Brentwood

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “I was just wondering about that myself,” said Ted in a troubled voice. “There’s only three rooms upstairs. Bonnie has always had her little bed in Betty’s room, and Sunny’s crib was in mine. But we had to sell their beds last week to buy medicine for Mother. Bonnie’s been sleeping on the mattress with Betty since, and Sunny with me.”

  He looked up half fearfully, almost defiantly, wondering what she would think of such poverty.

  “I see,” said Marjorie thoughtfully. “Well, we’ve got to do something else right away, I guess, if she really has a fever. She ought not be down so near the floor. There are draughts on the floor.”

  Ted looked up thoughtfully.

  “I could get Bonnie’s bed,” he said. “It’s a light little thing made of bamboo. It was Betty’s when she was a kid. I know where I could borrow a wheelbarrow. Two or three trips would do it.”

  “That’s fine!” said Marjorie. “Suppose you do that as soon as we get them home. Has it a mattress?”

  “Yes, and a pillow. Poor kid! She cried for her own pillow the first night it was gone. Funny little things, kids. They don’t use their brains! Haveta have what they want.”

  Marjorie smiled at him.

  “I guess we’re a little like them, aren’t we? Want what we want very badly. I know I am. That’s why I came away off here hunting you all. I wanted a family badly!”

  He grinned speculatively at that and didn’t know what to say, but at last blurted out, “I guess it would have made a lot of difference if we’d known you felt that way.”

  “Well, I’m sorry we didn’t all understand sooner,” said Marjorie, “but perhaps we can make up for lost time now.”

  Then they arrived at the neighborhood daycare, and Ted led the way in.

  Chapter 5

  About that time, back at Marjorie’s home in Chicago, Evan Brower was standing at the front door, impatiently ringing the doorbell.

  He had been called away from the city on business the morning after his call upon Marjorie, returning about the middle of the next afternoon, and finding it a bit late for going to his office, had decided to run in informally and see Marjorie.

  Perhaps courtesy really demanded that he wait until she gave him the promised telephone call, but he had never stood on ceremony with the Wetherill household, and he had the excuse that he had been away and therefore did not know but she had called during his absence. So he drove directly to her home without waiting to inquire if she had called. It made a very good case for him, and also indirectly showed his devotion and eagerness to see her. So there he stood, and wondered why the faithful servants allowed him to wait so long for admittance.

  Since he had left her, Evan had been vaguely disturbed by Marjorie’s attitude, and wished he had stayed, in spite of her request that he go and let her think things over. He should have reasoned with her right then and there. It was not like she would have even considered such a romantic idea as running off after an unknown family who would likely take instant advantage of her and her fortune.

  He had never considered Marjorie Wetherill impulsive before, but now he recalled a certain look in her eyes as she had spoken of her own people, that smacked of fanaticism. Of course, when he had tried to warn her gently, he had used the phrase “over-conscientiousness,” but to himself he called it by what he felt was its true name. He reasoned that sentimentality often developed into fanaticism, and it had certainly seemed as if Marjorie was sentimental toward her birth parents. Though she had always seemed sweet and sane in everything, it was quite possible that in her present lonely state she might go off on a wild goose chase, aided by an over strong conscience, and commit herself to these strangers in some way that would hamper her all her life, unless she was restrained. He blamed himself that he hadn’t exerted his utmost to restrain her before he allowed her to cut short the interview.

  Also, she was young and utterly without experience in financial affairs, and here she was suddenly left with a fairly large fortune and menaced by a family of unknown quantity and quality. There was no telling to what lengths of generosity these people might lead her to before her friends could rescue her. And of course, if he was going to marry her, as he had about come to the conclusion he would, he certainly did not want a lot of indigent in-laws hanging around his neck. Neither did he want his future wife’s ample inheritance divided with people who had no right to a cent of it. They had probably been well paid for giving up their baby, and they had no right whatever, according to the adoption contract, to bother her in any way at any time. He felt surprised and annoyed that Mrs. Wetherill should have been so weak as to leave a hint of their whereabouts. Probably in her last hours she was suddenly attacked by a morbid conscience, but it was must ungenerous in her to have cast the whole matter off onto Marjorie. She must have known, of course, that it would trouble her.

  These thoughts had been milling about in his brain all day as he drove from one appointment to the other and then back to his home city, coming straight out to Wetherill’s instead of going to the office first.

  But after the third ringing of the bell, he grew alarmed. What could have happened? Surely they would not leave the house with no one to answer the door!

  He walked around the house to the garage, where he found the chauffeur out washing the car.

  “What is the reason I cannot get any answer to my ring?” he asked severely. He was the kind of young man who always required perfect service, and usually got it.

  The chauffeur looked up from his work deferentially, recognizing a friend of the family.

  “Why, sir, they’re all away for the holidays. Miss Wetherill went last night and gave all the servants a holiday while she is gone. Very kind of her, sir. She’s always kind.”

  “Indeed!” said Evan, as if it were somehow the chauffeur’s fault. “It must have been a sudden decision. I’m sure she had no idea of going away immediately when I was here night before last. Nothing happened, did it? I mean, like a funeral, sudden death of a friend, or something? She didn’t get a telegram that sent her off so soon?”

  “I wouldn’t be supposed to know, sir,” said the chauffeur. “I’m not a house servant, you know, and I didn’t happen to hear the others say.”

  “You don’t know where she’s gone? Haven’t you her address?”

  “No, sir, I haven’t. She said she’d write me a day or so before she returned so I’d know to start up the heater and expect the other servants. She only said she was away for the holidays and that she might be visiting relatives. She wasn’t sure how long she would stay. Probably till after the New Year.”

  Evan frowned. This was really serious. What a fool he had been not to make Marjorie sit down and listen to him the other night!

  “But don’t you know where she went? What city? Whether she went east or west?”

  “No, sir, I don’t. She sent me to take the servants to their trains. She said she would take a taxi. When I got back she was gone and the house locked. She left the key with Martha, my wife.”

  An interview with Martha brought no further information, except that Martha was sure her mistress did not take a trunk.

  “Only a couple of suitcases, or bags. I couldn’t rightly see which from here,” said Martha. “I’m not one to be snooping. I just happened to be out in the side yard hanging up a couple of pieces I had washed out when the taxi drove in. I can just see the front door from where the line hangs. The driver brought out her things and she got in and drove off. That’s all.”

  Evan got into his car and drove away in much dissatisfaction. It was good, of course, to know that she had probably not taken a trunk, and therefore could not have gone for long, but she had gone, and left no clues behind her, and a great deal of damage can be done to a fortune in a very few days, or even hours. In much perturbation he went to his office and then to his home, inquiring for telephone calls, but there had been none from Marjorie. Then he opened his mail and found her brief note.

  So! She had gone. Headstrong
little girl! Impetuous! He hadn’t thought she was like that. If he married her, and he had practically committed himself to that course, he would certain have to train that out of her.

  After some hard thinking, he finally called up the Wetherill lawyer and was fortunate enough to find him still in his office.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Melbourne, this is Evan Brower. Sorry to have interrupted you, but I won’t keep you but a minute.”

  “Oh, that’s all right, Brower, I was just leaving for home anyway. Work all done for the day, I’m happy to say. What can I do for you?”

  “Why, I am just wondering whether Marjorie Wetherill happened to leave her address with you. She spoke of the possibility of her being away for the holidays, but I don’t think she expected to go so soon. I’ve been away for a day and I find she’s already gone. I wondered if she left her address with you. I am sending her a remembrance for Christmas and want to give the address when I order it.”

  “Well, now that’s too bad!” said the kindly old lawyer. “I had a telephone message from Miss Wetherill saying she was to be away during the holidays and would send me an address later. But I fancy if you just address it to her home here, the post office will forward it. She likely left her address with the carrier. However, I’ll be glad to send it to you as soon as I get it.”

  Evan thanked the lawyer and hung up, frowning. So that was that, and he couldn’t do a thing about it. Marjorie had slipped neatly through his fingers and gone her own way in spite of his protests. He would try the letter carrier and post office, of course, though they were not supposed to give such information. Well, she would have to learn her own lesson by the hardest way. But, would she learn it before it was too late? There was no reason why she should let her property drift through her fingers to a lot of unprincipled relatives, just because she was sorry for them.

  But the post office when consulted said they were to hold all mail for further orders. Marjorie had left no address.

  Well, somehow he must get in touch with her. Perhaps Melbourne would hear from her in a few days, and then he would make a little trip out to wherever she was and bring her back. She would likely be good and sick of her new family by that time and be glad to be rescued. Also, it would give him a good chance to look this family over and see what the possibilities were before he put his head into the noose of marriage. One had to be careful, of course, for the future. Though if he really decided to marry Marjorie, he would trust himself to get rid of any objectionable relatives. Perhaps it would be as well for someone from her home to meet them and freeze them out right at the start. Marjorie might not like that, but what she didn’t know wouldn’t need to trouble her, and if it were wisely done, and if they had any shame at all, a hint or two, quietly given, would subdue them. He flattered himself he could deal with them right at the start. Mrs. Wetherill had been able to hold them off for years, hadn’t she? Well, he could do at least as well as a woman.

  So he went his way and made his plans for going after Marjorie when the right moment should come, and that would be the first minute he knew where to find her.

  He went out and bought a delightful Christmas gift for her. He even went so far as to look at engagement rings. And he called up Mr. Melbourne at frequent intervals to know if he had heard from Marjorie yet.

  The more he thought about it the more his thoughts became intrigued with the girl who was so sweet and unspoiled. How easily she could be molded to fit the environment in which she would live if she were his wife. He spent a good deal of his leisure time planning how he would mold her. The more he planned, the more sure he was that he was going to ask her to marry him. And, of course, she would accept him. There wasn’t any question about that. Not that Evan Brower was conceited. But he was strong in the knowledge that his was an old family, that his family and the Wetherills had been friends for years, that he had been fairly successful even so early in his business career, and that he was popular and good-looking. He couldn’t help knowing the latter, although he hoped he had never let it make him vain. He despised men who were vain of their looks. One couldn’t help one’s looks. They were merely an asset.

  Then, he reflected, Marjorie had always been fond of his company, had been ready to accept his invitations always, although until recently he had taken her out very little. There was no reason thinkable why she should not want to marry him. He was sure he had seen genuine admiration in her eyes. Yes, and her hand surely lingered in his the first time he came to see her after Mrs. Wetherill’s death, as if she naturally turned to him in her sorrow. Of course, why shouldn’t she? He was one of the closest friends of the family.

  And it was quite the appropriate thing for him to marry her. More and more as he turned it over in his mind, his common sense as well as his inclination approved the plan. And it was comfortable to think of the girl of his choice as being utterly unspoiled by contact with the world. She had been guarded so carefully all her life, surrounded with just the right environment, just the right companions. None of the noisy ill-bred ways of the social life of the day had touched her. There had been no other man in her life, he was sure of that. He would not have to worry about youthful indiscretions. Innocent and lovely, that was what she was, and very likely he had been the ideal man in her eyes. It was most desirable to have a wife who adored one and had never turned her thoughts toward another. Not that he had always had one ideal of womanhood, himself, but of course, men were different. It was man’s part to choose, and naturally, he had considered other girls but had never been quite satisfied.

  Of course, there were things about Marjorie that might be changed. But he could change them, he had no doubt. Take, for instance, her conscience, which seemed to work a little too easily where others were concerned. She was almost too self-sacrificing. True, that might be a good thing in a wife toward her husband, but not toward the world in general. However, that could be easily remedied. And, of course, it would be different when she had a man of her own to think about and consider first.

  He began to think back to his first consciousness of Marjorie, when she had come home from college after graduation. Of course, he had seen and known her before that, nearly all her life. But he had then become conscious of her as a woman. He remembered her as she sat in church, across the aisle, a row in front of where he was sitting with his mother. He had never noticed her beauty till then. She was wearing a little spring suit of gray tweed and a small round hat that showed her gold hair and the delicate oval of her rounded cheek. He had been struck with her beauty then and wondered that he had never seen it before, wondered that here was a lovely person right at hand who seemed somehow to have been kept from the common trend of modernism. He had glanced from her to Mrs. Wetherill, patrician in every line of her tall body and every feature of her handsome face, and wondered that she had been able to put the imprint of herself so unmistakably upon the girl whom she had taken in babyhood and brought up as her own. Whatever was behind the girl’s early life that might have been undesirable was surely obliterated. The girl had conformed utterly to the model of a well-balanced, sane, conservative life of culture and refinement, and, to a degree, of religious belief. She would be an ornament anywhere, one of whom to be proud.

  He had watched her during the service as she gave attention to the sermon; her sweet seriousness attracted him strongly. From that time he played more or less with the thought of her as a life companion. He began to take her out, cautiously, as was his nature, studying her from every angle, exploring the ways of her keen young mind, probing to the depths of her nature. He marveled at her quick, clear judgment in most things, her willingness to be taught, her yielding nature, so free from selfish aims, so utterly free from self-consciousness and self-esteem.

  This difference they had had the last time he had talked with her, about hunting up her birth family, had been the first unwise decision he had ever seen her make. Doubtless harking back to something primitive in her nature, he told himself. But as such it should be dealt with at o
nce and summarily, for the sake of her future and his own.

  Restlessly he argued these things over and over in his mind as the days went by and he heard nothing from Marjorie, yet he could think of no way to get into touch with her that would not cause publicity and comment.

  In the meantime, his mind was making itself up very definitely that Marjorie was desirable. She became even more so when he discovered through an old friend and confidante of the Wetherill family that an unusually large number of shares of a very valuable stock were a part of the Wetherill estate, which Marjorie had inherited. Marjorie had a lot of money and needed the right man to look after it. And he was convinced that he was the right man.

  That was the day he selected the great blue diamond engagement ring.

  Chapter 6

  But Marjorie was walking along a sordid back street, holding the thin, cold hand of a little new brother who was crying.

  The child looked anything but sunny as he dragged his reluctant young feet along, trying to pull away from this strange new sister who looked just enough like the familiar sister Betty to frighten him. There were tears running down his thin cheeks, tears freezing on his chin and nose.

  Some benighted visitor to the day care had administered a square of cheap chocolate as an antidote to fright and homesickness and hunger, and the recipient, while devouring it, had not ceased to wail, thus mingling the chocolate with the tears and applying most of it externally.

  The baby-gold of his curls was matted in a tangle—the curls that had given him his happy little name of Sunny—and the faded red cap was awry on them. The small threadbare coat that had seen several steps of the Gay family through the baby stage had lost most of its buttons and was dragging open, showing a mended blouse much the worse for chocolate and the wear and tear of the day. One stocking had come down around Sunny’s ankle, showing a bare little knee rough and red with cold.