Chance of a Lifetime

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “Why, Sherrill’s going to New York!” announced Grandma, with keen, quick eyes searching the fervid young face before her. Grandma liked to tell the news and then watch the result and reaction.

  “Going to New York!” echoed Alan blankly, and then Sherrill looked up and realized that there was another unknown quantity to be reckoned with. Next to Keith, Alan had been Sherrill’s closest comrade and pal. “What are you going to New York for, Sherrill?”

  “To make a clever marriage!” announced Sherrill wickedly. “At least that is what my unbeloved aunt is expecting me to pull off.”

  Alan had a stricken look.

  “Why, you’re only a kid, Sherrill Washburn!”

  “I’m nineteen!” said Sherrill lightly. “It has been done even younger than that, you know,” she babbled giddily, trying to hide the pleasure in her own heart that Alan looked so miserable.

  “That’s all right, Alan,” chimed in Keith with a twinkle. “If we don’t like her choice, we’ll wring his neck, won’t we, kid?”

  Alan tried to grin, but the stricken look remained, and he said little, though his tongue was usually glib enough with repartee and nonsense.

  “No kidding. Is that straight?” he said, looking at Keith.

  “The straight of it is that Sherrill has had an invitation to spend the winter with her uncle in New York, and we think she ought to go,” answered the elder brother firmly. “It’s an opportunity, of course, and she ought not to miss it. Don’t you think that’s right, Alan?”

  “Sure, s’pose it is,” said Alan gamely, “but meanwhile, what’s to become of the young people’s society and all the plans for winter without our new president, I’d like to know?”

  And now the stricken look appeared on Sherrill’s face, for the work they had planned to do was very dear to her heart also.

  “It’s probably your opportunity to take her place, kid,” said Keith. “You’re first vice president, aren’t you? Besides, the winter won’t last forever.”

  “It’s certain it’ll never come this way again.” Alan grinned. “Not for this one anyhow. But, of course, we don’t want to stand in Sherry’s way if she wants to go out among ‘em.”

  “Well, she’s not so keen on it, son, as she ought to be,” said Keith with a warning glance at the boy. “It’s up to you to encourage her. See?”

  So Alan set his lips firmly.

  “I see,” said Alan. “Make me the goat, you mean? All right, I’ll think it over. All set, Sherry?”

  “All set, Alan!”

  “He’s going to feel her going,” said Grandma when they were gone.

  “Nonsense! Mother! You’re always so romantic. They are just good friends. They are only children yet, you know.”

  “Well, he’s a nice child, anyway,” said Grandma with a speck of a sigh. “She won’t find many in the city cleverer than he is either.”

  “He’s been a very pleasant comrade,” said her daughter firmly. “I hope Sherrill won’t think of anything deeper than that for some time to come. But, of course, Alan is a good boy.”

  “Yes, Alan’s all right!” said Keith, rising to go back to his office for the evening. “But don’t worry about him, Gran. Alan won’t waste away for one winter of separation. His head is set on straight and he’s the right stuff. It won’t do him a bit of harm to be a little lonely for once. Well, good night, don’t sit up too late thinking of frills for Sherrill. I’m glad she’s going, for it’s just something she needed. It isn’t right for her to grow up knowing just Rockland.”

  Out in the moonlight, Alan and Sherrill were walking along together, talking about the committee they were both on and the plans for the evening.

  Suddenly a silence fell upon them, and then Alan broke it with a strange, troubled sound to his voice. “Say, Sherrill, what’s all this swell marriage you’re talking about? What’s the idea?”

  Sherrill laughed. “Oh, that’s a joke. Didn’t Keith tell you?”

  “You heard all he told me,” said Alan gravely.

  “For pity’s sake, don’t take it seriously, Alan,” chided Sherrill. “It’s only fun. It was that aunt of mine, the one I don’t like, Aunt Eloise. She is always saying something disagreeable. She wrote that if I were clever, I might make a good marriage while I was up there. Get me off the family hands, you know, and all that.” Sherrill laughed. “Imagine me!”

  But Alan did not laugh. “Well,” he said glumly, “it’s what’s to be expected, of course, when you go away like that for the whole winter.”

  “Alan MacFarland,” said Sherrill, stopping short on the sidewalk, “if you talk like that I’m going straight back home. I never expected you to speak that way! I thought you were my friend and understood me. I thought you had a sense of humor!”

  There were almost tears in Sherrill’s eyes.

  Alan put out a hand gravely and just touched the tip of Sherrill’s elbow protectingly, as if he were years older than she, though, in fact, he was but seven months older.

  “There’s usually some kind of truth behind all jokes,” he said seriously. “I just didn’t like the idea, that’s all. It means—well—sort of the end—you know.”

  “The end of what?” Sherrill asked sharply.

  “Well, the end of this. Sherrill, you know we’ve been friends for a long time.”

  Sherrill stopped again and whirled toward him, half indignant, half amused.

  “Now, look here, Alan. You’ve simply got to stop this ridiculous nonsense,” she said earnestly. “I never saw you act so foolish in all my life. I thought you had more sense. Why, Alan MacFarland, I’m just a kid yet. You said so yourself only a few minutes ago. I haven’t an idea of getting married for ages yet.”

  “Corinne Arliss was only sixteen when she was married.”

  “Well, I like that! If you want to class me with Corinne Arliss, I’m done. Do you think my mother brought me up to run away, just out of the cradle, with a lazy, sporty boy like Sam Howe?”

  “Well, you needn’t get angry with me, Sherry,” said the boy disconsolately. “It’s only that it sort of seems like the end of things to have you go away like this for a whole winter, and just when we’d planned all these things! And then to have you talk about making a clever match—it seems as if you’d suddenly grown up—that’s all.”

  “You make me very cross!” said Sherrill. “For just one word more and I’ll stay home! Do you think I want to go away? I’ve been holding off for a week saying I wouldn’t go, till the family made such a fuss I had to give in. Keith was the worst. He thinks my father would have wanted me to go. My uncle is his only brother, you know, and they were very close to one another. Besides, Keith thinks I owe it to Father to go.”

  “I suppose you do,” said Alan gloomily. “Forget it, Sherry. I’m an old grouch. Of course you must go, only it’s going to be tough sledding without you.”

  “Oh well,” said Sherrill cheerfully, “a winter won’t take long to pass. It will be like the time you went to Canada with your father. It didn’t last forever, you know, although it did seem pretty long while it was going on, I’ll admit.”

  “All right,” said Alan with a deep breath, trying to put on a cheery atmosphere, “here goes! I’m game. But what are we going to do for a president for our society?”

  “Not anything,” said Sherrill. “I’m not moving away. I expect to return before the year is up. A winter is over in the spring, remember, and if you ask me, I’ll tell you it’ll be a remarkably early spring this year if I have anything to say about it.”

  “But what do you mean? We can’t get along all winter without some head, can we?”

  “Well, aren’t you vice president? Isn’t that what a vice president is for, to take the place of president? You are dumb, Alan, my dear. Come to think of it, that is just one more reason why I should go, to give you your rightful place in this society. You wouldn’t take the office of president, though it has been offered to you three times to my certain knowledge, so now you are
having it thrust upon you.”

  She flung a triumphant smile at him through the darkness, and Alan grinned back.

  “I only said no because I wanted you to be president,” he growled.

  “Didn’t I know it, Alan MacFarland! Serves you right then. You’re a peach, of course, but you’re like an open book to me. And, of course, you know that the only reason I consented was because I could make you tell me how to run things right, so your everlasting modesty wouldn’t seal your mouth and keep the society from having the benefit of your wisdom.”

  “Boloney!” said Alan in a more lighthearted tone.

  “No boloney about it,” said Sherrill. “Those are the facts. Just wait till I tell the society what they are to do and expect.”

  “Say, look here, Sherrill, don’t you go putting anything over on me now. I won’t stand for being pushed to the front.”

  “I don’t see that you can help it,” said Sherrill triumphantly. “You are vice president, aren’t you? By no act of your own. And your duty is to take the president’s place when she can’t serve. That pushes you into the place automatically, don’t you see? That’s what you are there for.

  “Why, of course, Alan MacFarland. That goes without saying. Did you suppose I was going to be mum as an oyster all winter? Don’t you know I hate to go worse than you hate to have me go? You poor fish! I’ll bore you to death with directions, and watch every mail for your reports—just as I did when you went to Canada—and got nothing for my eagerness but half a dozen skimpy little postcards inscribed ‘O.K.A.M.’ or something to that effect.”

  “Oh well,” said Alan. “I was only a kid then. I was too much interested in that new country.”

  “You’re only a kid now, Alan, and don’t go to thinking you’re grown up, please, for you’ll spoil everything if you do. We’ve grown up together you know, and it isn’t fair for you to get ahead of me while I’m gone.”

  “You don’t think New York and all those clever marriages your aunt is going to try to thrust upon you are going to age you any!” parried Alan.

  “Certainly not,” said Sherrill cheerily. “Now take off that grouch and don’t let everybody know we’ve been having a fight.”

  She gave him a friendly little pat, and they went up the steps of the house where they were to spend the evening together.

  The door was flung wide, and happy voices and brightness greeted them eagerly. Sherrill felt a pang at the thought of leaving it all that threatened to overwhelm her. How hard it was going to be to drop out of all this dear circle, where all her interests had been since childhood.

  She went in with her own bright smile, however, feeling that for Alan’s sake, at least, she must not let anything seem different.

  They rushed upon her eagerly.

  “You’re late, Sherrill! You two have been making such a fuss about everybody being on time and here you are ten whole minutes behind time yourselves.”

  It was Alan who answered with a grave smile. “It couldn’t be helped this time, Willa. Keith had something important to tell me. We got away as soon as possible.”

  Sherrill gave him a quick glance and noticed the quiet gravity on his usually merry face. So then her going was really cutting deep with Alan! She wondered why that should give her a pleasant sort of satisfaction, and somehow make it easier for her to go through the evening just as usual.

  Chapter 8

  The social committee had outdone itself. The house, in which this festivity was being held, was a big, plain, roomy old affair that would have been the better with several coats of paint, both outside and inside. The furniture was, some of it, rare because very old, but the rest was plain and cheap. Yet it was a home where they all loved to go, the home of the beloved physician of Rockland, Dr. Barrington. Willa Barrington and her brother Fred were among the most active in the younger set. Since they all could remember, the Barrington home had been the center of some of their most delightful good times.

  The doctor’s office was housed in a neat little building down on the corner of the lot, facing on both streets, and quite separate from the house, so that the clamor of joyous laughter and many young voices would not be disturbing. The Barrington lot was deep, and they had all helped to make the excellent tennis court at the back and contributed to the substantial back shops and other paraphernalia of the game. They had even planted the row of cosmos across the side fence that gave the tennis court a lovely setting in the fall; they had kept the lawn about the edge carefully cut, dividing the labor with the son of the house, so they all felt that they part owned the place. As indeed they felt about several other homes in which their activities were welcome at any time they chose to come.

  But tonight the social committee had simply smothered the wide, plain, old rooms with bowers of lovely autumn colors. Great branches of autumn leaves framed all the pictures, and hid the mantels, and embowered the stair rail and newel post. Masses of outdoor pompon chrysanthemums filled the room with their spicy fragrance. White and pink in the old parlors, in vases and bowls and lovely old pitchers, standing on tables, and peering from between the curtains in the wide, old window seats; flame color and gold in the dining room, banked on the fine old sideboard—the sideboard that had been in the family for nearly two hundred years, with two tall white candles in unusual brass candlesticks at either side.

  The dining room ceiling had been curiously decorated. Lines of fine, invisible wires had been strung across the room at intervals, and from it hung single flowers of bright chrysanthemums on silver wires, interspersed with especially lovely autumn leaves, either singly or in tall sprays, giving an effect of a fall garden.

  From the chandelier above the long dining room table, which was spread to its full length and surrounded by a heterogeneous collection of chairs, came many small ribbons in shades of crimson and green and brown and gold, coming from a common center and spreading each to a place card at the table, cunningly fashioned from a folded card, and cut and painted in the shape of an autumn leaf.

  Beside each place card stood a tiny toy candlestick, each containing a small yellow candle, and beside each candle lay half a cake of paraffin. Those guests who had penetrated to the dining room before they were expected to do so exclaimed and wondered, and a few who were wise exulted in the fun that lay before them.

  The entertainment committee were consulting around the old square piano in the parlor, and a collection of instruments, running from cello and violin, down to guitar, ukulele, and banjo made it plain that an orchestra had a part in the program.

  The girls were in pretty light dresses, varying from a few flowered chiffons, to printed dimities and organdies. The boys made no attempt at evening dress. Some of them even came in knickers and sweaters. They were a democratic, informal crowd, all knowing one another well and not met together for a display of raiment, just a jolly crowd who had grown up together and were not judging one another by worldly standards.

  “They’re all here now, Prissy!” called Willa, as Sherrill came downstairs after having taken off her wraps and become enveloped as it were in the smiles and welcoming glances of her companions.

  Priscilla Maybrick bustled her orchestra into position, and they struck into a lively little medley of familiar songs that ended each one in just the right place to make a laughable sentence with the words of the next melody, and kept the company in a series of out-breaking laughter as they listened and followed the words.

  “Now,” called Priscilla, swinging around on the piano stool as the last note of the orchestra died away, “Phil Mattison will read an original poem of greeting from the new social committee, one verse written by each member of the committee.”

  The poem was received with enthusiasm, being cunningly devised, and each verse rhyming with the name of its writer, which finished its last line.

  At its close Priscilla Maybrick announced that as this was to be an original evening, the next item on the program would be an original song written by Rose Mattison and Riggs Rathbone i
n collaboration.

  The song was indeed original, containing a verse about almost every member of the group, a rollicking, laugh-provoking bit of humor only to be appreciated by a local listener.

  Sherrill, standing on the lower step of the stairway just opposite the wide arched parlor door, looked across the bright, laughing company and suddenly felt tears stinging into her eyes. How dear they all were! How could she go away and leave them for a whole winter? What was New York to this dear throng?

  Then her eyes were drawn irresistibly across the room to where Alan stood with grave, earnest eyes upon her. Alan, who seemed suddenly to be older, more thoughtful, than he had been that morning when she had met him racketing around in his old Ford, collecting cakes for the evening. She sent him a bright flash of a smile, and his came instantly back, only somehow it seemed to have a depth of gravity in it that Alan’s smile had never held before, and she found herself wishing she could just put her head down on the newel post and sob out, “I don’t want to go to New York! I won’t go to New York!”

  But Priscilla Maybrick was calling them all in order after the last verse of the solo was over. She was rapping on the back of a chair with a little wooden nutcracker mall that Will had produced, and they were having fun about that even. How every little trick of the occasion was being photographed on Sherrill’s brain to remember hungrily when she was gone from it all!

  Pang after pang! It beat upon her soul and made her feel that she could not go away. Yet she knew her letter of acceptance had already been mailed to her uncle, and she was bound to go now, at least for a time.

  “When the orchestra begins to play, you are all to form in line and march out into the dining room, where you will find your seats by the place cards,” announced Priscilla Maybrick.

  As Sherrill turned to swing into line, she found Alan suddenly by her side and felt a comforting sense of strength about her. His fingers just touched hers with a quick furtive clasp as they stood together for the instant, and he said in a low tone, “You’re a good old sport, Sherry!”