd like to ask you, things that have come into my mind these last few days. And I do want to know how to understand the Bible."

  A great light came into the young man's eyes.

  "I'll love to help in any way I can," he said quietly.

  Then Maris was gone, and Lane sat there a few minutes in the shadow of the hemlocks thinking, remembering the wistful look in the girl's eyes as he had talked, his heart thrilling that she cared to listen to such things, wondering why he had ever drifted out of touch with a girl like that. Why hadn't he written to her often and kept up their childhood friendship? If all that her brother said about her fiancé was true, it seemed a terrible thing for a girl like that to be tied for life to a man who was a worldling. Of course, it might be that Merrick was prejudiced. But--well--it wasn't his business. Perhaps it was all in God's plan for Maris's life. But, oh, he hoped she didn't have to walk a way of sorrow because she had made a wrong choice.

  He closed his eyes and could see her sitting there in the opposite chair with the long, cool shadows of the branches waving above her softly, and the eagerness in her eyes. He could see the sweet line of cheek and chin, the delicate curving of her lovely lips, the shadows under her beautiful eyes, and he wished he could do something to take the weary look from her face.

  Then suddenly he flung his hands down from across his eyes and sprang to his feet.

  "Look here, Lane Maitland," he said to himself severely, "you'd better snap out of this! This is another man's fiancée you are thinking about! Get busy and think of something else! I wonder what those kids are doing with that paint by this time." And he turned and hurried away to see.

  But the next day, about noon, Gwyneth brought to Maris a little package that she said Lane Maitland had asked her to deliver.

  When Maris had time to open it, she found it was a beautifully bound Bible and a note from Lane:

  Dear Maris,

  I thought perhaps the notes in this special edition might help with some of your perplexities, and I've jotted down a few references you might look up, in line with what we were saying.

  The boys send their love,

  As ever,

  Lane

  Maris touched the soft leather cover happily, fluttered the leaves through with pleasant anticipation, noted the neat sheets of paper here and there slipped in, written over with clear characters in Lane's handwriting, caught a word or two of explanation, and wished she might have time to sit right down and begin her study. It filled her with comfort to have someone interested in her problems
and taking all this trouble to answer her vague questions. She laid the Bible on her bedside table and went about her multitudinous duties of the day heartened for her work and looking forward to a few moments that she would snatch here and there to pursue this new wonderful study.

  It was another busy day, and not until late in the evening did Maris have opportunity to get at her new Bible. Her Bible! For she discovered when she opened it with leisure to look through it that Lane had written her name on the flyleaf.

  She had a Bible, of course, one that she had had since she was quite a young girl, but this one was most intriguing. It had soft dark blue leather covers and most interesting and enlightening footnotes, and moreover the little loose leaves in Lane's handwriting put her in touch with many verses that seemed to be written just for her own present needs. She poured over it earnestly and put it down reluctantly when she happened to glance at her watch and found out how late it was.

  As she lay down to sleep at last, it was with the words of scripture ringing in her heart:

  "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee."

  It was a verse she had learned long ago when she was a child but had not thought of for years. Now from all the verses Lane had marked it seemed to stand out and comfort her. The Lord was in her, Lane had said, and whatever came to her, He would not leave her. She fell asleep with the thought in her mind. She was walking through the waters now, but He was here. He had allowed it all to come to her for some wise reason. And the verse said, "When thou passest through." That meant that it would be over sometime. It was a good thought upon which to go to sleep.