Beauty for Ashes

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “Now Gloria, do try to be reasonable! You can’t just ignore the customs of society that way!”

  “Look here, Mother, I’m not going out on exhibition! I shan’t probably see anybody at all except the Ashers, and you don’t suppose they’ll care what clothes I have on, do you?”

  “I certainly do!” said the calm voice of the mother. “You must be appropriately dressed. If you’re not, they would think, and rightly, that you had not the proper respect for their feelings.”

  “Mother, if they can care about things like that now, I don’t care what they think! I have plenty of clothes, and I’m not going to bother about others!”

  “But black, dear! You must wear black!”

  “Well, I already have two or three black dresses, if it’s got to be black!”

  “But they are not mourning, child, and you in your position— the—”

  But suddenly Gloria gave a scream and rushed from the room. “Don’t! Don’t! Don’t!” she cried in a low, hurt voice, and fled upstairs to the great attic room that had been the children’s playroom when they were little and where corners and crannies still held dollhouses and baby carriages and the toys of long ago. Vanna found her there an hour later when she went anxiously in search of her, curled up in a little heap by one of the dormer windows, staring wide-eyed out across the hillside and the woods, down toward the stone bungalow among the trees, the bungalow that was to have been her beautiful home. There was tragedy in her eyes, but there was not a trace of a tear yet.

  Vanna dropped down beside her and put her arm around her.

  “Glory dear,” she whispered, “Nance is downstairs. She wants to see you. She says she must see you. Do you feel able to speak to her a minute, or shall I tell her you are asleep?”

  Gloria was still a minute, and then she rose quietly.

  “I’ll see her,” she said, still in that toneless voice that seemed so terrible to her sister. “Where is she?”

  “Down in the library. Would you rather I brought her up to your room?”

  “No,” said Gloria, “I don’t know why I should make you do all the work. I’ll go down.”

  Nance was wearing a smart tweed dress of black and white mixture and a black felt hat, and was smoking a cigarette as she stood looking out the long french window to the lovely sloping lawn. She whirled about as Gloria entered, nervously crushing out the cigarette in the ashtray that stood on the little end table by her side.

  She fixed hard, solemn eyes on the girl who was to have been her sister-in-law so soon and stared. It was as if she were searching her very soul through and through. And Gloria stood there like a thing at bay and took it, with just that quiet, inexplicable look on her face. Vanna stood by and watched her, marveling at her sister.

  Then Nance spoke in a hard, tired voice.

  “I said you’d take it just that way!” she remarked, opening her cigarette case and getting out another cigarette. “Mother said you’d be simply crushed, but I knew you had character! I’ve always said you had character. I’ve always known you were too good for Stan!”

  Gloria winced and caught her breath in as if the words hurt her.

  “Oh don’t, Nance, please!” she said pleadingly.

  “Well, it’s true!” said the sister, her voice sailing up a note or two in the octave, a high, shrill, overwrought voice. “Stan was spoiled! I suppose we all helped to do it!”

  She took one puff at her cigarette and flung it on the ashtray with the stumps of several others she had played with before the girls came down to her. Then she turned and began to pace up and down the room with long, masculine strides.

  “My nerves are all shot to pieces!” she remarked, coming up in front of Gloria again and facing her almost defiantly.

  “I had no business to come over here this way!” she went on. “I know it! But I couldn’t stand Mother groaning and carrying on any longer! And I had to see how you were taking it!”

  Gloria gave her a little wistful attempt at a smile, so sad that Vanna over in the window seat put down her head on the back of a leather chair and sobbed quietly. Gloria put out a gentle hand and touched the other girl on her arm!

  “I’m sorry, Nance!” she quavered, “I know—it must be— terrible—for you!”

  Nance whirled on her fiercely. “Oh, and isn’t it terrible for you, then?” she demanded.

  “Oh—!” Gloria drew in her breath with a suffering sound. “Oh—but in a different way!”

  “How different, I’d love to know?” It was as if Nance had come with a knife to probe the wound in this girl’s breast, find the bullet, and rub the wound with salty words.

  Gloria was silent for a moment, her face averted, and then she answered slowly, hesitatingly, “The girl, Nance—you—don’t have to—mind—her! You—don’t have—to think—about her at all!”

  Nance stared at her averted face. “Oh, that!” she said contemptuously. “That’s nothing! You don’t mean to say you’re bothering about her! They all do things like that today. It doesn’t mean a thing! I thought you had more sense!”

  “Yes, it does mean—a great deal!” said Gloria slowly, her hard, sad, young eyes looking far away through the window down the slope of the hill. “It sort of wipes out—a lot—that was—dear!” Her words came slower, her eyelids drooped, her lips drooped at their corners and were trembling as she spoke. “It makes it—he doesn’t seem—to belong to me—anymore!”

  Gloria suddenly dropped into a chair and dropped her gaze to the floor, but there came no tears. The tears were all slowing down into her heart. They seemed to drown her inside, but she lifted her eyes and met the cold gaze of Nance, saw the curl of her lip.

  “I didn’t think you had a jealous nature!” The words cut like knives.

  Gloria shook her head. “It’s not jealousy!” she said. “It’s something wider, more final than jealousy. Jealousy you feel for a day and get over. This is something that puts me out into another sphere somehow, just makes me feel he never has belonged to me—None of it—has ever—been—real!”

  Nance looked into those hopeless, lovely eyes and tried to break their look with her own glance. But Gloria’s eyes did not change.

  “How absurd!” said Nance. “Stan worshipped the very ground you walked on, Glory. He couldn’t say enough about you at home. He was simply crazy about you!”

  Gloria looked at her as if she were not looking into her eyes at all, but saw something beyond her, something that outweighed what had been said.

  “Yes?” she answered in that strange voice that sounded like a negative. Nance drew her brows together and studied her.

  “Oh, Gloria, don’t be difficult—now—when all this is happening! Don’t be trivial! I know it’s hard on you, but don’t get notions. Everybody in our set knows how devoted Stan was to you!”

  “Yes?” said Gloria again and still looked at that vision of a strange girl in the distance just beyond Nance’s head. A girl that was not of her kind. A girl who was no respecter of other people’s rights. A girl lying dead beside her bridegroom.

  “Gloria, you’re not going to make more trouble, are you?” Nance spoke sharply, with a kind of hard agony in her voice.

  “Make trouble?” said Gloria in a soft, amazed voice. “I make trouble? There is no trouble left to make, is there Nance? No, of course I’m not going to make trouble. I’m aching for you now, for the trouble you have already to bear. Is there anything that I can do to help in any way? I have a feeling there is something I should be doing, but I can’t seem to think what it is!”

  Gloria spoke in her gentle wistful voice out from under the crushing blow that had fallen upon her. There were tears in Vanna’s eyes, but there were no tears in Gloria’s eyes. There was hard, agonizing comprehension in Nance’s face, but Gloria kept that stricken smile on her lips and offered to help. The other two girls watched her, uncomprehending.

  “You’re a strange girl, Glory!” said Nance at last. “I can see you are making this thing a lot h
arder for yourself than it has any need to be, a lot harder than it really is. Stan was just a carefree boy. You never thought he was an angel, did you? Yet you are taking it further even than death. You are taking the blow at your spirit instead of just your life. And you don’t need to do that. It’s hard enough just on the surface, goodness knows! Why should you want to go further? You can’t live in your spirit that way on earth. You just can’t. You’d die if you tried to. It isn’t being done!”

  “I’ve just been finding out that I can’t live if my spirit isn’t satisfied!” said Gloria, giving her a strange, startled look. “That’s why I don’t know just how I’m going to bear it!”

  Nance suddenly gave a great, deep, awful sob. “Oh, this is awful! It makes one feel as if there ought to be a God!” said Nance.

  “I wonder if that could make any difference,” said Gloria with a longing look.

  “Oh, Glory,” cried Vanna, “don’t talk such awful things! If Dad should hear you what would he think? If you only would sit down and cry as you always do when you feel bad, I am sure it would help you.”

  “But this isn’t just feeling bad, Vanna. And I can’t cry. I think I’m bleeding inside. And I’m seeing so many things I never understood before!”

  “Sit down, Glory dear, sit down,” said Vanna. “I’m sure you oughtn’t to be standing up. It takes your strength.” She gave a frightened look at Nance.

  “Yes, sit down, it takes your strength,” said Nance, turning troubled eyes toward Gloria. “Can’t you get her something to drink, Vanna? It’s the shock. She isn’t quite herself.”

  Gloria dropped into a chair with a wan smile. “Oh, yes, I’m myself, quite, Nance dear. Don’t get that idea,” she said quietly. “I’ve plenty of strength. You needn’t worry about my strength. This isn’t anything that has to do with strength. It’s something that’s way deeper than that. Strength is just your body. This is something that has touched the soul, and I’m not just sure I ever knew before I had a soul. Don’t worry, Nance. I’m not out of my head. I wish with all my heart I could do something to help you bear your part of this, Nance dear!”

  Nance stared at her hungrily an instant and gave a quick, meaningful glance toward Vanna. Vanna answered it with another frightened look. Then there came the sound of a car driving up, the sound of a key in the latch of the front door. “Oh, there’s Dad!” said Vanna with relief, brushing away the quick tears, “I’m so glad he’s come! He will know what to do. Don’t go, Nance! Dad’s great when you are in trouble!”

  “Oh, I must go! I can’t see anyone else today. I’ll just slip out this back way. No, don’t come. I must get back to Mother. I’ll let you know when—Father gets back!”

  She ended with a sob and was gone.

  Chapter 2

  Gloria’s mother had her way. It was a foregone conclusion that she would. She had managed the stage scenery and costuming for her two beautiful daughters since their advent into the world, and she was not one to relinquish her rights easily. If she could not stage a wedding, then at least a funeral should have its proper clothes.

  Also, it appeared presently that this funeral was to be an affair. Gloria had hoped, had supposed, of course, that whatever ceremonials attended the death of her fiancé would at least be private on account of the circumstances. But to her utter dismay, she discovered that the Asher family was going to ignore the circumstances and make a hero out of Stan. Whatever fashionable grief could do to make the last rites of the son and heir to their millions a thing to be remembered and respected, that was to be done. Stanwood Asher’s mother meant that her son should not be put away in disgrace. He should lie in state, and his many friends should assemble and mourn properly at his untimely cutting off from the earth!

  So Gloria saw that the awful days ahead of her must be lived through, and she set herself to endure. Meekly, like a white-faced robot, she submitted to her mother’s ordering. She tried on and stood for fittings whenever she was called. There was one thing, however, that they could not get her to do. She would not take an interest in any of the smart black garments they brought for her approval. She would scarcely look at them. She shuddered when she came into the room where they were, and when they tried to get her to make a choice, she turned away with a sigh and said, “Oh, I don’t care! Whatever you say. Just get the simplest thing there is!”

  Then her mother would look hopelessly after her and sigh. “If Gloria would only take things as they come and be interested, it wouldn’t be half so hard for her!” she said hopelessly to the observant fitter. “If we didn’t have these practical interests of life like pretty clothes and social duties, how could we live through trying disappointments?”

  The woman looked at her with wondering eyes. Pretty clothes and social duties played very little part in the life of the fitter.

  So Glory continued through those endless days with that sweet, hopeless look in her eyes and utter indifference for the things of life.

  Sometimes her father would give her a long, understanding glance, and that helped. She had had very little time with him alone; always someone else was by. Just a low spoken word when he came: “Child, this is going to be hard! Keep steady! You’re a brave girl!” Just that and a tender kiss. There never had to be many words between them. They understood each other better than the rest of the family. It seemed to Gloria that her father was the wisest man living.

  No one but her father knew how awful it was for Gloria to go and stand beside that dead form of the fiancé who had been killed with another girl. It was expected of her of course. She had to go. She wasn’t sure but she expected it of herself, but she shrank inexpressibly from looking on his face. What she felt was not merely a natural shrinking from death, it was the agony of looking upon a face that had been her fiancé’s and knowing that he had never been hers.

  Everybody said how wonderful he looked, as if he might open his eyes and call out some cheerful witticism. As if the merriment that had been on his lips when he was suddenly called away lingered, ready for expression as soon as he should awake.

  But to Gloria it did not seem that way. It was as if a house that had been her welcome abiding place had suddenly closed its doors against her very existence. That face that all her life had been so familiar, so dear, was like a stranger’s. The spirit she had thought she loved had fled. Had it ever been what she thought it?

  Characteristics she had never seen before stood out on the features. Those closed lips had a selfish, spoiled look now that they could no longer curve and turn with a pleasant expression.

  She closed her eyes and turned away. They thought she was trying to keep back the tears. Her father hoped she would weep. He felt it would relieve the strain. But Gloria had turned away to shut out sights she did not want to see. She had hoped that somehow the sight of Stanwood dead would dispel this awful feeling she had about the way he had died. But instead of that it brought out lacks she had never noticed in his laughter-crowded lifetime.

  Gloria was glad that she did not have to sit facing that casket during that long, awful service, more thankful than she would have cared to tell anybody that she could hide away upstairs in a darkened room with the family, before the world thronged into the palatial residence to do honor to the son of the house. As she went upstairs, her bright hair shrouded in a heavy veil, she caught glimpses of her young friends huddled in frightened groups, with eyes cast down and gloomy countenances. It was all too evident that they did not want to come here, did not want to be reminded that death was inevitable, did not want to be drawn into this tragedy, yet knew that for very decency they must.

  It was like the tolling of a bell for a lost soul when the solemn words of the burial service began. Gloria shivered, and Vanna sobbed silently in her corner. Mrs. Asher, swathed in deep black, moaned audibly beside her tortured husband, while Nancy sat like a grim specter, her handkerchief to her eyes.

  “Man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble,” began the preacher in a solemn a
nd monotonous voice. “He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down, he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more.”

  Gloria listened to the desolating statements and shuddered in her soul. How horrible was life! Why did anybody want to live? Stan was gone! In a few hours, this place where he had been the life of everything would know him no more! Gloria heard his mother moan and cry out, “Oh, my baby boy!” and there came to her a sudden desire to scream and cry out, too, in protest. Oh, why did they have such terrible things as funerals? Why put the tortured relatives to any more pain than they had to suffer already? She felt if this thing went on very long she would go stark crazy.

  But the monotonous, cultured voice of the minister went steadily on through what seemed an endless multiplication of words, statements of facts that they all knew. Death was inevitable of course, but what could one do about it? Why all this harrowing language?

  Gloria tried to listen, to catch the reason for all these words. Presumably they were a ritual of the church. She did not know even vaguely that any of them were taken from the Bible. It would not have made any difference to her if she had. There was no hope in the words that were chosen. What hope was there for one in her position? None! All her days she must go with blight on her life. How she was going to do it, she knew not. She had not thought one hour beyond this funeral service. Since ever she had heard the awful news she had lived from hour to hour to endure the things that had to be endured until all that she owed to the family of her fiancé should be fulfilled. After that chaos! A blank! She did not think of it now except to hope for oblivion in sleep. After that—well that would have to be dealt with when she came to it.

  The monotonous reading ceased at last, followed by a prayer by a retired pastor of the church with which the Ashers were associated. A trembling voice, cultured sentences, becoming more and more personal. Gloria heard herself prayed for as the mourning bride. She grew cold and hot behind her thick veil and trembled again, wondering if this terrible ordeal were not almost over.