“Well, why don’t you stay awhile, and I’ll do my best to find out what it’s all about.”
“All right, Louella, maybe I will. I’ll think it over. But make it snappy, won’t you? I’ll have to be sure there’s something worthwhile in all this, for I mustn’t waste my time.”
“All right, Jessica. I’ll do my best and call you up and let you know as soon as I find out anything,” said Louella.
Louella cast a quick eye at the clock, wondering if she should venture to telephone Margaret Graeme tonight, make up some plausible excuse for disturbing her, but she decided against it. She would begin the first thing in the morning. That would be better and not get everybody in the family up-in-arms against her, as so often happened. It really wasn’t good policy, for one could never find out facts from people who were angry and disturbed at you.
So very early in the morning Louella began. “Is that you, Margaret? Oh, so you did get home at last, didn’t you? I was really worried last night. We drove over to congratulate Jerry, and we waited until after midnight, thinking you would surely be home pretty soon, and then after I got home I got to worrying about you lest you might have had an accident on the way home from the meeting and been taken to the hospital. Are you all right?”
“All right? Why certainly! Why shouldn’t I be all right, Louella?” said Margaret Graeme with a touch of asperity in her tone.
“Well, you were so late getting home last night, I was really afraid something had happened to you, an accident or something.”
“Oh, no! Nothing happened. We were with friends for a while.”
“Friends?” said Louella in a tone that asked a question, pointedly if ever a simple word did.
“Yes, Louella. We do have a few friends, you know.”
“Oh,” said Louella and waited for an explanation, but none came.
“It was kind of you to call, Louella,” said Margaret Graeme as the pause grew irksomely extended. “By the way, are you going to the Red Cross meeting this morning? If so, I’ll meet you there. It’s almost time to start, and I have two or three things to do before I leave.”
“Oh, well,” said Louella offendedly, “if you haven’t time to talk to me, of course I’ll get off the line. Good-bye!” And Louella hung up sharply.
It was just about that time that Beryl Sanderson and her guest, Diana Winters, got up from a late breakfast and went slowly into the sunny sitting room, settling down with businesslike knitting bags, and took out their knitting, socks and sweaters for servicemen.
“Now,” said Beryl, settling herself comfortably and pulling out her work, “let’s have a real old talkfest. We haven’t had a minute for one since you came. And first let’s begin with yourself. Are you really engaged to that splendid-looking officer I saw when I was at your house? I had a letter from Rose Alters, and she said that it seemed to be a settled thing, although you hadn’t announced it yet. Is that so? Are you engaged?”
Diana’s lovely face flushed a little, and a troubled frown rumpled her delicate brow. She didn’t answer at once but spent time straightening out her yarn, which had tangled itself around her needles. Then she said slowly, almost hesitantly, “Well, no, not definitely.”
Beryl laughed. “Will you tell me how you would manage to be indefinitely engaged?”
“Well,” Diana said, laughing amusedly, “that is a funny way to put it, isn’t it? But the fact is, Bates Hibberd has been hanging around a lot, insisting on an answer, insisting on being at least engaged, and I didn’t seem to be ready with an answer yet. In fact, he wanted to be married right away before he has to go overseas, but I just couldn’t see that. I don’t really know him well enough to be sure I want to spend the rest of my life with him. I told him I had to have more time to decide, and I ran away to you here to think it over. I knew if there was any place in the world where quiet and sanity reigned and one would have a chance to really think, it would be here.”
“Thanks, Diana,” said Beryl. “I consider that a great compliment. And does that mean that you would rather not be questioned about this matter while you are thinking it over?”
“Oh, no,” said Diana. “I shall need your help to make a sane decision.”
“Say, that’s a pretty big order. I don’t know that I’m equal to advise on a subject like that. I know so little about the man.”
“Oh, I can easily tell you. He’s rich, handsome, has personal charm, he’s well educated, and he comes of a good family, one of the best. Several signers of the Declaration are in his family, several noted writers, scientists, a poet, an essayist, even two millionaires and one preacher among his forebears. He’s bright and smart, a man full of good ideas and fine morals and manners, a leader in society, and popular everywhere. Before the war he had some thought of going in for politics. But I don’t know what he’ll do when the war is over. Well, I guess that’s about the picture. What do you think I ought to do about it?”
“What’s the matter with him?” asked Beryl matter-of-factly.
“Matter with him?” questioned Diana perplexedly. “Why, there is nothing the matter with him. That’s it. That’s why I can’t decide what to do. There is nothing whatever the matter with him!”
“Well, then, why don’t you marry him?”
“Well, I don’t quite understand it, but I’m not just sure I want to marry him. Isn’t that silly?”
Beryl looked at the other girl keenly. “Do you mean you don’t love him?”
There was a long pause before Diana answered. Then she said slowly as if she were considering each word as momentous, “Love him? I don’t know. No, I don’t suppose I really love him. But nice people don’t really love one another before they are married, do they? I mean that emotional, demonstrative kind of love.”
“Why, Diana, where did you get such an idea as that? Of course nice people love one another. If they do not, why should they ever marry? And if they are not sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they love each other with all their hearts, how could they ever bear to live intimately with one another? How perfectly terrible to be tied for life to a man you did not love and honor and respect with all your heart!”
“Oh, I could honor and respect him, of course,” said Diana. “But I doubt if I could love anybody that wasn’t really a saint, a real angel of a person, you know.”
“But, my dear, doesn’t he seem that way to you?”
“No,” said Diana thoughtfully, “he doesn’t, and I’m sure I don’t love him, not now. But I supposed I’d grow into loving him if I lived with him.”
“You never would,” said Beryl out of her deeper teaching from a mother who knew how to instruct her daughter in the intimate things of life. “Don’t marry him, dear, not unless the time comes when you feel as if you would die if you could not be with him always. Do you feel that way about him?”
“Mercy no,” said Diana. “Sometimes I’m really bored with him, and I wish I could get away.”
“Then don’t marry him, Diana! That’s not love. You’ll never be happy with a man who bores you. Say, tell me something: Is there anybody else you love, or ever did love?”
“No, not anyone.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, positive. Oh, there was an ugly little boy in school when I was in the third grade. He was always getting into trouble with the teacher and getting a whipping, and I used to feel sorry for him, and wished I could comfort him. It went on for several years till he left school and moved away somewhere, and I never saw him again. But that wasn’t real love, I suppose. Anyway, I was only a child. And the last I ever heard of him was that he died in the war. I haven’t thought of him in years, except when I heard of his death. And then there was another boy in high school. I thought I adored him till I heard he had run away with the worst little rat of a girl who lived down in the slums. Oh, Beryl! How can you ever tell about anybody?”
Beryl looked at her pityingly. “You can tell,” she said positively. “That is,” she added, “if you turn down
the man you aren’t sure you love and just wait till the man God has planned for your life comes along.”
“Do you think God does that? Plan somebody for your life?”
“Yes,” said Beryl with her eyes cast down and her cheeks a little more rosy than usual.
“Well, but suppose you don’t like the man God picks out.”
“Oh, but you would, I’m sure you would, Diana. God would understand and send the right one.”
The visitor gazed at her perplexedly. “Beryl, how long have you thought God cared what became of us?” she asked. “You never used to talk this way.”
“Well, perhaps not. But Diana, I was very early taught that God cared about us in every little detail. Perhaps I never paid much attention to it when I was a child, but I think in the back of my mind I have always believed it. But anyway, Diana, I’m quite sure you ought not to marry that man whom you do not love. Don’t tie your life up with someone before God has shown you what you might have.”
“Well, perhaps you’re right. I don’t know, Beryl, but somehow you have impressed me. But tell me, Beryl, are you in love with anyone?”
Beryl looked at her friend with a startled glance, her cheeks grown rosy. “Why, no, Diana, not in love. There is someone I admire very much, but I’m not sure he’s ever looked at me. We are just good friends, that’s all, but it’s very pleasant to have even a good friend that you really like and feel at home with, even for just a few minutes’ talk.”
“Yes,” said Diana thoughtfully. “Do you know, it’s odd, but I felt that way, just a little, last night when I was talking to that nice Rodney Graeme. I had a feeling that I would like to know him better and that I could really enjoy his company. But of course he’s a perfect stranger and is probably very much engaged to someone else.”
“Oh, yes—Rodney. He’s nice, isn’t he? Those brothers are both nice. They couldn’t belong to that family and not be, of course. But no, I don’t think Rod is engaged now. It seems to me I heard he was once engaged to some girl he had known since childhood. But I thought I heard that was all off and she is married to someone else. But now, there’s a man that a girl could trust. He would never bore you.”
“But Beryl, I’m afraid a man like that would be too far above me,” said Diana. “A man who could pray like that! I shall never forget that prayer. It was like a creed, so brief and yet so very clear and comprehensive.”
“Yes, wasn’t it?” said Beryl. “My dear, if war does that to all the boys who have been over, what will the world be like when they all get home? We shall have to look to ourselves, or we won’t be good enough to company with them even now and then. Do you know I was thinking that while Jeremy was talking. He has grown up so wonderfully. Although he was always a wonderful boy, even in his school days.”
“How well did you know him?” asked Diana.
“Not so very well,” said Beryl thoughtfully. “I thought he was wonderful in school, but we never saw each other outside of classrooms. I used to often wish I knew him better, but he was not at any social affairs, and neither was I. I don’t know how it happened. Of course we lived in separate townships. My father picked out that high school over in Riverdale because it had several quite superior teachers. He had to pay to get me in there, and I had to be driven over every day, which was another separating fact. But I never forgot Jeremy, and I was so delighted when I met him a few days ago and had an opportunity to greet him.”
“Well,” said the other girl, “if you would ask me some of the questions I’ve been asking you, I think I could unequivocally answer yes, by all means, let your interest center around that lad. I liked him a lot, too, and what a wonderful message he had. He almost made me believe a lot of things I never was sure about before. Do you know his brother? Is he as nice? I certainly enjoyed him last night, even just sitting by him in a meeting. He made me feel as if I had known him a long time.”
“No, I never met him at all until a couple days ago. He was off at college when Jeremy and I were in high school, and then he went right overseas. He enlisted, you know, and he’s been a long time away. They tell me he has done a lot of marvelous things in the war and won a lot of honors. You saw the ribbons he was wearing.”
“Yes, but you mustn’t interest me too much in him,” sighed Diana, “for it isn’t thinkable that he isn’t already taken. I simply must not complicate my life any more than it is already, with any more impossibles.” Diana laughed rather bitterly. “Perhaps I don’t know what love is about. And anyway, I wouldn’t be up to a notable Christian man like that one.” Diana sighed almost enviously.
Then they heard Mrs. Sanderson calling them to come upstairs and see some photographs of Beryl’s baby days she had promised to show them, and they sped up to answer her call.
“We’ll talk again,” whispered Diana, and Beryl, with a sweet smile, caught her fingers in her own and squeezed them lovingly.
Chapter 12
A couple of days later, Jeremy Graeme called up Beryl Sanderson.
“Hello there! Are you busy today, you and Diana? Because Rod and I have to take quite a drive on some business errands for Dad, and we thought you girls might like to go along. It’s business so it’s legitimate to use the gas. My sister can’t go because she has to be at the hospital all day, but Rod thought it would be great if you girls should want to go. We’re packing a lunch, coffee and sandwiches, enough for a regiment, and we thought we’d start right away if it was all right with you two. How about it? Like to go?”
“Oh, wonderful! Wait a minute till I ask Diana.”
She was back in less than a minute with a voice full of eagerness. “Yes, Diana thinks it will be wonderful, too. We’ll be ready by the time you get here.”
The two excited girls hurried up to make ready and to explain to Beryl’s mother, who seemed well pleased when she heard who they were going with.
“Take that box of candy your father brought home last night,” she said, smiling. “That will help out with the lunch.”
And so in a few minutes they were off.
It was a glorious day. One of those perfect days in the opening of spring, and the sunshine had that yellow quality that is so alluring after a long, dreary winter of cold and fog and gloom.
“It almost seems as if the war was over!” said Beryl with a relieved sigh as she settled back in the car. “Here we have real sunshine and flowers and birds and two of the best fighters home from the war.”
“Thanks awfully!” said Jeremy with a grin. “Hear that, Rod? Better salute after that.” So Rodney stood up and gravely lifted his cap. “It’s something fine to have won that title,” he said.
That was the beginning of a wonderful day. Not even an April shower to mar its loveliness.
Occasionally Beryl cast a glance over her shoulder at the backseat of the car where Diana and Rodney were sitting, deep in talk, and she couldn’t forget the last thing Diana had said to her before they left the house. “Oh, I’m just scared to death,” she had breathed as they hurried downstairs.
“Scared?” said Beryl looking surprised. “Why in the world should you be scared?”
“Why, I’m scared to talk to that wonderful man. A man who can pray as he can must be a very holy man indeed, and I’m sure he thinks I’m a little heathen. I won’t know what in the world to say to him.”
“Nonsense!” Beryl said, laughing. “He’s not like that at all. Don’t worry. You’ll get by all right.”
And there sat Diana in the backseat laughing and talking vivaciously. She seemed to be enjoying herself immensely. What’s more, the navy man looked very pleased himself. So Beryl cast off her anxieties and gave herself up to the enjoyment of the day and the company of Jeremy, whom she admired greatly.
It was a long, delightful drive to the three towns that were their destination, and every minute of the time was filled with joy for all concerned. Even the three stops were interesting. The first was at an office, where they could see Jerry through the window, spreading out pap
ers on the desk, pointing out certain items to be noticed, waiting courteously for the signature, and then talking genially with the man they had come to see. He was evidently being asked questions concerning his war service overseas, for the stranger pointed to his decorations, and Jerry was laughingly explaining then perhaps telling a few words of what he had been through.
The next stop was a small grocery where the proprietor came out to meet them, arguing about some matters in the papers before he glumly took Jerry in and signed.
The third was a large old farmhouse where a very old man sat on the porch with a big old-fashioned gray shawl over his knees and a gray felt hat pulled down to shade his eyes. They could hear the conversation at this stop, a learned discussion of roads and why this protest was necessary.
Jerry got away at last with only a brief sketch of his experiences in service and climbed back to his seat in the car with a sigh of relief.
“There, that’s that!” he said. “Now we can start to have fun.”
“But it’s all been fun,” said Beryl.
“It certainly has,” said Diana with shining eyes, and Beryl settled back, content that her guest was enjoying herself.
“Now,” said Jeremy, “how about lunch? I’m hungry as three bears. What about the rest of you?”
“There couldn’t be a better suggestion,” said Rodney. “I’m always hungry now.”
“That sounds wonderful!” said the girls in chorus.
So Jeremy turned down a dirt road leading into the woods, and presently they were winding among hemlocks and pines and maples, with bird songs overhead and chattering squirrels skittering from limb to limb on the trees.
The lunch was ample with many surprises in the shape of delightful sandwiches and little frosted cakes, and berries, olives, and pickles, and cheese and jellies. There just seemed nothing that could have been thought of that had been forgotten, including plenty of hot coffee in the Thermos bottles. They ate it in a leisurely way, with many a joke and a laugh. Beryl twinkled her eyes at Diana as if to remind her of her fear that these young men would be too grave for her light-minded self.
Girl to Come Home To Page 12
