Blue Ruin

by Grace Livingston Hill

  Uncle Roth went off in search of his man but came back unsuccessful.

  “His name is Alexander Douglas. That’s all I could find out,” he said, sitting down between his wife and daughter and giving them a smile that included Lynette and made her feel less homesick.

  “I don’t know whether he is Alexander the coppersmith or Alexander the Great, but anyhow he’s Alexander Douglas, though nobody seemed to describe his eyes like that. But they said he was tall, very tall. He wasn’t in the cabins and he wasn’t playing cards, nor in the smoking room, and I walked the decks over pretty well and couldn’t see anything like him anywhere, so I guess you’ll have to cut him out, kitten.”

  “Cut him out, nothing!” pouted the child. “You keep your eyes open and bring him to me as soon as you find him. I’m just crazy about him. Is he married? Because I can’t help it if he is. I’m simply dead in love with him!”

  “Dorothy!” said Aunt Hilda in a shocked voice.

  “Oh, Mamma, now don’t be stuffy! That doesn’t mean a thing in these days! Don’t forget, Daddy, you’ve promised. Bye-bye Lynn! Too bad you won’t come. I’d let you dance with him, just once, if you would. Oh, those dear plush eyes!”

  Dorothy tripped away, blowing a butterfly kiss as she posed in the doorway.

  Lynette went to get a wrap, and she and her uncle took a promenade around the decks, talking of many pleasant things. Of her college life, of home and mother, and what she intended to do next. She was shy about that, however. Her expectations had been so turned upside down in the last two days. She said not a word about Dana till her uncle asked.

  “And what’s become of that nice boy neighbor? Wasn’t he studying to be a lawyer or something? Anything serious between you yet? I think your mother spoke of him once. His father used to be something.”

  Lynette summoned a laugh.

  “You mean Dana Whipple, I guess. We’ve always been good friends,” she said evasively. “Dana was studying for the ministry. He’s through now, and I believe has a very good prospect for the future. He has a brilliant mind and seems to be in line for a city church. That will please his mother and grandmother who have great ambitions for him.”

  Uncle Rothwell eyed her intently as they passed in the brighter light of the open doorway. Was there something hidden here? Some hurt? Was her voice just the least bit formal in talking so freely about this lifelong friend? Uncle Rothwell was a keen man and gifted with an insight into character.

  “I was afraid he might get in the way of our plans,” he said, watching her. “Your Aunt Hilda seemed to think he would.”

  “Oh, no!” said Lynette, trying to speak naturally but aware of the heightened color in her cheeks, thankful that color did not show by moonlight.

  “Look!” she said eagerly, “the moon is coming up! Oh, isn’t that the most wonderful sight!” And her eagerness turned her uncle’s attention away from herself and Dana Whipple. Yet the brief passage had left its sting, and after they had walked a little longer, her uncle left her at her own request to watch the moonlight on the water while he went back to see if her aunt would not like to come out and sit with her awhile in that sheltered end of the boat, which seemed to be deserted for the time being.

  She stood still by the rail looking up into the face of the full moon, ignoring the chair her uncle had placed for her, lost in a profound wonder at the sight spread before her. The majesty of that brightness seemed to envelop and thrill her, and lift her out of the gloom of life. What did other things matter when there was light like this in the world? She longed to drink it in and fill her soul with this illumination. She almost felt as if she had wings and could spread them and fly when she looked across the twinkling water and saw that radiance. It was as if the light were tangible and if she were only near enough she could reach out and touch it.

  So absorbed was she in her own thoughts that she did not see someone approaching or realize that anyone was standing near her, until a voice, quite close at hand spoke.

  “Clothed in light!” he said, and his voice was tinged with a strangely fascinating burr.

  “What did you say?”

  She spoke the words before she realized that this was a stranger who had spoken to her in the tone of a familiar friend. She felt like Alice in Wonderland.

  The voice with the burr repeated the phrase.

  “Clothed in light! I was thinking aloud. I was wondering if it will be anything like that!”

  “Oh!” breathed Lynette with awe, turning her eyes from the tall stranger to look again at the glorious panoply spread upon the water.

  “His raiment was white as the light,” quoted the voice reverently.

  “Oh, do you think it was like that?” breathed Lynette eagerly. She had no sense that she was conversing with a strange man to whom she had not been introduced. It was all most natural. Two mortals in the presence of God.

  “It may be. Perhaps this is veiled somewhat for our weak vision that could not stand the full glory. But it seems as if He must be here. Listen! ‘It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth. O Lord my God, Thou art very great; Thou art clothed with honor and majesty. Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain: Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind.’ It seems as though He must be here!”

  “It does!” breathed Lynette, filled with the wonder of it, forgetting utterly that her companion was a stranger.

  “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.” The stranger’s voice was low and clear, and the sacred words took on new meaning as he repeated them in this presence. “Did you know,” he went on with the voice of an old friend, “that the story of the Gospels is all written in the names of the stars, all about the serpent and the cross?”

  “No,” said Lynette, “how could it be?”

  “Away back in the earliest ages of history the stars were named and arranged in certain figures, symbolic and significant. You remember they were to be for signs and for seasons. It’s a strange thing that all through the ages, though there has been many an attempt to change those signs and figures, they have been perpetuated in all the astronomic records of all the ages and nations since. And each one of those names and figures has a meaning which when translated gives a link in the story of salvation. Even the cross is there, the Southern Cross. Now if we start as the ancients did with the constellation called Virgo, which means virgin and suggests the ‘seed of the woman,’ we circle the heavens and end with Leo. Do you remember how Jesus Christ is called in the Bible ‘the Lion of the tribe of Judah?’ Salvation is through Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, and coming again in the strength and kingly majesty of the lion to subdue all things unto Himself. Other signs of the Zodiac describe the Scorpion, forever striking to kill, and the Serpent, which also is typical of Satan, forever fleeing from the Lion. The rest go on in order until the whole story of the cross is complete. Oh, it is a wonderful study! There is even significance in the time at which certain stars have appeared and are due to appear again. All the history of the world is written there in bright language if man would only take the trouble to read it. How much do those in there know of it?” He moved his hand to indicate the lighted cabin with the moving forms and the cheerful strains of music from the orchestra.

  “I never heard of this before,” said Lynette wonderingly. “I would like to know more about it. Is there a book that one could read? I mean just an ordinary person who is not a great scholar nor an astronomer?”

  “Oh, yes,” said the man, taking out a notebook and pencil. “I’ll write it down for you. You can get it in London, I’m sure.”

  He tore the leaf from his notebook and handed it to her, and then turned back to the sky.

  “You see that bright star up there? No, ove
r to your right more. Now that star is—”

  And then they became aware of Mr. and Mrs. Reamer standing by their side, surveying the stranger coldly, questioningly, and Lynette came to herself and remembered the convention with a gasp.

  “Oh, Aunt Hilda,” she said eagerly, and then stopped, not knowing quite how to proceed with her explanation.

  “Who’s your friend, Lynette?” asked her uncle. His voice was more cordial than her aunt’s glance had seemed. “Won’t you introduce us?”

  The stranger turned and took the situation into his own hands.

  “My name’s Douglas, sirrr!” and there was a pleasant burr on his speech, “and we just got to talking about the stars.” Lynette noticed that he said “aboot” and liked it. Grandmother Rutherford came of Scotch people.

  Uncle Reamer perceived that he had found his man and that he was also a man of many talents, and waived the conventions.

  “My name’s Reamer!” he said. “Rothwell Reamer. Wall Street. This is Mrs. Reamer, and this is my niece Miss Brooke. We oughtn’t to stand on ceremony I suppose, all on a boat together. And I’ve got three more children, a girl dancing in there and two boys, kids, racketing ‘round somewhere. Shan’t we sit down? There seem to be plenty of chairs.”

  “Oh, certainly,” said the stranger, courteously presenting a chair to Mrs. Reamer before her husband could make a move. But after all the chairs were brought, Douglas began just where he had left off by pointing to the star about which he and Lynette had been talking when they were interrupted.

  “You see that bright star up there? No, that blue one to the right—” And then they were off.

  They sat there for an hour and a half, fascinated, while Douglas unfolded to them the wonder of the heavens, and even Aunt Hilda drew her wrap around her and stayed to the end. Uncle Reamer forgot entirely that he had promised to bring this tall stranger to dance with his daughter, and Aunt Hilda forgot that she was a chaperone. It had been like the unfolding of a romance and held them all to the last word.

  Then suddenly the speaker stopped and looked at his wrist watch.

  “But I am keeping you all a long time listening to my hobby. I must bid you good-night now. It’s been very pleasant to meet you,” and he was gone!

  “He was really very interesting,” said Aunt Hilda, drawing her wraps around her and preparing to go back to the dancing, as easily adjusting herself to the thought of it as if she had not just been fairly hearing the heavens declare the glory of God.

  “It was all just an interesting evening’s entertainment to her,” thought Lynette as she slipped away, pleading weariness. “But oh, I wish that Dana could have heard it! I must tell him!”

  And then she remembered that for the present she could tell him nothing. And perhaps—well perhaps Dana would have sneered at some of the wonderful facts that man had told and called them fanciful. She could almost hear him doing it, with that new tone of superiority he had adopted, and somehow he paled before the great words to which she had been listening tonight. Oh, Dana, Dana! Must he fail of the highest and the best because he thought he knew it all? Wasn’t there some way to make him see? If only he could have heard! But, would he have sneered?

  A long time afterward, when Dorothy had crept into her berth below, tiptoeing about because she thought her cousin was asleep, Lynette realized that for the space of the whole evening she had not but once thought of Dana and her troubles. The spell of the voyage was upon her. Perhaps she was going to be able to endure the long months of separation without such constant agony as it had looked at first. And then she opened her eyes and caught a last glimpse out the little round porthole of the moonlit sea and was thrilled again at the wonder of God.

  They talked it all over the next morning at breakfast, Dorothy eating grapefruit joyously and telling what a glorious time she had had last night.

  “Yes, but do you know how your cousin cut you out?” teased her father. “Here I had hunted the ship over to find your latest craze for you, and then I left Lynnie by herself just a minute to get your mother to see the moonlight on the water, and didn’t I come back and find that sly miss had picked him up and had him on a line as nice as you please!”

  “Daddy! Quit your kidding and explain yourself. Did you really find the man with the blue plush eyes?”

  “No, I didn’t find him, Dottie, your cousin did. I don’t know where she picked him up. Ask her. But she had him all right. He was teaching her astronomy!”

  “Oh brother!” said Dorothy, frowning prettily. “Is he that kind! Isn’t that horrid? There are enough stuffy people now. Well, but Daddy, if you found him why didn’t you bring him to dance? You promised you would.”

  “Well, kitten, I really forgot. It’s the truth. He was so interesting I just forgot to speak. I kept thinking there would be a pause and after a while I’d get him. And then suddenly he stopped and bolted off somewhere, and I couldn’t find him again.”

  “Well, I think you’re mean you didn’t come and find me then if you couldn’t bring him to me. I could have listened a little while and then I’d have carried him off to dance. I never have any trouble with ’em!” And she tossed her pretty head and took another spoonful of grapefruit.

  “I’ll bet you don’t, baby. You fetch them every time. But there are several days remaining, and meantime we’ve paved the way. Try your hand at him yourself. I’ll introduce you on the first opportunity, but don’t forget your cousin had first inning.”

  They all laughed together about him, and presently he entered the dining room and bowed pleasantly to them across the tables, but he did not come over and speak to them, and he left before they were through, for Dorothy purposely had lingered with her food hoping he would come.

  Dorothy was playing cards all the morning with some young folks in the cabin, and Alec Douglas did not appear within her vision. Only once was he seen to come out of his mysterious retirement, and that to bring a book to Lynette who was sitting on deck beside her aunt reading.

  It was a book he had told her about last night, and he lingered a moment to tell her more about its author then vanished again as mysteriously as he had come. Lynette put down her magazine and began to read the book he had brought. It was about the pyramids and held her from the first word. It appeared that the great pyramid had something to do with the Bible. That the Gospel was written upon its walls in strange ways and devices. Why has she never heard of these things before? Did Dana know them? Who was this wonderful scholar who knew all these things and talked of them as freely as if they were wildflowers or beetles?

  But Lynette was not allowed to read long. Aunt Hilda wanted to talk.

  “He really is awfully good looking, isn’t he? Scotch, your uncle thinks. I wonder who he is. I told your uncle to go look him up and see if he isn’t something unusual. He has a manner like a nobleman. Those people of royalty do have such lovely manners. I suppose it comes of being at court so often. They really grow into fine manners. Manners are so important in life, don’t you think, dear? You have lovely ones yourself, Lynette. Your mother is a lady! And so is your grandmother. After all there’s nothing like heredity and breeding! I do wish Dorothy would take on a little polish. I’m hoping she’ll get over some of her carefree ways when she really settles down, but she is so mortifying sometimes. Why, the other day a friend of mine came to call who writes the most lovely essays on happiness and concentration and things like that—I haven’t seen her for twenty years, not since we were girls together in school—and Dorothy came in to be introduced, and what did she do but stand back and bow and say in the most impertinent tone, ‘Mrs. Dabney, I’ve heard a lot about you for years of course. You’ve written a lot of things, haven’t you? Of course, I don’t care for them myself, they’re too stuffy for me, but Mamma just adores them!’ My dear, I was mortified to death! And Lynnie dear, has she told you she smokes? It really keeps me awake nights, the things that child does. Of course I know everybody is doing it, but it’s so against all the tradition
s of our family, and it doesn’t seem respectable. Why, your uncle would kill me almost for not stopping it, if he ever found it out.”

  “I should think you would tell him, Aunt Hilda,” said Lynette coolly. “He has a great deal of influence over her. Perhaps he could do something.”

  “Oh, my dear, I wouldn’t dare!” said the poor woman, putting her handkerchief to her eyes. “You don’t know your uncle. He can be almost severe with Dorothy sometimes, and Dorothy is so sensitive. Poor child, I do hope she won’t have to bear the consequences of her own willfulness.”

  There was a whole morning of that for Lynette, and the book with her finger in the page had to be laid down at last while Aunt Hilda poured out her troubles and laid them in order before her niece.

  When she went down to lunch she felt as if another heavy burden had been laid upon her shoulders. She glanced over to the second table on the left, but Alec Douglas was not there. She wondered what he was doing with his time. Aunt Hilda voiced the curiosity of the family by saying, “I believe that man is employed on board somehow, a clerical position or something. Rothwell, you better find out just what he is. I can’t have the girls going around with everybody, and it’s very funny the way he appears at odd times and then disappears. He must be earning his way across! Dorothy, don’t you go to dancing with him till we find out just who he is! Great mistakes are sometimes made by things like that!”

  “He might be ill, you know,” suggested Dorothy.

  “Hilda, we’ve not made any mistakes about that young man,” put in the head of the house. “He’s all right! I can tell that from his looks. And he’s not employed on board in any capacity, I’m sure of that! Neither is he ill. He isn’t a weakling. He’s got bigger fish to fry than trotting around dancing with girls. You mark my words!”

  Chapter 19

  Sunday morning after breakfast Lynette took refuge in her stateroom and sat down by the little round window to read her Bible. She felt reasonably sure of being alone, for Dorothy was up on deck taking a stroll and Aunt Hilda was nursing a sick headache.