Brentwood

by Grace Livingston Hill

  © 2014 by Grace Livingston Hill

  eBook Editions:

  Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-63058-198-5

  Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-63058-197-8

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.

  All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  Published by Barbour Books, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.barbourbooks.com

  Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Chicago, 1930s

  Marjorie Wetherill had always known she was an adopted child. She had been told when she was so young that it meant nothing at all to her. And as the years went by and she was surrounded by love and luxury, she thought little of it. Once when she was in high school she had asked about her birth family casually, more out of curiosity than because of any felt need for them, and she had been told that they were respectable people who had been unfortunate and couldn’t afford to bring her up as they would like to have her brought up. It had all been very vague. But Marjorie was happy, and her adoptive mother greatly stressed the fact that while Marjorie had not been born her own, she had been chosen because they loved her at first sight, and that meant more even than if she had been born theirs.

  As Marjorie grew older, however, she wondered now and then how a mother, if she had a true mother heart, could bear to give up her child. It seemed an unnatural thing, to surrender her permanently that way and promise never to see her again. But there was even uncertainty as to whether her mother was still living. And so the thought passed by and the happy days of her girlhood went on.

  Mrs. Wetherill was a devoted parent, and she and Marjorie were dear companions. It scarcely seemed real to Marjorie that there had ever been any other mother, and as for another father, he wasn’t even sketchily in the background.

  When Mr. Wetherill died, Marjorie was still in her school life, and she and her mother were brought even closer together, so that when Mrs. Wetherill was suddenly stricken with an illness that they both knew would be swift and fatal, the girl spent the last months of her adoptive mother’s life in utmost devotion to her. When it was over and she was alone, Marjorie felt utterly desolate, and life seemed barren indeed.

  There were many friends, of course, for the Wetherills had a large, pleasant social circle, and there were instant invitations for prolonged visits here and there, but Marjorie had no heart to go. She longed for someone of her own. The world seemed empty and uninteresting.

  People told her that feeling would pass, and she tried to believe them, but she fell to wondering more and more about her birth family and wished she knew whether any of them were living, and where. She wished she had asked more about them.

  Then one morning, about ten days before Christmas, because she could not settle to anything else, and because she had been almost dreading to go over her beloved mother’s intimate papers, she went bravely to Mrs. Wetherill’s desk in the living room, unlocked it, and began to look over the papers in the pigeon-holes.

  The old lawyer had gone over all the papers of the estate with her, those that were kept at the bank, and there was nothing to worry about as far as money was concerned. The entire Wetherill estate was left to her without a question, and it was a comfortable fortune. The income was ample for any possible needs.

  But this desk was where Mrs. Wetherill used to write her social and friendly letters, and seemed a very intimate part of her. Marjorie had known that sooner or later she must go over everything and put away or destroy the things their owner would have wished disposed of. In fact, Mrs. Wetherill had given her careful instructions about it.

  But as she went from drawer to drawer, emptying every pigeonhole and burning in the fireplace such things as had to be destroyed, she came finally to the little secret drawer, and there she found among several other important papers, a thick letter for herself.

  In great surprise, for she had not known of any such letter, she began to read it, the quick tears springing to her eyes as the precious handwriting seemed to bring back the dear one who had left her.

  Dearest Marjorie:

  There is something that perhaps I should have spoken of long ago, but did not, and I feel as if I must leave some word about it behind for you when I go. I cannot bring myself to talk about it to you and spoil our last brief days together, but I feel that it is something you should know.

  I have never told you much about your birth family. I did not really know much myself to tell, until about two years ago. My husband arranged everything about the adoption. He wanted me not to be troubled with details. He wanted me to feel that you were my own dear child, not adopted. So I never asked much about the facts.

  I saw you first in the hospital. We were going through looking for a baby we could adopt, and when I saw you in the ward, I fell in love with you, only to find you were not for adoption.

  I never told you that you were one of twins. I did not want you to be drawn away from me by other ties. Perhaps I was selfish in that. I begin to feel now that I was. But anyhow it is past and cannot be undone. However, I feel that you should know. If you feel like blaming me I beg you to be pitiful, for I loved you.

  You were a very beautiful baby, and so was your twin sister, yet she had a frailer look than you, and we found upon questioning that she had little chance to live unless she could have an operation and special treatment, which your parents were unable to give her.

  But though neither of you were candidates for adoption, yet I had set my heart upon you. After seeing you, all the other babies looked common to me. So, my husband set about it to see what he could do. He discovered that your father was not strong and needed to get away to the country where he could have light work and be out of doors. My husband finally put it up to your mother while she was still in the hospital that she should give her consent to our adopting you, Mr. Wetherill agreeing to finance the treatment of both your father and little sister, and to make it possible for your family to live on a nice little farm where they could be able to support themselves until better days came.

  These details I did not know at the time. I only knew that to my great joy you were mine at last, adopted according to law, your parents signing over all rights and promising not to try to see you without our consent.

  Once, when you were about three months old, your mother wrote me, begging that she might come and see you, but I persuaded her that it would be better for us all if she did not, that it would be easier for her not to have seen you. Your father—Mr. Wetherill—went to see your own father and had some sort of an understanding with him, so that
they did not come near us or write any more. So the years went by, and I was very happy with you. My dear, you know that you have always been to me all that a child born to me could have been, and perhaps a little more, because I had picked you out from all the babies in the world to be mine.

  It was not until after my husband died that I heard again of your birth family. It seems they had saved and saved, and gathered together enough to pay back all the money that Mr. Wetherill had given them when he adopted you, and they wrote begging Mr. Wetherill to accept it and to allow them to come and see you at least occasionally.

  I sent the money back, of course, and wrote very firmly refusing their request, feeling that it would be most disastrous. I had no idea just what kind of people they were, and I felt it might hurt your life.

  But then, about a year ago, just as you were graduating from Miss Evans’s School, your mother came to see me.

  I was surprised at what a lovely, frail little woman she was. She was very plainly dressed, but she looked neat and pretty, and she had eyes like yours. It went to my heart. She said sometimes she could not sleep at night, thinking that she had given you up. She said it seemed at times as if she would go crazy thinking of things she might have done instead, to raise the money to save the lives of her husband and other child, and yet keep you.

  I really felt very sorry for her. She looked so much like you that I began to feel like a criminal. She wanted to see you. But I would not let her. I felt it would be a catastrophe for you at your time of life. Your big photograph taken in your graduating dress was on the desk and I showed it to her, and finally gave it to her. You wondered what had become of it and I had to make up a story about something being the matter with the frame till I could get another.

  She went away sobbing, and I have never forgotten it. When I have looked at you, and thought of her, I have felt like a criminal. I ought to have let her see you. I had no right to come between a mother and her child, no matter what she may have been, although she seemed quite lovely and respectable.

  And now that I am about to die, I feel that I should leave behind me this information so that you may do what you wish in the matter. Perhaps you will want to do something for your own mother. You will have quite a fortune, my dear, and you are free to do what you wish with it, of course.

  After your mother had gone away I sent her quite a generous check, but she returned it by the next mail and sent with it also the amount of money which your father—which my husband—had given your own father. I felt quite badly about that. It seemed to put me very much in the debt of your parents.

  But now I am leaving the matter in your hands, my dear, and if you feel there is anything you would like to do, or if you want to grant your mother’s wish to see you, I want you to know that I am willing. I think perhaps I have sinned in this matter, and I want to make it right if I can. So I am giving you your mother’s name and address. Do whatever your heart dictates.

  You already know how much I have loved you, how I love you as my own, and so I need not say it again. If you feel, dear child, that I have done wrong, I beg you to forgive me, for I have loved you greatly, and I have tried to do my best for you in every other way.

  Your loving mother,

  May D. Wetherill

  Below was an address in an eastern city:

  Mrs. John Gay, 1465 Aster Street

  And below that, in pencil, had been written uncertainly as if with an idea of erasing it:

  The name by which they called you was Dorothy.

  So then she was no longer Marjorie Wetherill but Dorothy Gay. How strange and fantastic life was turning out to be!

  She bowed her head on the letter and wept. First for the only mother she had known, and then for the mother she had not known. How pitiful it all seemed! So many little babies in the world without homes, and yet she should have been loved so intensely by two mothers!

  Her heart burned for the mother she had always known, whose conscience had troubled her, and then ached for the other mother who wanted her and might not have her! What a strange world, and a strange happening, that this should come to her! That suddenly her safe, secure world should crumble all about her, death and change and perplexity staring her in the face.

  And yet, she didn’t have to pay any attention to this letter. Nobody but herself knew of it. She could go right on living her life apart from them, living in this lovely home that the Wetherills had left her, forgetting her birth family, as she had always done. They had practically sold her out of their lives, hadn’t they? They had no real claim upon her. And, of course, they might be embarrassing! There was no telling what they were. She had nothing to give her a clue to what they were, except that her mother’s eyes were like hers.

  Then suddenly a thrill came to her heart. But they were her very own, whatever they were! How wonderful that would be! And her mother had wanted her, enough to come a long distance to see her!

  All the rest of the day the thought of her birth mother hovered in her mind and grew into a great longing to go to her; yet somehow it seemed disloyalty to the mother and father who had brought her up and had chosen to keep her in ignorance of her birth family.

  It was not until she had read Mrs. Wetherill’s letter over carefully several times that she began to see that the letter really was a permission, if not even a plea, for her to do something about her birth family. As she began to read more and more between the lines of the letter, she felt that there was something demanded of her as a daughter that she should have done long ago.

  That night she could not sleep and lay staring about in the darkness of her room—the room that Mrs. Wetherill had made so beautiful for her—realizing how safe and sweet and quiet it all was here, and how many complications there might be if she broke the long silence between herself and her own family. Yet the longing in her heart increased, to see them, even to find out the worst possible about them, just to have them for her own. Not to be alone in the great world.

  There was a sister, too, and how wonderful it would be to have a sister! She had always wished for a sister. Or—perhaps the sister had not lived after all! The letter said she was delicate. Perhaps she had died. Perhaps that was the reason why her mother wanted her. Perhaps she had no others to love her and comfort her. Perhaps the father might be dead too!

  Marjorie buried her face in her pillow and wept.

  The morning mail brought two invitations to spend Christmas week with friends.

  Christmas was only ten days off, and it loomed large and gloomy. The thought of Christmas without the only mother she had ever known seemed intolerable.

  One of the invitations was from a distant cousin of Mrs. Wetherill’s, a kindly person with a large house, given to entertaining. The other was from an old schoolmate living in Boston. Both invitations spelled gaiety and good cheer, but they somehow did not appeal to her now. Her grief was too recent, and her feeling of loneliness too poignant to be diminished by mingling with a giddy throng of pleasure-seekers. In fact, that kind of Christmas never did appeal to her at any time. She liked simpler pleasures. Besides, her heart was too restless just now to plunge into worldliness and try to forget her loss.

  All day she went about trying to make a decision, now almost deciding to accept one of the invitations and end her uncertainty, now playing with the idea of going to search out her birth family and learn once for all what they were like.

  But when she reasoned that perhaps forgetting was best for the present, and tried to decide which invitation she should accept, she realized that she didn’t feel like going to either place.

  Oh, of course they would all be very kind and put themselves out to make her have a good time, but Christmas couldn’t be Christmas this year, no matter how it was planned.

  She was still in her unsettled state of mind when evening came and Evan Brower arrived to call upon her.

  The Browers were one of the best old families, and among the closest friends of the Wetherills. Evan Brower was three or four ye
ars older than Marjorie, and though she had known him practically all her life, it had not been until the last year that he had paid her much attention. Mrs. Wetherill had been very fond of him, and of late he had been often at the house, one of the closest friends Marjorie had. Yet the two were still on the basis of friendship, nothing closer.

  Marjorie was glad of his coming as a relief from the perplexities that had been with her all day, and smiled a real welcome as he took her hand in greeting.

  “You are looking tired and white!” he said, scrutinizing her face sharply. “You need a change, and I’ve come to offer one. Mother wants you to come and stay a couple of weeks with her. She thought you might like to help her get ready for the family gathering at Christmastime. It will take your mind off your loneliness. You know your mother would never want you to mope. Mother thought maybe you would come over tomorrow and just consider you are on a visit.”

  Marjorie’s heart sank. Here was the question again! And a family gathering! The hardest kind of a thing to go through, with this thought of her own unknown family in the back of her mind. Suddenly she knew she could not go anywhere till that matter was settled! She had to know just where she stood before ever she went among people again. She lifted her eyes to Evan’s kindly, pleasant face and tried to decline his offer in a gracious way.

  “Oh, that is dear of your mother, Evan!” she said. “I do appreciate it a lot, and some other time I’d love to come, but just now I don’t feel I could.”

  He settled down comfortably to combat her, just as if he had expected to have to do so.

  “Now, you know that isn’t a bit sensible, Marjorie. There’s no point in stretching out your grief. You’ve got to go on living, and you know perfectly well your mother would want you to be happy.”

  “Yes,” said Marjorie sweetly. “I know, and I’m not stretching out my grief. Mother and I talked it over together, and she told me all that. I understand, and I don’t intend to mope. But somehow I don’t feel I can stand gaiety just yet. I’ve had two other invitations but I’m declining them both—”