Beloved Stranger

by Grace Livingston Hill

  He laid his lips against her forehead, her soft hair brushing his face, and held her close for a moment, breathing, “Oh, my darling!”

  Then suddenly they drew apart, almost embarrassed, each afraid of having been too eager, and then drew together again, his arm about her waist, drawing her into the small reception room and down to the small sofa just inside the portiere.

  The man laughed softly, triumphantly.

  “I was afraid to come,” he said. “I was afraid it would be too soon, after—after—that other man!”

  “You mean Carter?” said Sherrill, and then with a sudden inner enlightenment, “Why, there never was any other man but you.” She said it with a burst of joy. “I thought there was, but now I know there never was! At least I thought he was what you are! There has always been you—in my thoughts, I guess!” and she dropped her eyes shyly, afraid to have too quickly revealed her heart.

  “How could I have been so mistaken!” she added with quick anger at herself. “Oh, I should have had to suffer longer for being so stupid!”

  But he drew her within his arms again and laid his lips on hers, then on her sweet eyelids, and then, his cheek against hers, he whispered, “Oh, my precious little love!”

  Suddenly he brought something from his pocket, something bright and flashing, and slipped it on her finger. Startled, she looked down and saw a great blue diamond, the loveliest she had ever seen, set in delicate platinum handiwork.

  “That marks you as mine,” he said with a wonderful look into her eyes. “And now, darling, we’ve got to work fast, for I haven’t much time.”

  “Oh!” said Sherrill in instant alarm. “Have you got to go back again right away?”

  “Not back again,” he laughed, “but off somewhere else. And I don’t know what you’ll think of what I’ve come to propose. Maybe you’ll think it is all wrong, rushing things this way when we’ve scarcely known each other yet, and you don’t really know a thing about me or my family.”

  “That wouldn’t matter,” said Sherrill emphatically, without even a thought of the emerald necklace, though Gemmie at that moment was stalking noisily through the hall beyond the curtain.

  “You precious one!” said Copeland, drawing her close again and lifting one of her hands, the one with the ring on the third finger, to his lips.

  “Well, now, you see, it’s this way. I’m being sent quite unexpectedly to South America on a matter of very special business. It’s a great opportunity for me, and if I succeed in my mission it means that I’ll be on Easy Street, of course. But I may have to stay down there anywhere from six weeks to six months to accomplish my purpose—”

  “Ohhh!” breathed Sherrill with a sound like pain.

  He smiled, pressed her fingers close, and went on speaking.

  “I feel that way, too, dearest. I can’t bear to be away from you so long when I’ve only just found you. And I’ve been audacious enough to want to take you with me! Do you suppose you could ever bring yourself to see it that way, too? Or have I asked too much? I’ve brought all sorts of credentials and things with me.”

  “I don’t need credentials,” said Sherrill, nestling close to him. “I love you.” And suddenly she felt she understood that other poor girl who had said she would marry Carter McArthur if she knew she had to go through hell with him. That was what love was, utter self-abnegation, utter devotion. That was why love was so dangerous perhaps to some. But this love was different. This man knew her Christ, belonged to Him. Oh, what had God done for her! Taken away a man who was not worthy, and given her one of His own children!

  His arms were about her again, drawing her close, his words of endearment murmured in her ear.

  “You will go?” he asked gently. “You mean you will go?” There was an awed delight in his voice.

  “Of course!” said Sherrill softly. “When would we have to go?”

  “That’s it,” he said with a bit of trouble in his eyes as he looked down on her anxiously. “I have to go tonight! Would that be rushing you too much? I’d make it longer if I could, but there is need for great haste in my business. In fact, if it could have waited until the next boat, I wouldn’t have been sent at all; a senior member of the firm would have gone in my place. But just now neither of them could get away, so it fell to my lot, and I had no chance to protest.”

  Sherrill sat up and looked startled.

  “Tonight!” she echoed. “Why, I could go, of course—but—I’m not sure how Aunt Patricia would take it. She’s been wonderful to me, and I wouldn’t like to hurt her. I ought to ask her—!”

  “Of course!” said Copeland. “Where is she? Let’s go to her at once! I’ll try to make her see it. And—well—if this thing succeeds, I’ll be able perhaps to make it up to her about losing you so suddenly. It might just happen that I would be put in the east to look after a new branch of the business. We could live around here if that would make it pleasanter for her.”

  “How wonderful!” said Sherrill. “Let’s go up to her room! I know she’ll be kind of expecting us.”

  So they went up the stairs with arms about one another, utterly unaware of Gemmie, peering out stolidly from behind the living room portieres.

  They appeared that way in Aunt Pat’s doorway when she had bidden them enter, for all the world like two children come to confess some prank.

  “I see how it is with you,” said Aunt Pat with a pleased grin as they stood a second, at a loss how to begin. “I expected it, of course.”

  “I know you don’t know a thing about me,” began the lover, searching around in his legal mind for the things he had prepared to say, “but I’ve brought some credentials.”

  “Don’t bother!” said Aunt Pat indifferently. “I wasn’t quite a fool! You didn’t suppose I was going to put my child in danger of a second heartbreak, did you? I looked you up the day the first flowers came.”

  “Why, Aunt Pat!” said Sherrill, aghast. “You said you trusted him utterly! You said you knew a man when you saw one!”

  “Of course I did!” said Aunt Pat, not in the least disturbed. “I knew he was all right. But when it was a matter of you, Sherrill, I knew I had to have something more than my own intuition to go on. I wasn’t going to go and give you away to every stranger that came along with a nice face and a pleasant manner. Someday I expect to go to heaven and meet your father and mother again, and I don’t want them to blame me, so I called up my old friend Judge Porter in Chicago and asked him to tell me all he knew about this young man. Don’t worry, young man, I made him think it was some business I wanted to place in your hands. But I found out a lot more than your business standing, and I knew I would, thanks to my old friend George Porter. I went to school with him, and he always was very thorough in all he did. So it’s all right, young man. You have my blessing!”

  Copeland’s face fairly blazed with joy, but before he had time to thank the old lady, Sherrill spoke.

  “But there’s more, Aunt Pat! He wants us to be married right away!”

  “That’s natural,” said Aunt Pat dryly, with her wry smile.

  “Yes, but Aunt Pat, he’s being sent to South America, and he has to go tonight!”

  “Tonight!” said the old lady alertly. “Hmm! Well, it’s fortunate you have a wedding dress all ready, Sherrill.”

  “Oh,” said Sherrill with a quick look of astonishment. “I hadn’t thought about it. Could I wear that? I could just wear my going-away dress, of course.”

  “No,” said Aunt Pat. “Wear your own wedding dress! Don’t let yourself be cheated out of that just because you had to lend it to another poor girl for a few minutes. Get your mind rid of that poor fool who would have married you and then made you suffer the rest of your life. Don’t be foolish. It was your wedding dress and not hers. And she couldn’t have hurt it much in that short time. Don’t you think she ought to wear a real wedding dress, Graham?” asked the old lady briskly, turning to the young man as if she had known him since his first long trousers.


  Copeland’s eyes lighted.

  “I’d love to see you in it!” he said, looking at Sherrill with adoring eyes.

  “Oh, then I’ll wear it, of course,” said Sherrill with starry eyes. “It was really awfully hard to give up wearing it—it was so pretty.”

  “Of course!” said Aunt Pat brusquely. “And why should you? Forget that other girl, and the whole silly muddle. Now, young man, what is there to do besides getting her suitcase packed? Have you got the license yet?”

  “No, but I know where to get it, and I’m going for it right away.”

  “Very well,” said Aunt Pat. “I’ll have the chauffeur take you. Sherrill, what about bridesmaids? Yours are all scattered.”

  “Do I have to have them?” asked Sherrill, aghast.

  “I don’t see why,” said her aunt. “I suppose we’ll have to ask in a few friends, a dozen perhaps, just Cousin Phyllis and her family and maybe the Grants, they’re such old friends. I’ll think it over.”

  “And I wouldn’t have to be given away or any of that fuss either, would I? It all seems so silly,” pleaded Sherrill. “I thought before that if I had to do it over again, I’d never want all that. Couldn’t Graham and I just walk downstairs together and be married without any elaborate extras?”

  “You certainly could,” said Aunt Pat. “If your Graham doesn’t feel that he is being cheated out of his rights to a formal wedding.”

  “Not on your life!” grinned Graham Copeland. “I’d hate it all! But of course I’d go through a good many times that and worse to get her if it was necessary. All I want is a simple ceremony and your blessing.”

  “Blest be!” said Aunt Pat. “Now, get you gone and come back as soon as possible. Sherrill, send Gemmie to me, and tell her to send up the cook. We’ll scratch together a few green peas and a piece of bread and butter for a simple little wedding supper. No, don’t worry. I won’t do anything elaborate. What time do you have to leave, Graham? All right. She’ll be ready!”

  Sherrill stayed behind after her lover had gone, to throw her arms around her aunt’s neck and kiss her many times.

  “Oh, Aunt Pat! You are the greatest woman in the world!” she said excitedly.

  “Well, you’re getting a real man this time, and no mistake!” said the old lady with satisfaction. “When you have time, I’ll show you the letter my friend Judge Porter wrote about him, but that’ll keep. You had better go and get your things together. I’ll send Gemmie to help you as soon as I’m done with her.”

  So Sherrill hurried to her room on glad feet and began to get her things together. She went to the trunk room and found her own new suitcase with its handsome fittings, still partly packed as it had been on that fateful wedding night. She went to the drawers and closets and got out the piles of pretty lingerie, the lovely negligees, dumped them on the bed, and looked at them with a dreamy smile, as if they were long-lost friends come back to their own, but when Gemmie arrived, stern and disapproving still, she had not gotten far in her packing.

  “Miss Patricia says you’re to lie down for half an hour right away!” she announced grimly. “And I’m to do your packing. She says you’re tired to death and won’t be fit to travel if you don’t.”

  “All right!” said Sherrill with a lilt in her voice, kicking her little blue shoes off and submitting to be tucked into her bed, blue organdy and all.

  Gemmie, with a baleful glance at her, shut her lips tight and went silently about her packing, laying in things with skillful hand, folding them precisely, thinking of things that Sherrill in her excited state never would have remembered. And Sherrill with a happy sigh closed her eyes and tried to realize that it was really herself and not some other girl who was lying here, going to be married within the next few hours.

  But there are limits to the length of time even an excited girl like Sherrill can lie still, and before the half hour was over she was up, her voice fresh and rested, chattering away to the silent woman who only sniffed and wiped a furtive eye with a careful handkerchief. It was all too evident that Gemmie did not approve of the marriage. But what could one do with such a woman who had been perfectly satisfied with a man like Carter? She was beyond all reason.

  Sherrill went over to see her aunt for a few minutes and have a last little talk.

  Aunt Pat invited just a very few of their most intimate friends, and some of those couldn’t come on such short notice. “Just to make it plain that we’re not trying to hide something,” she said to Sherrill with her twinkly grin. “People are so apt to rake up some reason to gossip. But anyway what do we care? The Grants are coming and they are the pick of the lot, and Cousin Phyllis. She would never have forgiven us if she hadn’t been asked. She did complain about the shortness of the time and want it put off till tomorrow, but I told her that was impossible.”

  Then Sherrill told her what Copeland had said about the possibility of his being located in the east when he returned, and Aunt Pat gave her first little mite of a sigh and said with a wistful look like a child, “Well, if he could see his way clear to coming here to this house and living, it would be the best I’d ask of earth any longer. It’ll be your house anyway when I’m gone, and I’d like you to just take it over now and run it anytime you will. I could sort of board or visit with you. I’m getting old, you know. You speak of it sometime to him when it seems wise, but don’t be hampered by it, of course.” Aunt Pat sighed again.

  “You dear!” said Sherrill, bending over her and kissing her tenderly. “I’d love it, and I’m sure he would, too. Now don’t you worry, and don’t you feel lonesome, or we’ll just tuck you in the suitcase and take you along with us to South America.”

  Aunt Pat grinned and patted Sherrill’s cheek smartly. “You silly little girl! Now run along and get your wedding frills on. It’s almost time for the guests to be here, and you are not ready.”

  So Sherrill ran away laughing and had to tell Gemmie to please bring the big box containing the wedding dress.

  “You’re not going to wear that!” said Gemmie, aghast.

  “Certainly I am, Gemmie,” said Sherrill firmly. “It’s my dress, isn’t it? Hurry, please. It’s getting late!”

  Gemmie gave her a wild look.

  “I should have been told,” she said coldly. “The dress should have been pressed.”

  “Nonsense, Gemmie; it doesn’t matter whether there is a wrinkle or two, but there won’t be. You put tissue in every fold. Anyway, you can’t press it. It’s too late!”

  Gemmie brought the great pasteboard box, thumped it down on the bed unopened, and stalked into the bathroom, pretending to have urgent work there picking up damp towels for the laundry.

  Sherrill, feeling annoyed at the stubborn faithful old woman, went over to the bed and lifted the cover of the big box.

  There lay the soft white folds of the veil like a lovely mist, and above them like blooms among the snow the beautiful wreath of orange blossoms, not a petal out of place. Gemmie had done her work perfectly when she put them away. And beneath the veil Sherrill could see the gleam of the satin wedding gown. Oh, it was lovely, and Sherrill’s heart leaped with pleasure to think she might wear it again, wear it this time without a doubt or pang or shrinking!

  She turned away humming a soft little tune and went about her dressing.

  Gemmie had laid out all the lovely silken garments, and it was like playing a game to put them on, leisurely, happily.

  When she was ready for the dress, she called Gemmie, and then Aunt Pat came in, already attired in her soft gray robes, looking herself as lovely as any wedding could desire.

  “I’m glad I can have a little leisure this time,” she said, settling into a big chair and smoothing her silks about her. “Last time I had to be hustled off to the church when there were a hundred and one things I wanted to attend to at home. I don’t know that I care much for church weddings anyway unless you have to have a mob.”

  Gemmie’s eyes were red as if she had been weeping, and she came forward to
officiate at the donning of the dress with a long sorrowful look on her face.

  It was just at that moment that there came a tap at the door, and the maid handed in a package.

  “It was special delivery,” she explained. “I thought maybe you’d want it right away.”

  “You might’ve known she’d have no time to bother with the like of that now,” said Gemmie ungraciously, taking the package from the girl.

  “Oh, but I want to see it, Gemmie,” cried Sherrill. “Thank you, Emily, for bringing it up. I want to see everything. You don’t suppose anybody is sending a wedding present, do you, Aunt Pat? Don’t tell me I’ve got to go through all that again!”

  “Open it up, Gemmie!” ordered Aunt Pat. “It might be something Graham has had sent to you, you know, Sherrill.”

  With something like a sniff, Gemmie reached for the scissors and snipped the cords.

  “It’ll not be from him!” she said tartly. “It’s from across the water!”

  “Across the water? Europe?” said Sherrill and reached for the package.

  “Hmm! Across the water!” said Aunt Pat, sitting up eagerly. “Open it quick, Sherry. It might be interesting!”

  Chapter 20

  If Carter McArthur had been told on the first day out from New York that before the end of the voyage he would be almost reconciled to his fate as husband of a penniless bride, he would have been astonished. But it was nevertheless true.

  Arla Prentiss had always been a clever girl, and Arla McArthur driven by necessity became almost brilliant in managing her difficult affairs. She had taken the material at hand and used it. Even Hurley Kirkwood and the two old high school classmates became assets in the affair. Before the voyage was over, she had even won out with the man Sheldon and used him to her own ends.