Beauty for Ashes

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “Well, tell her you can’t spare her but five minutes,” said Vanna. “Then I’ll come down and rescue you. That’ll divert her. She doesn’t likely know I’m here.”

  “The dickens she doesn’t!” said Gloria glumly. “She knows everything in the most uncanny way. Well, good-bye. I’ll have to go down, but don’t you bother to come after me. Just slip down the back stairs and to the back door, and go around the barn over to MacRaes’, then she won’t see you. Tell them to go on playing without me. Tell Murray to play the two of you till I come.”

  “Well, can’t you bring her along?” asked Vanna anxiously. “No telling how long she’ll stay.”

  “No, I can’t bring her along,” said Gloria. “She’d have all of us down under a wet blanket before three minutes had passed. Good-bye if I don’t see you till night.”

  Gloria hurried down and found Joan ensconced in the darkest corner of the big parlor, attired so drably that she had trouble discovering her.

  “Well, you see I’m here bothering you again,” greeted Joan grimly. “I’m sorry to trouble you. I suppose I’m likely interrupting some of your plans, but I couldn’t help it. I thought I ought to come whether you like it or not. I thought it was my duty.”

  “Duty?” said Gloria settling down near a window where she could catch a glimpse of the road. “Why make it a duty to come and see your cousin?”

  “Oh, yes, that cousin stuff is all right for talk!” said Joan. “But it isn’t so pleasant when we’re expected to answer for the actions of one’s relatives.”

  “Do we have to do that?” asked Gloria innocently.

  “Well, that’s what it amounts to!”

  “Why, I always supposed each one of us had to answer for our own actions,” said Gloria.

  “It seems we can’t live to ourselves!” said Joan severely. “Anyhow, I felt it my duty to come and tell you what people are saying about you.”

  “What people are saying about me!” exclaimed Gloria. “Why, what could they possibly say about me that could make any difference? Why should they know anything about me or think anything about me? I know very few people around here.”

  “No, that’s just it, and you’re taking the very best way not to know anybody. When a girl comes into a community and picks out one man and specializes on him morning, noon, and night, and gets herself into questionable situations with him, then people don’t want to know such a girl. Not right-minded people!” Joan leveled her cold eyes at her cousin severely.

  “Have I done that?” asked Gloria with an amused light in her eyes.

  “You certainly have!” said Joan firmly. “It would have been bad enough under ordinary circumstances, but for you, practically a newly made widow, to carry on that way is unforgivable.”

  “Do you mean that you consider it wrong for a girl who has been through recent sorrow to have any friends?” asked Gloria, that amused light still in her eyes.

  “She doesn’t need to have men friends,” said Joan bluntly. “There are plenty of women around. She could keep in the background for a while at least for decency’s sake, and not get herself talked about. I thought I ought to come and tell you that people are saying terrible things about you.” Joan drew a breath as if she had just thrown a powerful bomb at her cousin and expected it to blow her up immediately.

  “Well,” said Gloria, considering her cousin gravely now, “that was kind of you, I suppose, but, just why should it matter to me that people were talking about me? I’m not conscious of doing anything wrong according to the standards I was brought up on, and if I am violating some local code here without knowing it, why bother to tell me about it? It really won’t make any difference a hundred years from now, will it?”

  Joan’s cheeks grew angrily red. “It certainly makes a difference to the people who are unfortunate enough to be related to you,” she said sharply. “I’ve had to defend you all this week, and I’m about sick of it. I’m ashamed. I thought of course if you knew you’d do something about it!” There was a desperate sound in Joan’s voice as if there were almost tears behind her words.

  “But I don’t understand, Joan,” said Gloria more gently. “What could people possibly say about me that could worry you or make you ashamed? I can’t see what they would say or why they should want to say anything.”

  “Well they do. They say you are a bold girl. They call you a hussy! They say you have made a dead set for Murray MacRae and that you spend all your days and evenings in his company. People see you driving off with him, and it is said that you’ve been seen openly flirting in public places. They’re telling how you go out in open fields and eat meals together, and you were seen with two other people, some say one was your sister, going into an empty lonely farmhouse and that you stayed there an hour or more before you came out again! They say—oh, a lot worse things about you! I’m ashamed to tell you everything. But Mother thought I ought to come and let you know. She said if the things weren’t true and you were an honest girl, you’d put a stop to all this talk!”

  “What’s all this?” said a voice from the doorway, and looking up they saw Vanna standing there in her soft pink frock like a lovely summer rose. “Put a stop to all what talk?”

  “Oh,” said Gloria, looking up with relief. “Joan, this is my sister, Vanna. Vanna this is our cousin Joan. She’s come over to tell me that people are talking about us because we went over to Robert Carroll’s and learned how to plant corn and because I’ve been playing tennis with Murray MacRae so soon after a death in our circle.”

  “Yes?” said Vanna coolly. “Well, now suppose we forget it. You know, Joan, Gloria has been through a terrible time, and we brought her up here to get her mind off of it, not for her to sit down and mourn. Murray MacRae has been very kind and thoughtful and has helped a lot to pass the time away. He seems from what I have seen of him to be a fine, clean, moral young man, and so far our whole association with him has been entirely decent and open for anybody to see. If you don’t believe that, come on over with us now. We are due to play tennis at MacRaes’ this minute, and Murray’s sister, Lindsey, is expected in an hour. Perhaps you know her. I am sure they will be glad to have us bring you over. Then you can go back and tell your friends who have been talking about my sister just how much foundation there is for the talk, that is, if you care to defend us. It really would be immaterial to us whether you did or not. People who will get up lying tales about strangers are really not people I would care to know, so it doesn’t matter what they say. Now, will you come with us?”

  “No, indeed!” said Joan, getting up sharply, her face growing red with indignation. “I wouldn’t think of going there. Murray MacRae is not one of my friends, and I shouldn’t like to be mixed in with gossip. Besides, I have a lot of work at home to do, and I only took time from other duties because I felt you ought to know the truth.”

  “But it isn’t the truth!” said Gloria indignantly. “They’ve been telling lies if they’ve said anything such as you suggest about us. It’s most amusing to think such talk could start on so little foundation and go so far as to reach you in Portland.”

  “Even a child is known by his doings!” quoted Joan primly and significantly.

  “Yes, well, Gloria is not a child, Joan,” said Vanna coldly, “and people have no right to talk of things they know nothing about.”

  “But people have seen her!” insisted Joan.

  “Well, if they have, they have seen nothing indecorous,” said Vanna. “Or else they are lying.”

  “But you were seen entering that farmhouse where a young man lives alone!” said Joan in a high key, facing down the two sisters as if she meant to fight to the last ditch. “Did you or did you not go there?”

  “Why, certainly, we went in at Mr. Carroll’s invitation to see the quaint old fireplaces,” said Vanna, “but there were four of us, besides one of the farm boys, and it is really nobody’s business whether we went in or not. If people are so evil minded as to make gossip out of that, they will ha
ve to do it. Don’t bother anymore about it, please. It doesn’t bother us in the least, and it will soon pass away and be forgotten. The young men are certainly so respectable that it can’t hurt them, and we shall soon be away from here again.”

  “But what am I to say when people tell me these things?”

  “Say nothing,” advised Vanna, “or better still, tell them it is none of their business. You know the least said is soonest mended. I wouldn’t answer such talk. Just laugh. It really can’t live without fresh fuel you know, no fire can, and most of all the fire of gossip. Come on now, go with us over to MacRaes’. We are already late.”

  “No, I must go home!” said Joan offendedly and marched straight out to her car without further words and drove rapidly out of sight.

  “Well, and that’s that!” laughed Vanna, casting a quick, anxious glance toward Gloria. “Come on! She’s some swell cousin, isn’t she?”

  “I think perhaps she meant to be kind,” said Gloria thoughtfully. “But can you imagine it, making talk over that little picnic? And how on earth did it all get started? There wasn’t a sign of a person in sight, except those two hired hands, and they were mere boys, and one of them was along with us when we went in. He opened the shutters ahead of us to go through the rooms. Well, forget it, dear. It’s just funny, that’s all.”

  “You don’t suppose that it will hurt Murray and Robert here in their own home locality, do you?” asked Gloria anxiously.

  “Hurt them? How could it?” asked Vanna. “They are too big to be bothered by a little gossip. Tell them about it and see how they’ll laugh! My word! What would these dear people do if they lived in Roselands and had some really wild parties to report and enlarge upon?”

  Then they swung back the MacRae gate and saw Murray and Robert coming to meet them, and the cloud on the horizon vanished.

  But a little later when they were sitting together resting between sets and watching for the car that was to bring Lindsey and her professor, Vanna told of the visit of Joan.

  There was great merriment over the story, but Robert suddenly sobered down.

  “That’s Tilly Coulter’s doing, the whole thing!” he said gravely. “I ought to have remembered her prying eyes and her powerful field glasses. I might have known she’d make ten mountains out of a little molehill. However, I know a way to straighten things out. I’ll just go up and have a frank talk with Tilly and let her know I understand all about it, and I’ll make her eat her own words over the telephone to a few loquacious friends of hers. It doesn’t matter, of course, only it’s just as well to clear the name of our friends when we can. It makes a better witness in the world.”

  Then a car was heard at the front of the house, and they all rushed around to greet Lindsey MacRae and her professor.

  Chapter 11

  Three more delightful weeks passed in Afton, and Joan did not come again to trouble them with idle tales of gossip. The gossip had somehow taken a turn for the better, and kindly eyes turned curiously toward the girls as they went about in the little village or attended the church where their father used to be as a boy. Vanna reflected one day on this and decided that Robert Carroll’s method for stopping gossip must have been effective.

  Vanna had seen Robert Carroll and Murray MacRae in what Gloria had called their “real” environment now. She had attended several meetings with them, indeed played for them, and had watched the response of young people to the preaching of the gospel. She knew now what her sister had meant by a spiritual environment, and yet she had not said anything more about it to Gloria. She had just gone on from day to day having a good time, watching Robert Carroll, listening to him sometimes when he talked of the things of another world, yet taking no stand, only listening. But Gloria felt no longer worried lest she would make fun of their two new friends, no fear lest she would intentionally try to win the heart of either of these young men just to throw it away when she went from them. Vanna was thinking deeply, that was apparent, but what she was thinking she did not say. Only one thing, she had not mentioned again the name of Emory Zane.

  And then one day soon after, a great cream-colored car bright with chromium and noisy with trumpets came blaring up to the quiet old door of the Sutherland house, and there was Emory Zane, come to find Vanna!

  Mrs. Sutherland had been most discreet in her further talks with Emory Zane, following the conversation she had had with her husband about him. For he came again as she had known he would, to see what news there was of Vanna, to see if she had returned yet. And when he came, Vanna’s mother received him with a purring tone and discoursed discreetly about Vanna’s father, “poor man,” being so distracted with business that they really didn’t like to cross him in his whims, and one of the latest whims had been to send Gloria and Vanna off to his old hometown and have them stay a while among rural surroundings.

  “And of course it isn’t so bad for Gloria,” added her mother with a pensive tone, “poor child! She really is just as well away from things for a while. But poor Vanna! It is terribly hard on her to be stuck away in that isolated hole with nothing on earth to do from morning till night. It was so sweet of her to be willing to give up her own life here and go up there to try and help her sister out.”

  “Where are they, Mrs. Sutherland?” asked the young man eagerly. “Why shouldn’t I take a spin up there and give them a little excitement?”

  “Oh, that would be wonderful of you!” said the mother warmly. “I just know Vanna would appreciate that so much! You see, we were all so worried about Gloria, or Vanna wouldn’t have left just now. We couldn’t persuade Gloria to return. She shrinks so, poor child, from meeting the world again, and keeps putting it off from day to day. That’s really why Vanna went up. I’ve been so hoping she would be able to get Gloria to be sensible about it and come home, but in the last letter, Vanna seemed to think it was impossible to move her just yet.”

  “I might even be able to persuade them to come home with me,” said the man loftily, as if when he undertook a matter it was sure to go through.

  “Oh, I would be so grateful if you could do that!” said Vanna’s mother with a dewy look of gratitude around her eyes. “I have been so sorry for Vanna. I know she will be just too pleased to see you coming! And I’m sure it will be good for Gloria, too. But, may I ask you, please, not to say anything to Mr. Sutherland about it? He is so harassed with business just now, those foreign finance matters you know, and he takes strange notions.”

  “You mean against me?” asked the man of the world with a slow smile.

  “Well, I wouldn’t exactly like to say that,” said Mrs. Sutherland, “but somewhere of course he has heard some of the rumors you were speaking about, and it isn’t always easy to disabuse his mind of a thing he has once heard. But of course it will all pass away and be forgotten in a few days. And it’s so kind of you to think of going to see the girls.”

  There was a sinister glitter of satisfaction in Zane’s eyes as he left the Sutherland mansion and drove away, turning over his plans in his mind. It would suit him very well if he could put Mr. Sutherland in a position where he could no longer use his influence against him.

  And so Emory Zane had arranged his affairs and taken his way in his big cream-colored car up to Afton.

  Vanna was on the front piazza in the hammock reading when he came, and her greeting was not especially joyous. She and Gloria had planned to go to the woods in a few minutes and bring back some lovely maiden-hair ferns they had discovered in a clump by the roadside a few days before. John Hastings had dug up and readied the spot at the shady end of the porch where they wanted to put them, and they were eager to get them planted. And now this arrival was an interruption. If they were hindered very long, they would have to wait until another day for the ferns because they were due to go to MacRaes’ at five o’clock to practice some music for a meeting that evening over at Quiet Valley, and they mustn’t be late for the rehearsal.

  So Vanna arose from the hammock and came slowly down
the steps to meet her caller, with no very eager smile on her face. For one thing, the car with its noisy trumpets and gaudy fittings struck a wrong note in this quiet country town, and she suddenly felt that it was out of place. She cast a quick, anxious glance down across the road to the MacRae house. What would Lindsey, sweet quiet Lindsey, think of her caller? Murray, she knew, had gone into Ripley on business. He was coming back with Robert Carroll at five for the practice. Vanna hoped she could get rid of her caller before that.

  “Of all things!” said Vanna lazily when she knew that she must speak. “Where in the world did you come from?”

  “Straight from your home, darling!” said Emory Zane coming up the walk and taking Vanna’s hand in his for a close clasp. Then stooping, he bent over with courtly manner to kiss her fingers.

  “Don’t be silly!” said Vanna sharply, snatching her hand away and aware of the color that spread over her annoyed face. This sort of thing didn’t belong up here, and she wondered why she had such a strong desire to give the man a good sharp slap on his handsome supercilious face. She wondered why she had ever been intrigued by him.

  “I’ve brought you a package from your mother!” he said, handing out a suit box, which Vanna at once suspected contained clothing that her mother thought more suitable for entertaining millionaires than the clothing she had brought with her.

  “Oh, that was kind of you!” she said, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “I hope you didn’t have to go far out of your way. I am afraid you did, for I can’t imagine your being interested so far out of the world as this. There really is nothing up here that you would care for, I’m afraid, unless you like views.”

  “There is always you,” said the young man in that soft, impressive tone of his that had so often flattered her, and he looked deep into her eyes with a significance that he hoped would bring the lovely color into her face again.