Ladybird

  Ignoring the oncoming cars, she darted across the street after it, threading her way between traffic, almost putting her hand upon the hat only to have the wind snatch it once more and hurl it a little farther down the bank. Nimbly she darted after it again, though it evaded her several times, until in a sudden lull she pounced upon it and held it tight.

  When she rose and turned around to see where it belonged, she saw a tall hatless figure standing above her on the pavement, his white hair blowing wildly in the wind, his glasses dancing at the end of a long black ribbon, and his long arm and gloved hand, which held a walking stick, waving dignifiedly at her. There was something strangely familiar about the man, but she did not stop to identify it then. She hurried up the steep bank, all out of breath from her chase, her cheeks rosy with the exercise and her eyes bright at her success in getting the hat. She was smiling like a child when she handed it to him, and then she saw that he had put his hand in his pocket and was bringing out some money. Her laugh rang out happily as she ignored his outstretched hand.

  “I just loved getting it,” she said cheerfully, and at her cultured voice he perceived his mistake and stared.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said, hurrying the money back into his pocket and putting on his glasses. “I thought ” And then he perceived that he did not want to tell her what he thought. “You are very kind, I’m sure,” he blustered. “Not many young girls today would want to take the trouble to run after a passing hat. Why why haven’t I seen you somewhere, my child? Your face looks familiar. Perhaps I ought to have known you at first, but my eyes are not so good as they were. You live somewhere along here? Perhaps I have seen you passing.”

  “You are Mr. MacPherson,” laughed Fraley. “You saw me up at the mountain hotel. I used to play tennis and golf with your grandson.”

  “Oh, you don’t say so! That must be it then. I’m sure I am deeply grateful to you. You are a nice girl. I wish there were more like you ”

  Fraley laughingly protested that it was nothing and hurried away down the path to the river, leaving the old man looking after her, half perplexed lest he ought to have given her something after all. She looked like such a child in the little, trim knit suit she had donned before going out for her walk, and she ran so lightly down the steep incline as if she had wings on her feet. He stood for some time looking after her and then turned sighing away, wondering what it was in the past that stirred his memory when he looked at her. Something sweet and painful that was gone.

  That night at dinner, Fraley’s face was bright and peaceful. She had walked off her depression, and there was peace in her eyes and soul; she could smile.

  Violet watched her in admiration, for she had seen the struggle the girl had gone through while the visitor put her through her paces, and she knew she had been deeply stirred. There was something in this sweet young soul that others surely did not have, to be able to come out of it sunny and strong and wholesome.

  “Well, how did you like your cousin?” asked Violet at length when the main course had been served and the butler had withdrawn for a few minutes and left them alone.

  Fraley looked up with startled eyes. Their deep blue seemed almost to change to black as she looked. She went white around her lips.

  “My cousin!” she exclaimed. “Oh, what do you mean? Do you know something about my people that I do not know?”

  “Well, I haven’t quite proved it yet,” admitted Violet, “but I’m rather reasonably sure.”

  “Did she…”

  “No, she knows nothing about it yet,” said Violet crossly. She was vexed that this child of the wilds was not apparently pleased at her prospect of a high connection. “You heard all she knows. I’ve merely put the idea to working in her mind. She’s clever, and she’ll probably work it out after a while and question you. You didn’t think I would give you away to her without letting you know first, did you?”

  “No,” said the girl slowly. “I hoped you wouldn’t. I trusted that you wouldn’t. Please don’t say anything more to her if you can help it.”

  “Well, I can help it, of course, if I think it is wise. But why on earth don’t you want her to know? It puts you on a level with her. It gives you social standing, don’t you see?”

  “No,” said Fraley. “I’m not sure I want that. I am not sure I want her ever to know. If I had been, I would have hunted up my people right away. You see, I am—myself, and she is herself ”

  “Obviously,” said Violet dryly.

  Fraley smiled wanly.

  “I know that sounds silly,” she admitted, “but you don’t understand.”

  “I understand perfectly,” said the woman. “You don’t care a little bit about social position or wealth or anything in this world. But that is silly, and you’ve got to get over it. You have a right to take your own place in the world.”

  “I’m not sure that I have any place in the world,” said the girl thoughtfully. “If I have, it is not dependent on other people. God puts people up or down where He wants them. But that isn’t what I’m thinking about at all.”

  “No, of course not!” interrupted Violet a trifle bitterly.

  “Please,” said Fraley, “you don’t understand. My mother went away and married my father, and I’m not sure how they feel toward her, if they even remember her at all. I don’t want anybody to think that my mother’s child has come back to be a burden on anybody!”

  “Fiddlesticks and nonsense!” said Violet crossly. “There is no talk of that. You are here, looking after yourself, aren’t you? You are not asking to be a burden on anybody. You are supporting yourself.”

  “You mean, you are supporting me,” said Fraley, looking at the woman with honest eyes. “I don’t know why you do it this way. I know I’m doing nothing in payment for a home like this.”

  “You’re doing more than you know,” was the crabbed response. “Now, let’s talk about something else. Have you got that list addressed that I gave you? I want those invitations to go out tomorrow afternoon without fail or I shall have to change the date. It is not correct to send invitations any later.”

  “They are all ready. I stamped them just after lunch,” said Fraley happily.

  “And yet you say that you don’t do anything for me!” snapped the woman. “I never had my invitations done so quickly and so entirely without mistake before, not even when I had a trained secretary.”

  The girl smiled her shy pleasure.

  After the dessert had been brought in and they were alone once more, the girl looked up.

  “I would like you to tell me please what makes you think that girl may be my cousin.”

  Violet eyed her for a moment speculatively and then answered: “Because I went and hunted up the addresses you gave me when we first got here and found that the people had moved. I had them traced by a detective and found that the Mr. Robert Fraley who used to live downtown at the address your mother gave you was the father of Alison Fraley who lives on the Drive.”

  “But isn’t he a very rich man?” asked the girl after a moment’s thoughtful wonder.

  “Yes, he’s counted one of the very rich men of the city now.”

  “But he used to be poor. That is, he was just a clerk somewhere.”

  “Well, he didn’t stay a clerk,” said Violet. “Sometimes they don’t. He probably learned to play the market. Most people up here do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Oh, investing their money well, even if it isn’t but a little, and selling when it is a good price and then doing it over again.”

  “Is—that—quite—right? Doesn’t somebody have to lose?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know!” snapped Violet. “That hasn’t any-thing to do with the case. I suppose it depends on how you do it. Your idea, I suppose, is to find out if your uncle is honest. But you really have nothing to do with that. You can’t make everybody over to suit your ideas, not even if they are relatives. However, for your comfort, I can tell you that Robert Fraley is quite th
e correct thing in every way so far as I know. I have never heard a breath of suspicion against his morals or the way he got his fortune. He’s one of those ‘honest Scotchmen’ who are clever enough to turn a penny and keep in with religion, too. He’s very prominent in one of the big Fifth Avenue churche’s.”

  “Oh!” said Fraley and watched the varying changes of her informer’s face as she said these half-sarcastic things about the newly discovered uncle.

  Violet was going out that evening and disappeared into her room almost immediately after the evening meal. There was no further chance to question her that night. Fraley went up to her room with much to think about. She sat down in the window where she could see the lights on the river, with her Bible in her lap. There was a reading lamp close by that she would turn on presently when she had thought her way through. But now she loved to sit with her hand on the dear old Bible, while she thought. It was more as if her mother were talking it all over with her. Oh, if she could only hear her voice and could lay her head in her lap as she used to do and tell all that was in her heart and see what the mother thought about it!

  Fraley had long ago purchased with the money left over from Seagrave’s Bible a Scofield Bible such as she had bought for the young missionary, for after much deliberation she had decided that she would rather have that for a keepsake of him than anything else. She wanted to see what she had sent him, and she enjoyed the thought that perhaps she was reading the same things that he was reading, because she had the same kind of a copy. So she was devouring the Book again as if it were a new book, looking up all the marginal references and reading all the enlightening footnotes and getting daily new light on the Word. It was all very precious. But tonight, she had unlocked her treasure drawer and taken out the old cotton-covered Book because she felt that she needed the comfort of her mother’s presence and guidance, and because, too, she felt that perhaps her reading of the other copy with the thought of the young man in mind had been a thing she ought not to have done, at least, in the light of her present knowledge that he was as good as engaged to her cousin. She must get out of that habit.

  So she sat there in the dusk of the city in her darkened room and thought.

  It seemed to her as if everything had been turned upside down again in her life. Her friend was gone, and she had in his place an unwanted cousin and an unknown uncle—and there would be an aunt, too, of course, who was a still more unknown quantity. Silently, in the darkness, the tears began to slip down her cheeks. She longed inexpressibly to run away and get back to her mountain. If only those men could be taken away from there and she might have the place in quietness and peace, she thought it would be a wonderful refuge. She believed at that moment that she would be content to stay there alone for the rest of her days, if she need not fear those enemies of hers. But it seemed there were enemies of one kind or another in the world whichever way one turned.

  Presently, as her fingers slipped between the worn precious leaves, she felt two that seemed to stick together, and idly her fingers sought to free the soft jagged edges from each other. But they would not come apart. She began to realize that there seemed to be a soft layer of paper or something between them.

  Curious, she snapped on the light and began to examine them.

  She had not read much in this Book since she purchased her new one. In fact, she had only used it that first night or two in reading to Jeanne, because she had bought the new one the second or third day she was out shopping. She had put this one away for safekeeping, not only lest its leaves should become more worn but also to protect if from the amused and curious glances of anyone who might enter her room, for she had been quick to see that they thought it very strange in its cotton covering. To have it viewed by unsympathetic eyes was like laying bare her heart.

  She found that the two pages that were stuck together were in between the Old and New Testaments. Perhaps that was why she had not noticed them when she read to Jeanne, because she had not had to open between them.

  And now she saw that “For Fraley, dear” was scrawled in pencil in her mother’s hand as if she had written it in her last hours when she was too sick and weak to write her best.

  Eagerly, carefully, the girl sought a paper knife that was a part of the outfitting of the beautiful desk that adorned her room. The pages were pasted together most carefully so that the torn edges fitted each other, and it hurt her to separate them because they kept tearing in little jagged fringes. But when she finally got them apart she found a letter within written by her mother on an old piece of paper bag. It was folded small and addressed to her.

  As if she had heard a voice from another world, she laid her hand on her heart and looked at it, smiling through the sudden tears that came. A letter from her dear mother! And that it should come just now when she was particularly sorrowful and in great doubt! Perhaps God had sent it to help her to know what to do.

  Chapter 20

  Mother’s dear little girl: [the letter began]

  Someday you will find this letter between two pages in the old Bible, and it will be like me speaking to you again.

  It’s terribly hard for me to leave you all alone, but I feel that God is going to take care of you, and when you read this you will, I hope, be far away from here with good people somewhere who will help you find a way to earn your living.

  But there will be times when things all look black, for life is like that. And perhaps this letter will help you then, and you will remember that your mother thought ahead and wished she could bear all the hard things for you. But I suppose you have to have your hard testings like everybody else, to get you ready for the life everlasting. Remember, you don’t have to do it all alone. If you ever get where you don’t know what to do, go to God, and tell Him just as you used to tell me everything.

  I can’t write any more. My strength is almost gone, and this is all the paper there is, but you know I love you, and I’ll be waiting for you when you come home.

  If, where I am going, they let mothers like me be guardian angels, I’ll ask to be allowed to guard you, precious child, till we meet in heaven.

  Your loving mother,

  Alison Fraley MacPherson

  For a long time Fraley sat reading this letter over and over until she knew each line by heart. It seemed so wonderful to hear her mother’s words spoken out of the grave and to have the letter come just now when her soul was tried. It seemed to make all the things that had troubled her sink into insignificance. She was in the world being tested, and if anything that she desired was not the Father’s will she must not want it, that was all. It might seem to her that she could not live without it, but that would not be so, for the Lord knew best, and He was able to bring her through a thing of the Spirit as well as He had brought her through the perils of her pilgrimage.

  She went to bed that night with her mother’s letter under her cheek and a more peaceful look upon her brow than she had worn for several days.

  Violet Wentworth did not rise early, and it was understood that the mornings were Fraley’s to do with as she pleased, unless there were letters to be written.

  Fraley had planned to go downtown this morning, so she started out early, intending to walk until she was tired and then take the bus.

  As she came out to the pavement, she saw old Mr. MacPherson coming down the street with his stately tread, looking keenly at her, evidently recognizing her. The smile that lit his crabbed old face gave her a new view of what the man might have been.

  Fraley smiled up at him and would have let him pass, but he halted and spoke to her.

  “Good morning, little maid,” he said with a somewhat courtly manner. “Are you feeling any the worse for your sprint after my hat yesterday?”

  “Oh no,” laughed Fraley. “I was glad to have a good run. There isn’t often so good an excuse for running in the city, you know, and I’m supposed to be grown up.”

  “Are you, indeed!” smiled the old man, watching her sparking beauty with admiration. “An
d is this where you live?”

  He glanced up sharply at the house.

  Fraley said it was.

  “And are you going out to walk? May I walk with you a little way? We are neighbors, we ought to be acquainted.”

  Fraley said she was and would be glad of his company, and they fell into step along the pavement.

  “I suppose I ought to know you,” said the old man, smiling down at her scrutinizingly. “But I’m not very good at remembering names and faces. Your face, however, is not hard to remember. Whose house is that where you came out, anyway? I declare I’m not quite sure.”

  “Mrs. Wentworth lives there,” said Fraley.

  “Oh!” said the old man and then, “Oh,” in quite a revealing tone. It was most evident that he did not approve of Mrs. Wentworth. “And—you are—her—daughter?” he asked, and Fraley fancied his tone was now less cordial.

  “No,” said the girl. “I’m just staying there for a little while. I’m helping her. She calls it social secretary work.”

  “I see,” said her companion more cordially. “Well, that’s good. You are a good little girl, I’m sure. Always keep yourself sweet and unspoiled the way you are now. I’m glad you don’t paint your lips. It’s ghastly the way the girls do that. You couldn’t smile the way you do if your lips were painted. You make me think of something sweet I lost once.”

  “Oh,” said Fraley shyly. “I’m sorry! I wouldn’t want to trouble you.”

  “You don’t trouble me,” he said gruffly.

  They walked a long distance toward downtown until the old man said he would have to go back, that he was getting beyond his beat. So Fraley took the bus and went on down, wondering at the strange friendship she had picked up with this old man who bore the same name that she did. There seemed to be a wistfulness about him as if he were hungering for something he could not find.

  Fraley’s errand that morning was to look up the addresses her mother had put in the old Bible. She felt that she wanted to know for a certainty about her mother’s people before she went with Alison. She wanted to be sure that Violet’s information was correct.