Ariel Custer

  Chapter 3

  The stir and bustle of the passengers preparing to leave the car roused Ariel from the deep sleep into which she had fallen as soon as the train left Washington.

  She rubbed her eyes and looked around in bewilderment, realizing that they must have arrived in Philadelphia, and here was she, but half awake. She passed her hands over her dazed eyes, smoothed back her disheveled hair, and straightened her hat. Stumbling to her feet, she grasped for her satchel in the rack overhead and followed the other passengers up the long platform to the station. She gazed around her in dismay. There seemed so many people, so many, many trains. Her heart beat with almost frightened rhythm, and now that she was here, she shrank inexpressibly from what might be before her. She seemed to be suddenly stripped of any preparation that her heart might have made for the coming interview. It became in a flash so important whether they liked her or not.

  She was not surprised that there was nobody at the gate to meet her. It was four hours later than she had promised to come, for the train that had brought her from home to the junction had had engine trouble, and she had missed the morning train from the junction to Washington. There had been three hours to wait and another delay in Washington. It seemed that she had been traveling forever. But she had the address of the library and had been told to come straight there in case Miss Larrabee failed to meet her. Also she knew Miss Larrabee’s home address.

  The station was so big it bewildered her, but she saw a large friendly sign reading INFORMATION and went shyly over to the counter to find out how to proceed.

  It frightened her to try to get into the trolley cars. They seemed so big and indifferent, and their doors were in such uncertain places. She let several go by while she watched how others did it before she ventured herself.

  The way to the library seemed through a maze of traffic. She felt frightened again at the thought of getting out. But when she reached the place and entered the big leather doors into a sort of superquiet, her courage came again, and she marched up to the girl behind the big desk and asked for Miss Larrabee.

  “She isn’t here,” answered the other girl. “She’s gone.”

  “Gone?” echoed Ariel. “Do you mean she’s gone to the station to meet me? I looked all around where she told me she would be and I didn’t see her. It’s too bad if I kept her waiting so long. My train was very late—”

  “Oh no,” said the assistant librarian crisply as if she couldn’t waste the time. “She’s gone. Not here anymore. Gone home!“

  “You don’t mean—not dead?” said Ariel, wide eyed with awe. Such phrases were connected with death in her mind.

  The librarian laughed.

  “Mercy, no! I hope not. She simply isn’t with us anymore. She’s resigned. They’ve appointed a new librarian in her place. She had to go home and take care of her sick mother. She lives away up in Maine somewhere.”

  Ariel stood still, growing white to the lips.

  “But I don’t understand,” she managed to say. “I’m to be her assistant. She wrote me to come today, and she was to meet me at Broad Street Station at half past twelve. My train was late—”

  “Oh, are you the one—?” The girl eyed her intently with a kind of indifferent interest. “But she wrote you the very next day. I saw the letter. She was very sorry, but she told you not to come. You see, her mother was taken very sick and her father had just died and she had to go home and stay. She wrote that letter a whole week ago, just as soon as the telegram came.”

  Ariel suddenly looked around for a chair and sat weakly down, looking at the other girl with big, appealing eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” said the girl. “But didn’t you get her letter?”

  “No, I didn’t get the letter,” said Ariel with white, trembling lips. “I—No, I didn’t get any letter.”

  “You look tired. Can I get you a drink of water?” asked the girl. She hurried away with a glass and in a moment was back.

  Ariel sat staring ahead, but she took the glass and sipped a few drops. The Custer courage was coming to the front.

  “Can I do anything for you?” asked the girl. “It must be annoying to have misunderstood.”

  “Thank you,” said Ariel, handing back the glass and rising. “I think I shall have to go now. Could you tell me where I could find the new librarian?”

  “No,” said the other. “She hasn’t reached the city yet. She’s coming down from New York tomorrow, but it won’t be any use for you to see her. She’s bringing her daughter with her to assist her. She’s a relative of one of the board of directors, and they really made this place for her and her daughter, I suppose, though you needn’t say I said so. I’m not to stay either. I’m only here till they arrive. It’s really tough on you, but you’ll probably find another job soon. It really isn’t Miss Larrabee’s fault, for as I told you I saw her writing the letter. It must be in the mail. Things often get lost in the mail. Or perhaps in her hurry she forgot to mail it—”

  But Ariel with a wan smile had thanked her and was walking away, her little head held high, her sunny eyes clouded with trouble, but her lips brave as ever.

  The other girl looked after her anxiously, but there seemed nothing she could do, so she went back to the novel she was reading.

  Out in the broad, strange street, Ariel attempted to find a car back to the station. There at least she would have a right to sit down and think, and recover from the blow she had received. Here she felt that she could not quite take it in, it was so sudden and so sharp a reversal of things.

  During the long car ride back to the station, she found herself saying softly in her heart, Dear Lord, are You there? Dear Lord, are You there? You said You’d go with me; are You surely there?“

  She got out of the trolley too soon, it appeared, and must walk a block and cross an awful street, so much worse than when she was there before because of the lateness of the hour. There were throngs everywhere, jostling, and trolleys and automobiles. She stood a long time uncertain, trying to make out which way traffic signs read and whether the policeman in the middle of the road really meant her to come when he held up his hand, and then she made a wild dash. It was not that she was stupid, only tired and dazed, and out of her sheltered life, she had never experienced the noise and crush of the hour and place.

  It was only a man on a bicycle who knocked her down. The big truck had stopped, and two automobiles had stopped when they saw her coming, for somehow there was something delicate and lovely and appealing about Ariel, something alien to the city in her plain country garb, that made people take care of her. The man on the bicycle was head down, going like a rocket, and Ariel didn’t see him till he was upon her. Then he only grazed her slightly, just enough to throw her off her balance and down upon her knees, and himself full length upon the road.

  The traffic officer roared at everybody, swung his sign around to STOP, and bore down upon them. Someone extricated the man and the bicycle, and kind, strong hands lifted Ariel to her feet again. She found herself wondering if it was the Lord or one of His angels. A man picked up the satchel, all burst open with her little white garments flung around the street, but Ariel was too shaken and dazed to realize. Her face was flaming with mortification.

  “Can you walk?” roared the traffic officer.

  “Oh yes, I think so,” gasped Ariel, trying to smile, and wishing only to get away out of this throng to hide her mortification. To think she should have fallen in the street, and all her own fault the officer had said. He spoke so rudely to her. She was glad her grandmother could not know. He had asked her if she hadn’t seen his sign, and told her all women walked along with their heads down and expected to hold up traffic for half an hour while they meandered across the street. He had scolded her like a naughty child! And there were tears in her eyes. She must not cry in the street with all those people looking. And that was her satchel all broken open, and her toothbrush lying in the road. She could never use it again. And people seeing—! It was awful. Would
she ever get away? Would they never get her little things picked up? And how was she to carry them now, with the handle off her bag and a great gash in its side?

  The young man who was picking up her things gathered her satchel under his arm. He was big and strong, and he put a hand under her sore, shaken little arm and guided her across to the sidewalk. She was beginning to feel the jar of the fall. Her knee was bruised, and her wrist hurt. Her head was throbbing, and little black specks darted before her eyes. She couldn’t somehow think. The young man seemed to know how it was, for he kept hold of her arm and guided her toward the door of the station.

  “Were you going in here?” he asked, and she tried to answer sanely, although she couldn’t remember afterward what she had said.

  He guided her toward the elevator and got her up to the waiting room into a seat before he spoke again.

  “Do you feel all right now,” he asked from what seemed a long way off, “or would you like me to get you a doctor?”

  “Oh no,” she said, rousing at that. “No, I’m all right. I’m just trembling a little yet—” But her voice trailed off and she put her head back and closed her eyes.

  The young man summoned a porter and sent for some aromatic ammonia. In a moment more, a glass was at her lips, and she swallowed the dose and then she did sit up and open her eyes, and the color came slowly creeping back into her face.

  “I’m so sorry to have made you so much trouble,” she said in her soft, pleasant Southern voice. “I don’t know what made me do like this—”

  “You had enough to take anybody’s nerve. Are you sure you are all right now?”

  “Yes, thank you.” She smiled, and the man knew that here was a girl he could respect.

  He smiled back a big, warm, gentle smile that made her feel he was her friend, yet presumed nothing. She was a Southern girl, used to hospitality, used to trusting people. A girl who had been sheltered phenomenally and was not alert to evil. He saw that she trusted him as a gentleman, and he felt a great yearning to protect her. She in her turn felt that he was the one whom the Lord had sent to guard her.

  The young man turned his attention to the dilapidated satchel that he had deposited on the seat beside the girl.

  “I’ll just tie this up so it will be safe to travel,” he said in a matter-of-fact way, spreading out the newspaper that was in his pocket and wrapping it around the broken, bulging leather bag.

  “Oh, please don’t take all that trouble,” said the girl. “It was an old thing. I’ll have to get a new one.”

  “Time enough for that tomorrow when you’ve rested up from the shock,” said the man pleasantly. He was deftly folding the paper and tying it with a string he’d fished out of another pocket.

  “I guess this will do for tonight,” he said pleasantly. “Wait, I’ll see if they have a handle at the newsstand.”

  He came back in a moment with a wooden handle that he secured to one side of the bundle, and the girl roused from her exhaustion and thanked him with a smile: “I’m sure I don’t know what I should have done if you hadn’t helped me,” she said. “I think I was bewildered.”

  “Oh, someone else would have been there if I hadn’t,” said the young man gallantly. “No one would leave a lady in the middle of the street.”

  “Not everyone would take so much time and trouble as you have, I’m sure. And besides, I think you saved me from being taken to the hospital. I think I heard that policeman say something about calling an ambulance, and I shouldn’t have liked that.”

  “Well, I’m very glad if I’ve helped any. And now what can I do more for you? Shall I put you on your train? Or is there a friend with a car whom I can call up for you?”

  “No, thank you,” said Ariel, rousing to her situation, “I haven’t any train, nor any friend. I’m—that is, I don’t know—Well, I’m not sure just what I’m going to do. I’ve got to think. I’ll just sit here a little while and get rested, I think.”

  The young man frowned.

  “I don’t like to leave you here alone till I’m sure you’re all right,” he said. “I’m not so sure you oughtn’t go to the hospital and let the doctor give you something. You had a hard fall. You must be bruised.”

  “Oh, I’m quite all right, thank you,” she said with a wan little smile, but something in the whiteness of her cheek, the languor of her eye, made him reluctant to leave her thus.

  “You ought to have something hot to drink right away,” he said suddenly. “Here, come this way.” He picked up the satchel and assisted her to her feet.

  “Yes,” she said as if the suggestion were welcome. “But I don’t need to trouble you any further. Just show me where the restaurant is. I can walk quite well alone now.”

  He took her arm firmly and guided her through a crowd of people who were hurrying to catch a train, and toward the leather doors of the dining room. “You’re not troubling me,” he said cheerily. “I’m tremendously hungry myself. I had a hard day and scarcely any time for lunch. If you don’t mind, I’ll take a bite myself, and then I can see if you’re able to be left to yourself.”

  He seated her at a little white table and summoned a waiter. Ariel looked around anxiously at the palm-decked room and deft waiters. A meal in a place like this would cost more than she ought to afford from her scanty store, but what could she do? The man was very kind, and quite matter of fact. He had not taken advantage of her situation in the least. Well, she needed the food, and perhaps she might venture to ask this gentleman a few questions.

  The young man gave an order and then turned back to her.

  “He’s bringing you the tea at once,” he said pleasantly, “but I’m getting a steak for myself and they’re always too big for one. You’ll eat a little of it, I’m sure, and then you’ll be more fitted to decide what to do. Here comes the tea now.”

  The hot tea brought the color to Ariel’s white cheeks. As the young man watched the life come back into her face, with satisfaction he smiled. “Now,” said he, leaning across the table with a confidential tone, “my name is Granniss, and I live in Glenside, ten miles out. I wish you’d just consider that I’m your brother for a few minutes and tell me how I can serve you. I don’t see leaving you here to sit in the station indefinitely after a fall like that. You ought to be put to bed and have someone to look after you. If you haven’t a train, you must live in the city, and if you haven’t a friend, won’t you just consider me that until you get to your home? I can easily call a cab and see you to your boarding place or take you in the trolley car if you insist on that, but you ought to be looked after, and I’m going to do it until someone else better fitted turns up. Now tell me, please, where are you staying?”

  Chapter 4

  There was something grave and reassuring about the young man’s voice that made her trust him. She wondered if she ought to tell him her situation. It was against all her upbringing and principles to confide her troubles to a stranger, especially a man, and a young one; yet she sorely needed advice, and she needn’t take it if she didn’t like it.

  “You’re very kind, Mr. Granniss,” she said at length in a quaintly formal tone. “But I’m not staying anywhere. I’ve just come today. I’m Miss Custer of Virginia—” There was something in the sweet dignity with which she spoke the name that demanded respect. It seemed to summon the long line of noble Custers to speak for her in this informal introduction.

  The color swept into Jud’s face, and for a moment he felt almost as if he had presumed, yet it was not anything in her tone or manner that made him feel she looked down upon him. It was perhaps the little lifting of her head, patrician born, that made him feel somehow her fineness. He almost wondered at himself for speaking so freely with her. He who had always held aloof from girls.

  “I came up to take a position in a library that a friend had, I thought, secured for me, but when I reached here I found the friend had been suddenly called far away to care for a sick mother and had resigned her position. The letter she wrote me telling
me not to come did not reach me, and I find someone else has the position. So you see my plans are somewhat upset. I was absorbed in the perplexity of what I should do next when I was crossing that street, or I probably would not have done such a foolish thing as to be run over by a bicycle and make all this trouble.”

  “Say, that’s tough luck!” said Jud, all interest again. “What are you going to do? Have you a place to stop tonight?”

  “No,” said Ariel, quite composed now and self-possessed, “and perhaps you can advise me, since you’re so kind as to offer. I was to stay with my friend, but I haven’t an idea where, as I was to meet her at the station, or come to the library if we missed each other. But I’ve read about the YWCA. Is there one near here?”

  Jud’s face lightened. “There is, of course,” he said briskly, “and there’s such a thing as a Traveler’s Aid agent right here in the station. If I am not mistaken, a friend of someone I know is on duty in the evening here. She would know where was the best place for you to go, and you could talk to her all about your problems. That’s what she’s here for. Just excuse me a minute and I’ll see if she’s at her desk.”

  Granniss hurried through the swinging doors and Ariel sat alone, feeling suddenly forlorn in a strange world. Suspicious too, a little, now that he was out of her sight, of the stranger who seemed so determined to help her. She had been so earnestly warned before she left home that she was inclined almost to run away while he was gone, and so be free from him. Yet her innate courtesy would not let her do so in spite of her fears. He had been too kind to treat so shabbily.

  Granniss was back in a short time just as the waiter arrived with a well-laden tray. “Yes, Miss Darcy’s here,” he said in a relieved tone. “I spoke to her about you, and she says there’s a nice room vacant in a girls’ club tonight, just for the night, that you can take. The new occupant comes tomorrow. Then tomorrow Miss Darcy thinks she can find something for you more permanent if you want it. She’s coming in as soon as she meets a girl on the New York train and sends her to her friends. You’ll like her, and she will advise you about anything. You know about the Traveler’s Aid, don’t you?”