Ariel Custer

  Gradually the night and the quiet calmed Jud’s soul, and something of the Infinite all about him made him long inexpressibly to cry out to God about it, just to ask Him why if He loved him He didn’t do something about the state of things in his life. Why He didn’t speak out plainly and let him know what was the truth. His soul would have liked to have prayed then, but his intellect was ashamed to do so, and his lips were unaccustomed. And though he had been brought up in a Christian land, he knew nothing more than a heathen about repentance from sin and the way of salvation through belief in the atoning blood of Jesus. Having heard it all his life, he had never apprehended it. Like thousands of others it was as an idle tale, a string of words that meant nothing to him. Yet his soul was crying out for God, and he didn’t know enough to take the Book, the only way of life, and find out what it all meant.

  Far beyond midnight when the moon was low in the heavens he went home, and his mother, waking and weeping her bitter tears, thinking her bitter thoughts, listened as he came up the stair and thought of him as having spent his evening with a girl whose fascination would fast lead him to a downward course. For such is the tried and rebuked way of those who try to walk ahead of God and ask not for His leading. Poor, blind, self-righteous, but good-intentioned Harriet Granniss!

  Chapter 8

  There came days when Jud Granniss took Ariel Custer to walk in those same woods where he had thought his deep thoughts under the stars. There were Saturday afternoons, and early evenings during the longer spring twilight, and they talked of many things.

  At first Ariel was shy about going anywhere with him, their acquaintance was so new, and she had been most carefully brought up; but gradually as she came to know Emily Dillon better, and then Jud himself, she yielded to his invitations.

  There came a gala day when Harriet Granniss was sent as a delegate to a missionary conference in another part of the state, and Emily Dillon felt like a lamb let loose. It was marvelous that Harriet had been chosen for this office, for she was not exceedingly popular in her missionary society, faithful as she was. But the president who usually attended these functions was taken ill with pneumonia, and it became a matter of volunteering. As Harriet Granniss was the only member present at the hastily called meeting of the vice president, who said she could and would go, Harriet was sent. The vice president was a bit worried about it, for she knew the president liked to be represented by the right person who would make a good impression of their society; but she had company herself and a sick child, and it was good to get the matter settled so easily.

  Harriet Granniss was pleased as a child. She bought a new dress, and a coat, and a new hat. She bought new gloves and shoes and a silk petticoat, and she went around with a ponderous importance upon her as if she were newly elected to serve as president of the United States. Emily Dillon, watching, said, “Poor thing! She’s never had much fun in her life. Perhaps that’s what’s the matter with her. I must try to plan to give her a good time more often, though it’s hard to know what would please her.”

  Harriet was to stay over two nights. She bought a new suitcase, refusing Emily’s suggestion of a cab—Jud of course was gone to his work as she took the ten o’clock train—and she looked trim and capable and altogether an ornament to the Women’s Missionary Society of Glenside.

  Emily watched her around the corner, waved a bit of a handkerchief after her, waited breathlessly till she heard the whistle of the train and the puff of its going in the distance. Then she ran in the house, shut the front door and laughed aloud!

  She was still laughing as she ran upstairs, a girl’s bubbling, carefree laugh, though she was far past girlhood. While she made her bed and tidied her room, she was singing, trilling a carol she used to know long ago before life took the singing heart out of her.

  She tripped around the house putting it in order. Getting a lunch she loved, just graham pancakes and syrup, that she hadn’t had since Harriet came to live with her, because Harriet said they weren’t good for her. She made some coconut custard pudding for dinner because Jud loved it. Harriet considered coconut not fit to put in a human stomach. She called up the butcher—a thing Harriet never did; she said they always cheated you if you ordered that way—and ordered a porterhouse steak cut thick. Ordered fresh mushrooms and new peas regardless of their price. She never even asked the price, she was so happy she didn’t have to. Not that Emily was naturally a spendthrift, but that Harriet was such a savethrift that Emily felt she just must do something to celebrate this being allowed to do as she pleased. Then she went up to her room without locking the door and lay down with a book to rest awhile. Harriet would have considered that a lazy waste of time. Emily never dared read, except the newspaper a very few minutes after all work was done, without locking her door. Emily did hate to be reproved, although she had lived for the last five years in a constant state of reproof, yet she had never gotten callous to it and always dreaded Harriet’s sharp words just as much each time.

  About noon when she knew that Ariel would be preparing to go out to her lunch and it wouldn’t interfere with her work, Emily called her office and invited her to dinner that night.

  She had a wonderful time getting ready for that party. She went out to the flower shop and bought a mass of sweet peas for the table, flaming coral and white with maiden hair fern. She delved into the old highboy and brought out fine linen laid away in lavender. She opened a small silver chest where a few fine old spoons and forks were kept and spent a happy hour rubbing them bright. She climbed to the top shelf of the china closet, where Harriet had relegated her mother’s best sprigged china for fear it would be broken, and joyously set the table for three with the sweet peas in a cut-glass bowl in the center. She even telephoned to the fruit store for new potatoes—Harriet considered it criminal to use them until the old ones were positively gone—and she bought a whole pitcher of cream to use on the pudding. She even put on a little old white dimity dress she had before her father died. She hadn’t worn it but once since Harriet came because Harriet said white was childish for a grown woman and besides it made so much washing.

  She looked as pretty as a picture with her cheeks all rosy when Jud came home a train early and looked askance at the festive table: “We’re going to have a party, Jud,” she said with a twinkle in her eye, and when Jud tried not to frown because he liked Emily and repeated, “Company!” in a disappointed way, she twinkled again and said, “Yes, a girl.”

  “A girl!” he said and stepped back quickly as if he would like to go while the going was good.

  Emily Dillon laughed joyously: “It’s only Ariel Custer. You won’t mind her, will you, Jud?”

  And Jud’s face was wreathed all in smiles, and he hastened upstairs to get ready for the guest.

  They had a wonderful time that evening. They all washed the dishes together and then they played pachisi. And when they were tired of that, Emily opened the old square piano and made Ariel play.

  The piano was much out of tune and two keys stuck and refused to sound, but it was heavenly sweet to Emily Dillon, who had not opened it since her father died, and whose playing anyway was like a little bird’s twittering. Her father hadn’t believed in wasting good money on music lessons, and when her mother died, that ended music lessons for Emily Dillon.

  Ariel’s fingers strayed into a hymn presently. She sang in a sweet, appealing voice, and Jud growled in with a tenor. Even Emily ventured a shy alto such as she sang beneath her breath in prayer meeting when she went, and when there were enough others present to drown her voice.

  It was almost twelve o’clock when Jud saw Ariel home beneath the starlight, an unheard-of hour for that house when Harriet was home. But Harriet in her big mass-missionary meeting was happy and would never know how the mice were at play while she was away.

  That evening did a great deal to cement the friendship between these three. It was that night that Ariel promised to go to church with Emily, and Jud, listening, decided to go to the Methodist church
himself the next Sunday night.

  A few weeks after her return from the missionary conference, Harriet began to take alarm.

  Jud had been careful not to walk by the house from the train with Ariel but always managed to go around by the back street, saying he thought it was much more pleasant and made the walk a little longer, and she laughingly complied. It was pleasant to her, too, to walk and talk with Jud. He was her only man friend in this strange land, and it was natural for her to enjoy his company.

  But Harriet discovered that her son was not studying evenings as diligently as before. She noticed how often he had to go out evenings and how frequently he stayed in town at night. And presently a minor member of the missionary society who lived on the block back, whose house Jud and Ariel passed at night from the train, asked Harriet while they waited for a quorum to arrive: “Who is that pretty girl your son is going with now? I don’t think she belongs in this town.”

  Harriet looked at her grimly and faced her down: “My son doesn’t go with any girls,” she said in a tone one wouldn’t like to contradict, “except now and then Helena Boggs,” she added with the remembrance that where there was a will there was a way, and it was everything to create the right impression beforehand.

  “Oh, it wasn’t Helena Boggs,” said the other woman decidedly. “This one is real pretty with light hair, looks like a fairy! Oh, I know that Boggs girl. No, it wasn’t her. I’ve seen ’em most every night coming from the train. She must live up my street somewhere.”

  “I think they’re going to begin now,” said Harriet, reaching over for a hymnbook and settling back as if the matter they were talking of were of no moment. But that missionary meeting was simply destroyed so far as she was concerned. She got no enjoyment whatever out of it. She was planning what she could do to save Jud.

  It was the next week that Harriet sprang a bomb on her family.

  “Emily!” she said one morning when they were wiping the dishes amicably together. Matters had really been going along pretty well since Harriet’s outing, and Emily had been reflecting on asking her to run down to the shore that day and see how some tenement babies in whom she was interested were getting along in the baby hospital. But Emily had a sudden creepy sensation when Harriet began with that sharp, high-pitched “Emily!” It somehow seemed portentous.

  “Yes?” said Emily with a little quick drawing of her breath that she might meet whatever was coming with her lungs full. It helped her to be more self-controlled.

  “I suppose I have a right to invite company when I like, haven’t I? As it’s half my house, it’s my privilege, isn’t it?”

  “Why—certainly!” hesitated Emily with a feeling that she was somehow relinquishing blindfolded her last privilege.

  “Well,” said Harriet, wheeling to put away the tins she was wiping and clattering them sharply into their places as she talked, “I have anyhow! Helena Boggs is coming to stay with me while her folks go west for a few weeks. They’re thinking of moving out there, but Helena wants to stay here. If they decide to stay, I told her there was no reason in the world why she shouldn’t live here. There’s that room you said I might use, and I never have. It has furniture enough, and we don’t need it—”

  “Oh, but I shouldn’t care to rent rooms!” said Emily anxiously. “It really isn’t necessary—and—I shouldn’t care for it.”

  “I didn’t say anything about renting rooms,” said masterful Harriet. “She’s coming to visit me for a while. If she stays, she can pay her share just as we do—”

  “Would you think that was wise on your son’s account?” temporized Emily.

  “Wise?” snorted Harriet. “What on earth has Jud to do with that? And what business of yours is that, I’d like to know?”

  “Well, none of course, only I think it might be unfortunate if you drove Jud away. It might make you feel bad. I really think you would make a great mistake if you brought someone here that Jud doesn’t like.”

  “Oh, of course you know what my son likes and doesn’t like. That’s just like you, Emily. But I have a little more sense than you think I have. I’ve made up my mind to let Jud see what other girls can be. He’s determined to go with a girl that isn’t fit to go with, so I’m going to give him a good, wholesome chance to see a good, wholesome girl right here in his own home. Those things go a whole lot by being together and getting to know each other, and it’s time he knew what the right kind of a girl was like. If he knew Helena real well, he wouldn’t be traipsing off nights with this scatterbrained little doll that hasn’t a grain of sense in her head and isn’t fit to come into a decent family.”

  “But where did you get such an idea as that about Ariel Custer? You’re utterly mistaken; she’s a lovely girl. I’ve seen a great deal of her lately, and I think she is one of the loveliest girls I ever knew. She comes from an old Virginia family and has true refinement and a fine education—”

  “Yes, I thought likely you’d been aiding and abetting Judson in this foolishness! He never would have dared start anything like this alone. He knows me! But you needn’t think you two can put anything across over me. That girl is not fit for my son. How do you know she is a lovely girl and belongs to an old family? She told you so, I suppose. You couldn’t have found out any other way. But I know better. I know that a strange girl can’t come into a town and set herself straight for a young man and chase after him and not give him a minute’s peace, and still be a good girl. I know a nice girl doesn’t come into a strange town and nobody know a thing about her. She wouldn’t be a nice girl if she did. And she wouldn’t live a day in that Smalley woman’s house either. That’s enough against her. And as if that wasn’t enough, she’s carried on so chasing after Jud and always walking home with him every night, going around the back way to her street so I wouldn’t see and all, that everybody is talking about her. Mrs. Farley had the nerve to ask me about it last week at the missionary meeting, and I was so embarrassed I could have fallen through the floor. To think my son should take up with a mere adventuress! And you helping it on! You’re just nothing but a romantic fool, Emily Dillon! I should think you’d be ashamed! Lucky your father prevented your marrying a spineless beggar or you’d have been—”

  But Harriet Granniss suddenly realized that Emily Dillon was on her way upstairs and seemed not to have heard her.

  Emily went out a few minutes later and did not return all day, not until ten o’clock at night. It was quite unprecedented. Harriet eyed her suspiciously the next morning at breakfast, but she sat in her place as serene as a summer morning and said not a word about the occurrence of the morning before. Harriet had more to say and was waiting till Jud left for his train, for she did not want him to know yet that the Boggs girl was coming. But when Jud got up to go, Emily arose also hurriedly: “I’ve a letter I wish you’d mail for me, Jud,” she said sweetly. “I’ll get it. It’s all ready.”

  Emily Dillon went after her letter, but she did not return to the table. Harriet waited, eating her toast slowly, for Emily to come back, but she stayed in her room all the morning, and by lunchtime wild horses could not have dragged a word more out of Harriet Granniss’s mouth. They sat grimly eating a lunch that was of purpose made scanty, and all of articles that Emily did not care for. Stewed tomatoes, fried eggs browned on both sides, and canned soup. Harriet was a good cook, but there were times that she wasn’t. This was one of the times.

  Emily minced at everything pleasantly, saying little and ignoring her companion’s silence. She had a chastened look almost as if she had been weeping. She went back to her room as soon as the meal was over.

  The Boggs girl appeared a little before six that night, and there was a great sound of thumping and moving furniture in the room she had been given. Her trunk appeared just as Judson arrived from his train. He paused in the doorway with a questioning glance and waited until the expressman had gone. Then he sought the kitchen and demanded to know what had happened.

  “Helena’s here,” said Harriet, trying t
o act as if it were quite a common occurrence. “Her folks are gone away on a trip and she was all alone, so I invited her here.”

  “Helena?” said Jud, puzzled.

  “Yes, Helena,” said his mother complacently. “She’s a very nice girl, and she’s lonely. I want you to be nice to her while she’s here.”

  “You mean that Boggs girl?” he demanded.

  “I mean Helena Boggs,” said Harriet evenly. “She’s just as interesting as that little upstart of an A—e—real Custard you’re so smitten with. I just heard her first name yesterday and I should think that would be enough for any sensible man, A—e—real! Of all fanciful stuff and nonsense! Name a girl that! It’s ridiculous!”

  “Mother, do you mean that Boggs girl is going to be here for several days to make you a visit?”

  “I do. I mean she’s going to visit me until her folks come back from the West, and she’ll be down to supper in five minutes so I advise you to run up and wash, and be quick about it, for this potpie’ll fall if we have to wait dinner.”

  Jud gave his mother one scathing look—which she purposely did not see because she was earnestly engaged in cutting bread—and flung up the stairs two steps at a time.

  There was the sound of heavy footsteps overhead, for his room was directly over the kitchen, the opening of doors and bureau drawers, a stampede to the attic and down again, the sound of shoes thumping on the floor, the splashing of water, more heavy footsteps, and just as Harriet came into the hall to ring the little bell that summoned the house to dinner, her son appeared on the stairs with a suitcase in his hand and a coat slung over his arm. He pounded downstairs and out the front door: “I’m going,” he said to his mother as she approached with protest in her eye. “You can let me know at the office when that horse is gone!” And with that he vanished down the steps and out the gate.

  Emily in her open doorway just above the stair landing heard it all, and glancing down saw that the Boggs girl was pausing on the staircase, two steps below, and must have heard it also. Emily retreated to her room and made pretense of hunting for a sweater to let the atmosphere clear before going down, but when she reached the dining room the Boggs girl seemed serene as if nothing had happened. She and Harriet had evidently been talking it over, and they seemed to have a deep-laid plan. Harriet was tremendously upset by the withdrawal of her son, but the Boggs girl seemed to think it would turn out all right. They ate and laughed and talked and ignored Emily as if she had been a servant, and when she had finished a brief repast, she excused herself and hurried away. She came downstairs with her hat on while the two were in the kitchen finishing the dishes and slipped out the door and up the street to find Ariel. She felt the need of moral support. Also, she hoped Jud might turn up that evening, and she wanted to see him. She could not bear to have him driven out from his home. She wanted to assure him of her sympathy. She wanted to be sure that in his wrath he would not go far away nor do anything foolish.