Beauty for Ashes

by Grace Livingston Hill

  The uncle turned a quick searching glance on her face, took in all its loveliness, questioned with his eyes its artless smile of eagerness, and finally warmed under its brightness into something like geniality.

  “She looks like Mother, doesn’t she?” he said unexpectedly, and the pleased color came into the girl’s face.

  “Oh, that’s nice!” said Gloria, “I’d like to be like her! I’ve been hearing such wonderful things about her, only I’m afraid I never could come up to her standards!”

  “She was a great little woman!” said Uncle George with growing approval in his eyes. “You’d be doing well to be like her! But I thought all city girls these days were highflyers.” His eyes searched his new niece with surprise.

  Gloria laughed. “What are highflyers?” she asked with a twinkle in her eyes.

  Her uncle twinkled back and said with a half grin, “Well, if you don’t know, I won’t tell you. I wouldn’t want to spoil you; you’re too much like Mother! But come on, get out and come in the house. Come see how you like your aunt and cousin.”

  “Cousin?” said Gloria’s father, “aren’t they all at home? I hoped we’d catch the whole family, coming on Sunday.”

  “No,” said Uncle George, “the boys are both away out west for good, I’m afraid. Only Joan is home, and she goes back to Portland to her school tomorrow. She teaches there now.”

  “It sounds as if she were probably more like Grandmother Sutherland than I am,” said Gloria wistfully as she got out of the car and looked about her at the well-kept house and yard.

  Uncle George gave a grim grin. “No,” he said with a half sigh, “Joan’s more like her mother’s side. She never looked like Mother. The youngest boy is the only Sutherland in my flock. Barney. He’s out in Chicago now—got a good job. He’s not likely to come back unless he gets transferred east. Albert is out in Wisconsin farming. He married a western girl, and I guess he’s anchored for life. But he’s like his mother, too. Well, come on in.”

  In the house, the welcome was unsmiling and almost haughty. Aunt Miranda Sutherland was a woman with a prim mouth and gimlet eyes. Gloria could see at the first glance that she disapproved of her at sight, and Joan was only a slightly more modern edition of her mother. She seemed a good deal older than Gloria. They shook hands stiffly and sat down as far from the chair they had given Gloria as the limits of the big parlor would allow. For a few minutes, they said little, leaving the conversation entirely to the two brothers, but when Gloria began to say how charmingly their house was located and to rave over the view, the cousin turned and looked her over critically, and the aunt said with a sharp tinge to her voice, “How is it you’re off up here? The last I heard of you, you were going to be married. We got your cards. Wasn’t it this week?”

  The color suddenly drained out of Gloria’s sweet face and pain came into her eyes. “Yes—I was—” she began haltingly. It hadn’t occurred to her that she would meet with that tragic matter up here so far out of her world. It stabbed through her heart like a knife and twisted cruelly. What to answer, how to explain the terrible thing without making it more tragic? It seemed as if there were no words to go on. But her father had heard and answered for her.

  “Gloria has been through a very sorrowful time,” he said gravely. “Her fiancé is dead. That was why I brought her up here, to get her away from everything for a little while.”

  An embarrassed instant of silence fell upon the room, and Gloria’s eyes were down, but bravely she lifted them and set a little wan, wistful smile out toward her unknown relatives.

  “Oh!” said the aunt obviously curious. “I wondered. We saw a notice in a New York paper. Joan brought it home from Portland. It was the same name as that on the invitation, but I thought it might be just a coincidence.”

  “No,” said Gloria quietly, “it wasn’t just a coincidence.” There was infinite sadness in her tone, but it did not invite further questioning.

  Her aunt looked at her avidly for a moment, obviously expecting more details, but Gloria remained silent. “Well, that certainly was too bad!” she said at last, half grudgingly. “There’s many a slip, of course, but we aren’t always looking for it to happen to folks we know. Did you know the girl he was with when it happened?”

  Suddenly Gloria’s father arose and stepped forward, his hat in his hand, his voice clear and a bit haughty. “Well, I guess we must be going,” he said, offering his hand to his sister-in-law and then to his niece. “It’s quite a drive back to Afton, and Mrs. Weatherby is expecting us both to tea. Also, I’m rather expecting a business telegram, which may call me back home suddenly. I’m glad to have seen you. It’s nice to know you’re so pleasantly located. The view certainly is lovely from here. You must enjoy it a lot.”

  He talked incessantly, keeping between Gloria and her aunt and giving her no opportunity to reply to the question that had been asked her. Gloria managed to keep a semblance of a smile on her face until they were in the car and started off again. She even had the grace—or the courage—to say graciously as they drove away, “Can’t you drive over to Afton and see us while we are there? We’re going to stay a few days yet I think.”

  Joan thanked her ungraciously and said, “I don’t think it’ll be possible. I go back to Portland in the morning, and Mother doesn’t go out much anymore.”

  Gloria, once out of their sight, settled back in the car with a stricken look.

  Her father gave her a troubled glance. Finally, he said, “I wouldn’t mind so much what she said. I don’t think they really meant to be unkind. They’re just curious and perhaps a little hurt that we didn’t write and explain, as they are relatives. I think that has been their grievance all along. They think we feel ourselves above them.”

  “No, I don’t mind so much about them,” said Gloria with a sorrowful little sigh. “I was just thinking, all the world knows my disgrace. I didn’t realize anybody would know it outside of Roselands.”

  “Why do you call it your disgrace? You had nothing to do with shooting Stan.”

  “No,” sighed Gloria again, “but it is a disgrace to have been connected with a man who died in that way. You know that, Dad.”

  “I always knew he wasn’t worthy of you,” said her father vehemently.

  “After all, Dad, what have I done that should make me worth so much? I’ve been just a good-for-nothing parasite!” said the girl. “When I hear about Grandmother Sutherland and all that she did, I’m ashamed.”

  “Times have changed,” said her father sharply. “You were not required to do so much. Your circumstances were different. If you were back in those times and had the same necessity upon you, I’ll warrant you would do as well.”

  “I wonder,” said Gloria thoughtfully.

  The telegram that Mr. Sutherland had spoken of so lightly without any real idea one would come, arrived over the telephone as they were coming down to breakfast the next morning:

  YOUR PRESENCE IN OFFICE IMPERATIVE TODAY.

  IMPORTANT NEWS FROM ENGLAND JUST ARRIVED.

  Gloria’s father turned troubled eyes upon her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’ve got to go home at once. I’ll have to fly if I can catch a plane in time. Will you stay here? I can probably return tomorrow or the next day. Or will you go with me? I could send the chauffeur up on the train to bring down the car.”

  Gloria’s eyes took on a look of panic. “Oh, I’d rather not go home—yet!” she pleaded. “Would it be all right for me to stay here a little while longer?” Her eyes sought Mrs. Weatherby’s face, which reassured her.

  “Sure, you’re as welcome as the spring in winter!” exclaimed John Hastings, pulling out his chair from the breakfast table. “And Mr. Sutherland, you’ve time to eat your breakfast.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll drive you down to the airport. There’s a plane that leaves about the time we’ll get there. I’ve gone on it myself.”

  In ten minutes more they were on their way, for Gloria decided to ride down and see her fa
ther off into the sky.

  They sat together in the backseat with the Hastings in front.

  “I’m afraid you’re going to be mighty lonesome,” said the father, taking his distracted mind from his business for a glimpse at his daughter.

  “No,” said Gloria, “I’ll be all right. I’ve got some thinking to do while you’re gone, and I found a lot of old books in the parlor bookcase. I’m going to sit in the hammock on the porch and read between thinks.”

  She kept up a cheerful front till he had kissed her and gone, even until the plane was a mere speck in the distance. Then suddenly there descended upon her a sick feeling of desolation. Why had she let him go without her? Why had she not gone along with him?

  And like a great bird of prey, all the burden of her sorrow and the shame of Stan’s death came down upon her terror-stricken soul. How was she going to endure the days without her father?

  Chapter 5

  All the way back to Afton Gloria was listening to Emily Hastings with her ears, as the kindhearted woman told her who lived here and there and what was what along the road, but her heart was suddenly living over again the tragedy that had come into her life and crying out in horror.

  It was as if her father had been a kind of protection that had been around her, in which she had been able to exist as in a new world, living back in the years of his early life. But now that he was gone, the glamour of this place was gone with him, and it became a foreign atmosphere in which she could not breathe normally. She looked into the far bright sky that had swallowed him up a few minutes before and wished she had gone with him. Going home would not have been any worse than being in a strange world with people who thought they had to entertain her every minute, while all the time she was longing to crawl away in a hole and hide.

  Every detail of that terrible funeral lived itself over hour by hour in her mind as the day crawled through its seemingly endless minutes. Every expression on every face she had seen since Stan’s death passed before her in review. She shrank again from Nance and her bitter words, her covert sneers at herself for caring about that girl. And then her mind leaped to Cousin Joan and Aunt Miranda’s blunt questions. She saw again the cold, unsympathetic glances of those two and knew they were enjoying her discomfiture as if she had been a worm on a pin and they had been watching her squirm. With supernatural insight, it came to her that it was not because those two women were cruel and that they had been glad of her trouble and had tried to rub it in, but because they had been jealous of her wealth and easy life, and it helped to assuage some of their pangs of envy to know that she too had seen disappointment. They had presumed to think of her as feeling above them, and now they were glad that she was brought low. She perceived that it was a state of mind with them rather than personal enmity.

  Yet though she could thus excuse and in a sense forgive them, her soul groveled in the earth to think that Stan, her fiancé whom she had trusted so perfectly, had laid her open to such pity as this. Doubtless this was the way everybody thought of her, in spite of their modern standards, as a girl whose fiancé had gone after another girl on the very eve of marriage.

  She went to her room when they reached the house, saying she must write some letters, but she did not write letters when she got there. She buried her face in her pillow and let the whole wretched horror sweep over her soul and rack it as it would. There was no one now to interrupt. The tears did not flow down her face, for still they would not come, but she knew they were flowing down in a torrent into her heart, tears of her life’s blood, and she wished—oh, how she wished—that she could cry out her life and be done with it all. Then, just in the middle of her extreme sorrow, the dinner bell rang for the hearty midday meal, and she wondered how she could ever go down and eat. Was there no place in this wide world where one could get away and grieve to death?

  Then she heard the dear old lady’s voice calling her, “Gloria, Gloria dear! Come down to dinner!” and the spirit of her own grandmother seemed to stir in the sweet lavender-scented room and urge her. “Go, dear! Don’t grieve my old friend.”

  Grandmother would never have slunk away and grieved to death. Grandmother would have gotten up and done her duty.

  Gloria arose, washed her face hastily, and hurried downstairs.

  There was johnnycake, hash, and applesauce for dinner. It was the first time Gloria had ever been on intimate terms with any of them, and she liked them all. Somehow the good cheer around the table dispelled her gloom. After she had helped with the dinner dishes, she hunted out a book from the bookcase, put on a heavy coat, for the spring air was chilly, and curled up in the hammock on the porch to read.

  It was a gorgeous day, and the very air seemed buoyant, yet her heart was so heavy the sunshine fairly hurt. But after a time, she grew interested in the book and managed to while away most of the afternoon.

  She tried taking a walk alone, but somehow, with her father away, the romance was gone, and when she looked down the aisle of the woods, she could only see a long vista of years, her life, with the zest all gone out of it.

  Her father called her up on the telephone that night to know if she was all right and to say he might have to stay a couple of days longer. Did she want the chauffeur to come up after her, or could she stand it a little longer without him?

  She answered cheerily that she was doing beautifully, and though her heart shrank from another day or two of monotony without him, she shrank still more from going home, so she told him she was quite all right and he mustn’t hurry away from important business just for her.

  But when she hung up, she had a dreary feeling of being a prisoner in a strange land.

  Yet home would have been worse. There would have been Mrs. Asher and her woes, there would have been Nance with her fierce morbidity, and there would have been all the bridesmaids running in to make painful duty calls and bemoan her fate with her. No, a thousand times no, she could not go back home yet. She must get her bearings before she went back, though just how she was to get them was beyond her. She didn’t seem to be doing anything about it here, just mooning along through the days, sorrowing through the nights, getting black rings under her eyes, a sorrowful droop to her mouth. How was she ever to bear life again?

  For three days, except when she could persuade Emily Hastings to let her help in some household duty, she spent most of her time on the front porch reading.

  The second day she heard whistling, and it cheered her a little. It wasn’t like any whistling she had ever heard before, not jazzy nor half crooning as was the crazy music at home. It was clear, sweet notes like a bird in the early morning, and sweet quaint tunes that she had never heard before, though occasionally there was a melody she recognized from some great symphony. The whistler was familiar with fine music—that was evident. Sometimes there was a bit of Scotch melody and then hymn tunes, whistled with such perfect rhythm that one could almost hear words with the melody.

  Whoever was whistling was working just out of sight behind the big white farmhouse that stood a little back from the road, diagonally across the highway. She heard the sound of a saw and a hammer—good, strong, sturdy blows—driving a nail of proportions into wood. It made a musical ringing that chimed well with the whistling. Later there came the ring from a heavy roller going over smooth ground and a little tinkle each time it turned as if some metal fragments were caught within the cylinder and were striking against the iron. Not that she reasoned this out. She was not familiar with saws and hammers and rollers and their work. Such things had not intimately touched her life. But an inner sense told her that somebody over there was doing something in which he was interested, and enjoying the work. Without realizing it, that cheery whistle comforted her. It was probably that elderly gray-haired man she had seen working on the farm across the road, though it sounded like a young whistle.

  But Gloria had discovered Lorna Doone, and was deep in the thrills of romance and adventure. She did not stop to think about the whistler except to be glad that he w
as there making cheery noises.

  The third day, however, she had come to the end of her book, and was lying back thinking it over, all its sweetness and sadness, beauty and tragedy, comparing it with her own life, realizing how different her fiancé had been from the hero in the story, feeling those terrible tears in her heart again, feeling an almost desperation.

  Her father had not come yet. Instead, there was a letter saying that he was involved in most important matters in the office, which it would be disastrous for him to leave, and suggesting again that she come home. Her mother, he said, was interested in getting up a drive for welfare and very much wanted her home to help. She sent word that there was much that could be done quietly, and that no one would criticize her for going into charitable work. He said that he did not see how he could get back to her before Sunday, or even the middle of next week, and it was all owing to some unexpected turn of affairs in European finance. Gloria just couldn’t have been more down and out than she was that afternoon. She was looking into a stretch of endless days ahead of her, in which the sweet quiet she had so enjoyed at first had palled exceedingly upon her, and yet there was no place in the world to which she desired to go instead.

  It was just when things had reached this stage that she heard the front gate in the white picket fence swing open and clang back on its noisy hinges and, looking up in panic, saw a very good-looking young man with a tennis racket under his arm coming toward her.

  She arose precipitately from the hammock to beat a hasty retreat, but he was there before she could get away.

  “Please don’t go yet,” said the young man, smiling pleasantly. “I came over to speak to you. I’m Murray MacRae from across the road. I’ve only been home a few days, but I’ve seen you sitting out here, and I just wondered if you happen to be a tennis player. Because I’ve been fixing up our tennis court, rolling and marking it, and putting up new wire stop nets, trying to get it finished before my sister, Lindsey, gets back from her school, and I’ve just got it done. I wondered if you wouldn’t take pity on me and play me a set or two just to try out the court and see if it’s all right. I know we haven’t been introduced yet, but I guess I can hunt up Mrs. Hastings and remedy that. Won’t you come?”