Beloved Stranger

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “Very well, now, if you are so interested in me and my business,” he said at last, “what would you suggest that we do? You know the facts, that I need a large sum of money to tide me over, and if I can get it I can keep my business floating till this depression is past. If I don’t, I either have to give up and lose everything or else probably go to jail!”

  “I would not go to jail!” said Arla. He gave her a sudden quick startled look. But Arla went steadily on talking, not looking at him. “I would take the next boat back as soon as I landed and arrange to give over my business interests in such a way that while it might be a total loss of all that has been gained through the last three years, your name would be cleared, and you could go honorably into some more modest business and have a chance of making good. You will remember I happen to have been present in the office when an offer was made to you which would have made that possible!”

  “Oh!” exclaimed the man angrily. “I’m not an utter fool!”

  “Are you sure?” asked the woman. “Sometimes I wonder!”

  After a long silence the man spoke again in a voice of smoldering wrath: “Well, come on. I suppose you’ve got to have it your way and go down to dinner even if it wrecks everything! It was bad enough before, but now that the situation is further complicated by the appearance of that country bumpkin from home, I don’t see how we can possibly get by without trouble. How in the world are you going to explain him to people if he chooses to barge in on us?”

  “I don’t expect to explain him or anybody else we may happen to meet. This is not a private boat, and anybody has a right on board who pays his fare. Please remember that I had nothing whatever to do with his being here. As far as I am concerned, I see no reason why we shouldn’t go about our business as anybody else does. If your business were on an honest basis, we could go about freely and enjoy ourselves without watching out for what people think.”

  “Women know nothing about business!” glowered Carter. “Well, come on, let’s get this over.”

  So Arla in Sherrill’s costly lace gown from an exclusive Paris house walked regally beside her husband and never showed by the flicker of an eyelash that she had recognized across the saloon another two people from home, a young man and his wife who had been in the same class in high school with Carter and Arla. It would be time enough for Carter to know they were on board when he had to meet them. They would be another element in this problem she was trying to solve.

  Chapter 14

  There was a sense of peace in Sherrill’s room the next morning. The fragrance of the pansies pervaded the place. The delicate perfume spoke to her at once even before she opened her eyes. It brought the memory of the pleasant stranger, as if his presence were still lingering not far away to help.

  Then she opened her eyes to see the pansies on the low bedside table where she had placed them. She reveled in their soft brightness and was glad they were just pansies, not any of the more conventional flowers. They seemed to emphasize the simple frank friendship that had begun on the street, just plain honest friends helping one another. Pansies might grow in anybody’s garden, only these of course were sort of glorified pansies. But it was a comfort that they did not recall the bridal bouquet nor any of the flowers in the church. Just simple pansies that she might love and lay her face against.

  She reached out for the card that lay beside them on the table. Somehow that hastily penned line seemed to have a deeper meaning than just a wish that she was rested physically. It seemed to carry a desire that she might be healed in spirit from the deep hurt to her life that he could not help knowing that wedding must have been to her.

  Little memories of the kindness in his eyes, merry eyes that yet held tenderness, came back to her; the turn of a sentence that made her laugh when he must have seen the tears were very near to coming; his pleasant grin. They all filled her with a warmth and comfort that were restful and almost happy.

  She lay there thinking about him. How kind he had been! She was rejoicing in the presence of the pansies in their lovely fern setting when Gemmie tapped at the door and entered with a breakfast tray.

  “Miss Patricia said you better eat before you get up,” she announced, setting her tray down on a low table and drawing back the silk curtains.

  Gemmie brought her negligee and put it about her, adjusting her pillows. Then she bustled over to the hearth and lighted a fire that was ready, though it was scarcely needed that bright spring morning. Sherrill began to perceive that Gemmie had something on her mind. She never bustled unless she was ill at ease. But Sherrill was too comfortable just at that moment to try to find out what it was, so she let Gemmie go on setting things straight on the dressing table and then setting them crooked again. At last she spoke.

  “It’s right awful about that necklace being gone, Miss Sherrill!”

  Boom! A great burden of stone seemed suddenly to land back again in Sherrill’s heart, just where it had been the day before, only a trifle heavier if possible.

  “Yes,” quavered Sherrill, pausing in her first comforting swallow of coffee.

  “Seems like we ought to do something about it right away,” went on Gemmie. “Seems like we oughtn’t to let the time get away with us.”

  “Yes, Gemmie,” said Sherrill distressedly, “but Aunt Pat wants to work it out in her own way. I think she had some idea about it, though she doesn’t want to tell it yet. We are not to tell anybody about it, you know.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Gemmie severely as if she disapproved greatly. “But Miss Sherrill, it doesn’t seem reasonable, does it? That necklace didn’t have legs. It couldn’t run away of itself, could it?”

  “Not very well, Gemmie.” Sherrill lay back against her pillows with distress in her eyes.

  “There was only one stranger there, wasn’t there, Miss Sherrill? I was wondering if you knew him real well. Was you right sure about him?”

  “Stranger?” said Sherrill coldly. “Did you mean the clerk who came in to witness the license papers signed?”

  “Oh, laws! No! Not him. I’ve known him for years. He used to live next door to my best friend, and he wouldn’t steal a pin. He’s too honest, if you know what I mean. But wasn’t there a stranger there, Miss Sherrill? I came across him in the back hall just after I got back from the church. I went up to leave my hat and coat, and I found him wandering around trying doors all along the hall.”

  “Oh, you mean my friend Mr. Copeland,” said Sherrill with elaborate coolness. “No, I brought him there, Gemmie. He’d just come from the train and brought his suitcase to change here. I met him at the church. He’s from out near my old home in the West, you know, Gemmie. I put him in that little end room where we afterward signed the papers. He’s quite all right!”

  Sherrill explained it all out slowly, her voice growing more assured as she went on, and ending with a ripple of laughter, though she felt that awful haunting doubt creeping into her mind again with the accompanying heaviness of heart.

  “You know him right well, do you? You’re sure he wouldn’t yield to temptation, are you? You know those stones are wonderful costly, Miss Sherrill!”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake, Gemmie! What an awful suggestion to make about a friend and guest of ours! You’d better not say that to Aunt Pat. She certainly would not be pleased. Of course he is entirely above suspicion. Why, he is a friend, Gemmie!”

  “Well! I didn’t know how well you knew him,” said Gemmie offendedly. “I never heard you speak of him before, and I didn’t know but what he might be somebody you hadn’t seen in a long time, and didn’t know how he’d turned out now he’s growed up.”

  Sherrill managed a real laugh now and answered, “No, Gemmie, nothing like that! Now, if you’ll take this tray, I’ll get up. I want to get at those presents again. We got a lot done yesterday, didn’t we?”

  “Yes, Miss Sherrill, but you’ve not eaten your breakfast, and Miss Patricia will be all upset.”

  “All right, Gemmie, I’ll eat a little more if y
ou’ll run and see if the morning mail has come yet. I’m expecting a letter. Aren’t my flowers lovely, Gemmie? Mr. Copeland’s the one that sent them to me.”

  Gemmie eyed the flowers half suspiciously.

  “Yes,” admitted Gemmie reluctantly, “for flowers that aren’t roses, they’re above most.”

  Then Gemmie, leaving a mist of insidious doubt in her wake, swept firmly out of the room, and Sherrill had a silly feeling that she wanted to throw the whole breakfast after her and burst into tears. How outrageous of the stupid old thing to get such a notion and try to rub it in! Of course her kind stranger friend was all right! She would not let such sickening doubts creep into her mind. Aunt Pat didn’t think any such thing. She didn’t herself. As she remembered the fine merry countenance and wide frank eyes, she felt that it was utterly ridiculous to suspect such a man even though he was a stranger. Yet there was that heaviness planted for the day again, planted in the very pit of her stomach just like yesterday.

  Then she suddenly put her face down into her pillows and cried a few hot, tempestuous, worried tears till she remembered Gemmie would soon return with the mail and she mustn’t have red eyes. So she stopped the tears, and before Gemmie could come into the room again, she sprang up and buried her face in the dewy sweetness of the pansies, touching her lips to their coolness hungrily. Oh, why did evil and suspicion and sin have to come in and spoil a world that would otherwise be bright? She would not, would not believe or entertain the slightest suspicion against Graham Copeland. They had made a compact of trust and friendship, and she would abide by her own intuition. Yes, and by Aunt Pat’s judgment also.

  And so when Gemmie entered, Sherrill was bending over her flowers, touching them delicately with her fingertips, lifting a pansy’s chin lightly to look better into its face, and smiling into their cheerful little faces with a whimsical fancy that some were grinning just as their donor had done.

  But Gemmie wore an offended air all that day, and went about poking into corners everywhere trying to find that necklace.

  “I don’t see why Miss Patricia won’t have the police up here!” she declared. “I shan’t be happy till that necklace is found! Who was that girl anyway, that bride? Did you ever see her before? Seems to me this is the strangest doings that ever was had about this house. I don’t understand it myself. We never had doings around here that was out of the ordinary before. I mus’ say I don’t like it myself. Did you know that girl, Miss Sherrill?”

  “Oh yes, Gemmie,” said Sherrill, summoning a brave tone. “She was an old friend of Mr. McArthur’s. In fact, they had been sort of engaged for several years, and—then—well, they got separated….”

  Sherrill’s voice trailed off vaguely. She knew she was treading on very thin ice. How was she to make this all quite plausible to this sharp-eyed, jealous servant who loved her because she belonged to her beloved Miss Patricia, and yet not tell all the startling facts?

  “You see, Gemmie,” she went on bravely, taking up the tale and thinking fast, “she came just after you left with a message for Mr. McArthur, and I happened to find out about it, so we had a little talk and fixed it up this way. It was rather quick work getting us dressed all over again, but I think we got by pretty well, don’t you?” Sherrill finished with a little light laugh that sounded very natural, and Gemmie eyed her suspiciously.

  “I ought to have stayed here!” she declared firmly. “I knew I oughtn’t to’ve gone when I went. That was your wedding dress, not hers, and she had no business with it!”

  “Oh, that!” laughed Sherrill cheerfully. “What did that matter? You see, she didn’t happen to have her own things with her, so we fixed it up that way, and I thought everything came off very well. She looked sweet, didn’t she?”

  “I didn’t take notice to her,” said Gemmie sourly. “When I saw it wasn’t you, I was that put out I could hardly keep my seat. I didn’t think you’d be up to any tricks like that, Miss Sherrill, or I wouldn’t have left you. If I’d have been here, I’d not have let her by having your wedding dress, not if she never got married. And your wedding, too. It was a shame!”

  “Oh no, Gemmie, it was lovely! Because you see, when I found out a few things, I didn’t want to get married myself just then, so it turned out quite all right. I wouldn’t want to marry a man who loved another woman, would you, Gemmie?”

  “I wouldn’t want to marry any man that lives!” sniffed Gemmie. “They’re all a selfish, deceiving lot. Not one good enough for a good girl like you.”

  “There you are, Gemmie! You think that and yet you are angry that I let another girl marry him!”

  “Well, he was yours by rights after he’d went that far!” sniffed Gemmie, getting out her primly folded handkerchief and dabbing at her eyes.

  “Well, I didn’t happen to want him when I found he really belonged to another girl,” said Sherrill soberly, and she wished that her heart didn’t give such a sick plunge when she said the words. They were true, of course, and yet her soul was crying out for the lover she had thought she had, though she didn’t intend that this sharp-eyed woman should find it out. “And now, Gemmie, keep it all to yourself and let’s forget about it. I’m back here to stay awhile, and I’m going to have the best time a girl can have. Do you happen to know where that little pale green knit dress of mine is, with the white blouse? I think I’d feel at home in that. Hasn’t it got back from the cleaner’s yet?”

  “Yes, it came back three days ago, but I put it away in the third-floor closet. I didn’t think you’d be needing it yet awhile.”

  “Oh, get it for me, Gemmie, will you? That’s a dear! It’s just the thing for this morning.”

  Sherrill hurried with her dressing, and when Gemmie came back with the dress, she slipped into it and with a happy little wave of her hand hurried downstairs, looking much brighter than she felt.

  The next two days were full of hard work. It seemed that Miss Catherwood was in a great rush to get those presents out of the way.

  But there does come an end to all things, even unpleasant ones, and Sherrill finally came to her aunt and laid a neatly written envelope in her lap.

  “There, Aunt Pat, that’s the last one of those awful notes I have to write. The very last one! And I’m glad! glad! glad! Now, what next?” and she looked drearily out of the window across the wide sweep of lawn and garden.

  “Next we’re going to rest,” said the old lady, leaning back in her chair with a gray look about her lips. “I believe I’m tired, and I know you are. I’ve watched you getting thinner and thinner hour by hour. You’ve been a good sport, but now we’ve got to rest a little.”

  Sherrill sprang into alarm at once.

  “You dear precious Aunt Pattie!” she cried, and was down on her knees beside her aunt’s chair with her arm about her, looking earnestly into the tired old face.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” said Aunt Pat crisply, trying to rouse herself. “I just want a nap. I guess I’ve caught a bit of a cold perhaps. You need a nap, too, and then afterward we’ll plan what we’ll do next. How would you like to take a trip somewhere? You can be thinking about it while you’re going to sleep.”

  Chapter 15

  The next day was Sunday. Sherrill had been dreading it. Aunt Pat always went to church. Sherrill would be expected to go also, and she shrank inexpressibly from entering that church again, the church that had been decorated for her wedding, the church in which she had gone through that horrible experience, watching her bridegroom given to another woman. She almost decided to beg off, say she had a headache or something, only she knew a headache would bring alarm to the dear old lady and perhaps bring on a lot more complications that might be even worse than going to church. But oh, how she dreaded the soft lights from the stained glass, the exquisite music that would stir her soul to the depths and make her remember all the lovely things she had dreamed of and lost.

  A dozen times during the early morning she thought of new excuses to stay at home, and even after she had her hat
and gloves on and was on her way downstairs, she had half an idea of telling Aunt Pat plainly how she longed to escape this experience, just this one Sunday anyway.

  But when she got downstairs, she found that the old lady was already in the car waiting for her, and there was such a pleasant light of expectancy in her eyes that Sherrill had not the heart to suggest that she would not go.

  “I got to thinking,” said the old lady almost shyly, “I’d like to go to an old church where I went once with my best young man. Would you mind, Sherry?”

  “Oh, I’d love it of course,” said Sherrill, deep relief in her voice. It would be so good to go to a new place where she would not have to go through that awful wedding again all during service. So good not to have to face the battery of eyes that would be watching to see just how she was taking life without her bridegroom. It would be such a relief not to have to sit and feel them wondering about her, thinking up things to say about her when they got home to their various dinner tables. Oh, many of the people in the home church were friends, nice pleasant people whom she liked, but it was good not to have to be watched this first Sunday after her world had been turned upside down.

  Dear Aunt Pat! She had known, of course, that she would feel like that, and had planned this to have something different.

  “You see,” said Aunt Pat suddenly, right into the midst of her thoughts, “James and I went out to this church a great many years ago. We started quite early Sunday morning for a walk to get away from everybody else for a while. We didn’t plan where we were going—or at least, maybe James did—he was like that; he thought of nice things and planned them out ahead—but we just started along the road.”