He rattled on affably, and the more he talked the more Rose shrank from being at all friendly with him. She was relieved when at last they came back into the region of her own stateroom. She was meditating on how she could excuse herself without being rude. She felt that she had already wasted enough time over this individual, and she didn’t want to waste any more. There was so much that was new and wonderful about this trip which she wanted to be free to enjoy by herself. Of course, if he had been one who would enjoy looking at the wonderful tints of sky and sea, one who understood her thoughts about them, that would have been different. But once when she tried calling his attention to the silver path coming toward them from the wide rising moon, he only stared at her and laughed.
“Sentimental, aren’t you?” he said patronizingly. “Well, of course that’s all very well for a first trip, I suppose, but personally, I got used to the moon on water long ago, and I don’t waste time getting an eye full of that any more. There goes the orchestra. How about going in and dancing? That suits me down to the ground, and I’ll bet you’re pretty good at it yourself. How about it?”
Rose looked up, almost amused.
“Oh, I don’t dance,” she said pleasantly. “I think I’ll go in and write some letters.”
“To heck with your letters!” said the young man. “Waste this perfectly gorgeous evening on writing letters! How quaint of you! Come on in and we’ll try each other out. That’s another thing I’m pretty good at teaching, dancing!”
“Thank you,” said Rose disinterestedly, “I wouldn’t care to learn.”
“Say, you aren’t by chance going old-fashioned on me, are you?”
“Not going,” Rose said, smiling. “I am old-fashioned.”
“Well, you ought to snap out of it,” advised her companion. “I can help you to get a different outlook, and you’ll be ready to thank me the rest of your life for bringing you up to date!”
“But I’m not a bit interested,” she said quietly. “I think you’ll have to excuse me now, I have other things I want to do.”
“Aw, don’t get that way, baby! I rather like you. Really I do! You certainly don’t look old-fashioned, darling. You’ve got a swell outfit on, and I picked you out as the most interesting girl in the dining room. Come on! Let’s go the rounds and have a good time together. By the way, I’ve forgotten what your name is. It doesn’t pay for us to run around nameless this way. My name’s Harry Coster. Just Harry’ll do. Everybody calls me that. What’s yours?”
Rose smiled distantly.
“Why, my name’s Galbraith,” she said with a pleasant little dignity. “Miss Galbraith.” She said it so gently that it lost in some degree the rebuff she felt like giving. But he stared at her and then burst into laughter.
“Miss!” he said mockingly. “Well I like that! High hat, are ya? Well, you can’t get very far with a handle like that, not these days. Haven’t you got a first name? I think I’d rather use that.”
She was greatly annoyed at the intimacy of his tone and felt like shrinking into herself. He was laughing at her, of course, but why not hide behind a certain quaintness, if he wanted to call it that? She certainly did not wish to establish a close friendship with him. She felt herself falling into her childish habit of shyness, and knew that it would get her nowhere with him. He would just think he could say anything to her, and she would be too shy to resent it. So she lifted her sweet eyes distantly and said with that cool little smile of hers:
“I think Miss Galbraith will do, if you don’t mind.”
She could see that astonishment was strong in his eyes. He didn’t know any girls like her, and was intrigued to pursue her and break down her defenses.
“Well, all right, baby,” he said with a genial smile on his handsome lips, “have it your own way. If that’s what you want. How about going down to the bar and having a little drink? I’m thirsty as a fish, aren’t you?”
She looked at him really startled now, and then suddenly she shook her head.
“No,” she said, “I don’t drink either!” She gave him a steady look from her clear eyes. There was a certain dignity about her that made him drop his bold stance before her level gaze. There was something about her that actually compelled his respect.
“Excuse me,” he said embarrassedly, “I never met a girl like you, and I didn’t know. But”—he lifted his eyes and studied her—“just how do you get by when you’re in a crowd? You don’t find other girls or fellows who agree with you in that, do you? There are two vacant deck chairs over there. Let’s sit down and talk this thing out. I’d like to get to the bottom of it. You can sit and look at your silver poem on the water while I ask you questions. Here! Have a cigarette and then we can talk better.” He handed out his cigarette case.
“Thank you, no,” said Rose, a twinkle in her eyes now. “I don’t smoke either!”
“You don’t smoke!” said the young man pausing with his case extended and staring at her in genuine astonishment. “Say, this is something really worth looking into. You haven’t got some grim aunt or chaperone or poky old mother on board keeping guard over you, have you?”
Rose’s face grew suddenly sober.
“No,” she said, and a small sigh escaped her. “I only wish my mother were here. She was to have come, but—she went to heaven instead.”
“Oh, say, now that’s hard lines! I didn’t know, of course. But say, her being in the place you call heaven isn’t the reason for your being so different, is it? I honestly would like to understand you. Why don’t you do these things that everybody else is doing? Why are you so different? I really don’t see how you get by not harmonizing with all the people around you. You live in this world. I should think you’d have to do as the rest of the world do.”
She gave him a bewildered look.
“But you see it isn’t my world! I live in a different world. I always have. The world I know and love doesn’t do these things.”
“Do you mean you belong to some kind of religion that has certain rules? Aren’t you allowed to have a good time?”
“No, I don’t belong to any sect,” said Rose. “I’m just trying to live my life as I think my heavenly Father would have me live. You see, I don’t belong down here. My home is in heaven and someday I’m going home.”
“Good night!” said the young man. “You talk about it as if it were a pleasant thing to consider dying. Not me! I try to forget there is such a thing as going out and leaving this jolly old world. I try to think I’m going to live always.”
“You are, of course,” said Rose thoughtfully, “but your attitude down here makes all the difference in where you go to live forever, you know. And if you are expecting heaven forever, the earthly things don’t seem so interesting. Good night! I’m going to leave you here!” And Rose turned and dashed down the corridor to her cabin.
Chapter 3
Locked securely in her cabin with her tall lovely roses like guardian angels silently watching over her, courage came back again to Rose. But there was no mistaking the fact that she was frightened. Partly by the things that Harry Coster had said to her and the way he had looked at her, and partly by the way she had dared talk to him.
Never before had she spoken like that to any living being, about heaven and dying. She had never supposed it was possible to talk that way, especially to a young person. At least no one but a clergyman would do it. Oh, she was a church member, had been since she entered high school. But even the ceremony of uniting with the church had been an ordeal to her. She had meant it with all her heart, but to stand up before a church full of people and say by the bowing of her head that she belonged to the Lord Jesus Christ had required an actual physical courage. She had never supposed that she of her own free will would start a line of conversation that could end in the way this one had ended. She hadn’t thought it was in her to say such solemn personal things. She hadn’t been trained to do it. Yes, she had been to young people’s Sunday night meeting for several years, and once in a g
reat while had taken the brief part of reciting a Bible verse or a line or two of poetry appropriate to the topic, but it had been hard, much harder than reciting a difficult lesson in school.
And here she had taken the initiative and gone straight to the point with this young man. Or had she? Had she told him enough? She hadn’t even mentioned the Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps she should have explained to him the way of salvation. But she couldn’t preach a sermon to him, could she? Well, even what she did say astonished her. She felt as if she ought to thank God for it, for surely the words had been given her. She felt a joy, past understanding, that she had said them. She never could have thought them out for herself. And they had seemed to work. She was puzzled at the singing joy in her heart and puzzled that the young man had no repartee wherewith to mock her. She had managed to get away and was safe in her room with the door locked.
But in spite of her strange feeling of triumph, she felt weak and very much alone. She dropped down in the chair beside her bed and stared ahead at her roses. They seemed a living testimony to the fact that God was watching over her, though she hadn’t realized any such thing before. Then she bent her head, and her lips touched the rosebud nestled in her dress, reminding her of that farewell kiss. Gordon McCarroll’s lips upon hers, his hands holding hers, hadn’t seemed rudely intimate like the look of this other young man as he stood fairly insulting her with his intimate amusement.
Well, perhaps she was silly and old-fashioned, as he had said. She had been brought up to reverence tender words and intimate touches, and it did grate on her senses to see them lightly treated. Yet she hadn’t felt there was anything wrong in that good-bye kiss, nothing but utmost courtesy and kindly thoughtfulness for her. But then Gordon was a schoolmate of years. A stranger had no right to rush into intimacy as this other one had done. Of course, a great many of her other schoolmates had these careless ways of acting and talking! She hadn’t been so far out of the world but that she had overheard plenty of it. Yet never before had it been addressed to her, and now she found her finer feelings affronted!
Perhaps she was judging this strange man too harshly. Perhaps according to his standards he was only offering her honest admiration. But she didn’t like it, and somehow she must protect herself from such contacts. Strange! She had never had trouble of this sort before. It must be her new clothes! That was it! She had always had decent garments, though extremely simple, sometimes almost shabby, in school. Her classmates had grown used to her in everyday clothes and had taken her for granted as a shy little person who belonged in the background. Now here she was appearing in pretty new clothes, and it had somehow brought her into notice. She mustn’t let her head get turned with it all. Gordon McCarroll had probably noticed her for the first time because of the new clothes too. He had suddenly discovered her, forlorn and needing comfort, so out of the abundance of his own charmed life he had paused to give her thought enough to send her on her way comforted. That was all it was of course, but it was something dear that she would always treasure. It wasn’t to be expected that there would be many such bright spots in the days that were ahead of her. Her life was set henceforth in drab loneliness and very likely some kind of hard work, and she must not allow her longings to go ahead of all probability. She would probably never see Gordon McCarroll again in this life, but she would always remember to ask God to bless him greatly because of what he had done for her this day.
As for the other young man, she must keep him in his place and keep out of his way as much as possible. That was all.
And now it was her happy duty to write a note of thanks for the roses! Or would it be better to wait until morning? She was suddenly very tired, and the motion of the ship and the music of the waves lured her to rest. She must take time to think what she would say in that letter. It was her privilege at last to speak to the boy who had all her school days been her ideal of what a young fellow should be, and she wanted to consider each word she wrote and have it such that she would not be ashamed to think it over afterward. All the years of their school life seemed to have culminated in this one happening today, as if it were a lesson long anticipated, and now she wanted to fulfill her part creditably.
She went to her porthole and looked out over the far stretch of silvery sea and sky, stabbed with stars and bright moonlit wavecrests. A strange wide sea. The moon was up there somewhere, but she could not see it from this point. God was up there somewhere, and God was watching over her and caring. It was hard to realize sometimes, but it had been the last thing her mother had said to her the night she went home, that God would be caring for her, and He was always there. How she wished she knew someone who could talk to her about God as her mother used to do, or her wonderful father! She sometimes felt such a longing to know God better. Well, perhaps He would send her some friends someday who knew Him. He surely must have sent Gordon McCarroll and his roses to cheer her lonely way.
She turned from surveying the wide strange night and laid her face against the flowers, softly touching a rosebud with her lips.
“Good night!” she whispered softly.
Quickly she arrayed herself for the night and kneeling, bent her head to pray. There were so many things for which she was thankful, and so many places where she needed God’s keeping power. Then she snapped out the light and crept into her bed, thinking how strange and sorrowful it was that she was here in a great boat tossing on the wide sea, and her dear mother’s body was lying in the cemetery back at Shandon Hills.
Perhaps there were nice people, of course there must be some here on this ship, but she hadn’t seen any yet that she cared to cultivate, and she was lonely, so lonely.
Gordon McCarroll had helped her through those last few moments before she left her native land, and the memory of his lips on hers still thrilled her, but she was afraid she was in danger of making far too much of it. The thought of it grew more precious every time it recurred, and she was quite certain that he had not intended it to be anything but kindly friendship. He wasn’t that kind of a boy, and never had been. She had watched him with the girls. She knew his reputation. And he, if he knew anything about her at all, would be sure she wasn’t that kind of a girl.
As she lay there in the darkness with the sound of the sea all about her, the motion of the ship and the throbbing of the engine all blending into a sweet quietness, with a distant strain from a fine orchestra in the far distance, her tense sorrowful heart relaxed, and all the weariness of the day and of the last few days began to drift out and make itself known. It seemed good to be resting.
Rose was up early the next morning. It came to her that she wanted to see the early sea while the day was young, and perhaps there would not be so many alien watchers about before breakfast.
That young man called Harry Coster, if he’d done all the things he asked her to join him in last night, would surely not be up very early. It would be nice to get her first morning visions without him as accompaniment. Perhaps he would not be so anxious any more to companion with her after the way she had answered him last night. He doubtless was through with her. She sincerely hoped so. But she was running no chances. She wanted the sea all to herself for just a little while, to get acquainted with it and try to read in it the moods her mother had said were there.
So with her big blue coat about her and the soft wool cap on her head that matched the fur collar, she stole out to the deck and reveled in the early morning loveliness. Pearly tints of sky and sea, limitless space, golden morning air. Was it like that where her mother was, she wondered? More beautiful of course, only it was impossible to conceive of anything more beautiful. “Eye hath not seen … neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive.” The words so familiar, yet never tangible before, seemed to speak themselves to her heart. It was infinitely comforting to think of her mother in a beautiful place at last. Mother, who so loved lovely things, and who had had so few of them during the after part of her life! Mother, who had been brought up to have plenty and to expect beaut
y. Brought up to instant discernment of what was good and what was shoddy, and who couldn’t help it that imitations and ugliness caused her actual physical discomfort. Mother, who had sometimes sacrificed a trifling extra for the table that she might have a flower. And now she was where there was plenty of beauty, no stinting! How grand for her! Mother amid eternal joy and loveliness! And she must be glad that Rose was here watching the morning rise out of the sea and thinking of her at home with God!
Suddenly a voice interrupted her.
“Well, beautiful, how are you this morning? Why so pensive? What are you thinking about? A penny for your thoughts!”
She turned, annoyed, to find Harry Coster beside her, handsome and sporty-looking, taking things for granted just as he had the night before. Was she going to be pestered with him all through the voyage? Would she be driven to stay in her cabin?
“Oh, you wouldn’t be interested in my thoughts,” she said reticently. “They were just plain thoughts.”
“What about?” he insisted. “Sure I’d be interested.”
“Oh no,” she said gravely now, her eyes very sweet and far away. “I was just thinking about my mother, and if she sees this lovely morning I’m in, and if it is so much more beautiful where she is now than any mornings we have down here. Or whether this is just a piece of it, only with some of the glory dimmed so we can bear it.”
She was talking more to herself than to him, letting her thoughts go on into the infinite.
“There you go!” said the young man gaily. “How do you get that way? If you’d gone dancing with me last night and had a little drink or two, you wouldn’t be so morbid this morning. What you need is a good hard walk around the decks to get up an appetite, and then after breakfast we’ll play tennis. The other girl and fellow at our table are going to join us, and we’ll have a great time. Come on now, and we’ll have a constitutional.”
Rose Galbraith Page 4
