“Oh, Mr. Douglas, I think your sermon was perfectly lovely! What a privilege this has been!” And then the mob let loose and lionized him.
Lynette could see he did not like it. He only smiled a sad, wistful smile at them, as if to say, “Is that all that I have accomplished by my message?” and slipped away.
In the dining room they hummed about his brilliancy, his talents, his eloquence, his gifts, but not a word did Lynette hear about his Lord nor the way of the cross. Did nobody get it at all, or was the message meant just for her?
The preacher did not come to the table. Perhaps he did not want to hear their chatter. It seemed a desecration to Lynette to whom the message had meant so much.
Dorothy came late and had a strange look about her eyes as if she had been crying. Afterward she told her cousin, “He made me weep. Wasn’t that the limit? I had to get out or I’d have bawled right then and there like a baby. It stirred me all up inside and I felt horrid, and I just had to have a smoke or I’d have passed out. But isn’t he precious? Darling old Plush Eyes!”
Had scatterbrained Dorothy really been touched by the sermon, or was this only an act, too? Lynette could not tell.
That night she stood alone for a few moments on deck looking out into the darkness. The moon was gone behind a cloud, and the sea looked very wide and black. She was thinking that it was perhaps like the place she was about to enter in her life, wide and black and alone, no stars even, save in memory, to guide the way. Then all at once he was beside her again.
“You helped me a great deal this morning,” he said, just as if he had known her always.
Lynette looked up with surprise.
“Oh, but I was just wishing I might tell you how you have helped me,” she said eagerly. “I needed it. I think God sent you just for me, to help me in the way I have to go.”
“I somehow knew there was perplexity in your eyes,” he said, “and perhaps pain. I thank God if you have found the way. I’ve been praying about you. Do you mind?”
“Oh, I am glad!” she said earnestly. “I have needed it so!”
And then, before he could answer, they were surrounded. The Reamers, guided by the indefatigable Dorothy who had rounded them up even down to her two brothers, surrounded them.
“Oh, Mr. Douglas,” gushed Dorothy, “your sermon was perfectly dear! I’ve been just crazy to hear you ever since I knew about you. Won’t you take me for a little walk, just so I can say I walked with you, the great Mr. Douglas? I’d be so flattered. I want to tell the girls at home about it.”
Dorothy lifted her vivid little impudent face wreathed in smiles, eyes full of pleading, and Alec Douglas laughed.
“With pleasure,” he said, and turning to Lynette, “will you go with us?”
Together the three walked down the deck and around, Dorothy doing the talking, the preacher saying now and then, “Yes, quite so, quite so!” and “Fancy! I hadn’t heard of it!” But when they came back to the door of the main cabin, Douglas left them with good-night and just a lingering pressure of Lynette’s hand as he took it before he left. She knew that he meant that he would remember her before the throne, and their eyes met with understanding, and then he was gone.
The next morning the boat docked at Liverpool and they saw no more of Alec Douglas. He had hurried away at once to meet an appointment.
Chapter 20
Dana had no intention of deliberately filling in the time of Lynette’s absence with Jessie Belle. In fact it was several days before he would admit to himself that Lynette had really gone without further word to him. He had convinced himself so thoroughly that she was merely hanging around in New York, waiting for him to come down or write or telegraph, or do something, that he would not believe it was true. Of course, he did not know the time when her relatives were sailing, and his pride was so great that he would not go to Mrs. Brooke and ask. So he blundered on, holding his head high and trying to pretend to his family that he knew all about it.
And it was perfectly astonishing how many questions that family could find to ask him, right in public as it were. Even Grandma wanted to know if Lynette was going to Wales. She would have liked to ask her to call upon some old friends of her girlhood who had gone back there after several years in this country.
Dana grew to be quite an accomplished liar, although for the sake of his profession he generally managed to make his answers letter true if not spirit perfect. Dana had great respect for his office.
Amelia began to show interest in foreign tours; she also plied Dana with questions.
And Aunt Justine was simply unbearable!
She kept asking if he had heard from Lynette yet. Every morning she asked that, until Dana told her loftily one morning when he got her alone that it was none of her business whether he had heard yet or not, and he was tired of having to answer her.
And then came that unpleasant morning when that cheap little flaring postcard arrived while Dana was out with Jessie Belle and everybody in the house saw it, not only saw it but read it and meditated upon it, and seemed to roll it as a sweet morsel under their tongues.
It bore a picture of Westminster Abbey, and underneath was written:
Have just been doing Westminster Abbey. It impresses me as having a lot of poise. I’m glad I came.
Lynette
They passed it around and read it, one by one, Amelia anxiously, over and over, wondering what it could possibly mean. Justine scornfully, knowing she would likely never find out. Grandma with a chuckle, guessing what might be behind the words and keen to read between the lines. She admired Lynette more than any girl she knew. She often said that she was more than smart, she was good.
It was there when they got back, Jessie Belle with a triumphant air. She had made Dana kiss her again. She felt she had gained several points in the game. Dana was half shamefaced, half vexed.
And there lay the postcard, out before them all, and it was obvious that they had read it.
“I wish that I could have my mail put away in my room when I am absent!” he remarked severely, addressing his mother, but looking straight at Justine, who usually got to the front door first when the postman was coming. He reached for the card, but Jessie Belle snatched it from him.
“Let me see? What is it? Oh, just an old church. I don’t see what anybody wants of that!”
But Jessie Belle had read the words, and Jessie Belle was nobody’s dummy. She dropped her eyelashes and smiled a strange little knowing smile. Grandma, eyeing her furtively when nobody else was noticing, spoke out quite clearly. “What’s the matter with you, Jezebel? What have you got up your sleeve? You look like that cat when she’s just finished a bird!”
“Oh, Grandma!” giggled Jessie Belle immediately, dimpling and going into spasms of laughter. “How quaint you are! What will you say next?”
“I’ll see when the times comes,” answered the old lady sharply, and cackled to herself as she buttered a piece of bread.
Dana betook himself and his postcard up to his room after dinner and did not come down again that night. Jessie Belle was bored to death but continued to show that triumphant little dimple at intervals during the evening, Grandma watched her furtively and grimly. She did not laugh the whole evening.
Dana had other mail beside the postcard. One was a letter from a church in New York asking him to supply their pulpit the next Sabbath. Dana wrote an immediate acceptance and packed his bag that night. He was determined to get away from the house, from Aunt Justine’s prying eyes—and from Jessie Belle.
Yes, he had come to know that he ought to get away from Jessie Belle.
Of course, his mother had spoken to him several times about taking her out so much and what the neighbors would say; and indeed he would have been more careful if she hadn’t nagged him so much that he felt he had to assert his own will and show her that he knew what he ought to do and what he ought not to do better than she, a woman, could ever know. He was a man.
And then there was that annoying Bi
ble verse that Grandma had presumed to pin to his sweater. Utterly inappropriate it was, of course, but annoying all the same. Grandma needn’t think that just because the money was all in her trust for him, or practically so, that she owned him body and soul. He wasn’t a little child anymore for her to cackle at and boss. He was a man! A full-fledged minister! And it was high time that she understood. He would just go away a while and let them all understand that he was his own boss.
So he packed his bag and announced to his family in the morning that he was leaving. He had to go down and look over a church. He rather gave them to understand that the letter he had received was equivalent to a call, but that he wasn’t at all sure it was worth considering till he went down to look the ground over.
Grandma eyed him intently. She didn’t hand over a roll of bills as she usually did when Dana was going anywhere, but she didn’t lift a finger to stop him from going. So Dana went, but he came home Monday morning a trifle crestfallen. The church had proved to be a little mission chapel in a new development of small houses among plain people, and they had asked him to officiate at five services and had only paid him ten dollars! He was disgusted. Also, having no money, or very little, it did not seem wise to remain longer in New York.
He rather hoped on the way home that he might find Jessie Belle gone away. She had stated a number of times that he was the only thing that kept her from fleeing this barren waste of desert, back to real life again; and the moral, well-trained part of him hoped she had gone.
Nevertheless, as he neared home, he found himself looking eagerly toward the house to see if Jessie Belle were on the porch or at the window, and he was glad when he saw her blue dress and she came running down the walk to meet him.
Justine was glad to see him returning. That was most apparent. She had been getting uneasy. She was almost afraid he might run over to Europe for the weekend. And Ella Smith was relieved. She had been afraid that Jessie Belle would run away.
Grandma was distinctly not glad to see her grandson return. She felt he was safer in New York, and her acrid remarks told him plainly why.
As for Amelia, she frankly told Dana that he ought to have stayed and looked up some other church while he was there. That it was high time he was settled if he expected to get to work in the fall, and he ought to have something definite to tell people. It didn’t look well to see him hanging around home and going out with a girl like that every day.
But Dana loftily told her that the church at which he was to preach in August was the church of his choice, and that it was as good as his now. He had practically been called, and everything would be settled in good time when the people got home from their vacations. Then he put on his knickers and sweater and told Jessie Belle to come along for a ride, and out he went into temptation again, although this time he knew he was going there. He was insane enough to think that the fact that he knew it would protect him.
That was the beginning of a very trying summer for all the Whipples. Dana had taken the bit in his teeth and did just as he pleased, and only Justine beamed. Amelia was raw with anguish. She went around in the kitchen like a cyclone and came downstairs every morning with red eyes and quivering, flabby lips. They were not becoming to her large, tired face. The neighbors were beginning to ask her, who was Jessie Belle, and where did Lynette come in? Was she satisfied?
“Well,” said Grandma sagely one morning when they were alone and without the usual cackle, “now that mortification has set in I suppose you’ll try to do something about it, Amelia, but it’s too late. You’ll find it is too late. I suppose you’ll blame it all on me, but I didn’t bring your child up, and I didn’t know a Jezebel was coming either when I let Justine ask her. I’d have sent her away soon after she got here, only I thought Dana was safer with her here under our eyes. She’s a little snake, and she’d have managed to have him come and find her, where nobody was around to bother them. But it seems Dana had to be tried out somehow or he wouldn’t be fit to stand in his grandfather’s pulpit. You brought him up, Amelia, and if you did it right he’ll come through. I guess we can’t do anything more. Dana’s of age, and he’s got good sense if he’s a mind to use it. It’s up to him. But I’m sorry for you, I really am, even if you never would take my advice and make him mind.”
“It was you who brought her here!” broke forth Amelia with a great sob. “A mother never would put temptation in her boy’s way like that.”
“Yes, I let her come, and I’m sorry for it, Amelia. I don’t mind saying that. I made a mistake. Still, if I hadn’t, the devil would have worked her in somehow. The Bible says everybody’s got to have his try out or something like that.”
“Yes, but it says, ‘Woe unto him, through whom they come!’” volleyed Amelia. “It wasn’t up to you to plan his testing.”
“Well, I guess I’ll get my share of the woe all right,” said Grandma grimly. “The boy isn’t exactly a stranger to me, you know. He’s my grandson, and I’ve been proud of him.”
“Been?” shrieked Amelia. “Oh, my soul!” and breaking out in a great heartrending sob, she fled up to her room.
Neither was Ella Smith without her troubles.
She cried slow, sad tears every night in bed, for an hour or two after she had concluded her nightly plea to her wayward daughter.
“Jessie—I mean Jessie Belle—you wasn’t brought up this way! You know your father would have told you you were doing wrong. You are just leading that young man on, and he doesn’t mean a thing. He’s engaged and he means to marry his other girl. He wouldn’t ever turn her down. His family thinks she’s the top notch. His mother spent all yesterday morning telling me how wonderful she was and what a high-up family she belonged to, and how the families on both sides had always been preachers’ folks, tradition she called it, whatever that is, and what a great help she was going to be to Dana in his chosen profession. That’s the way she said it, ‘chosen profession.’ It sounded real solemn and kind of frightened me. I think she was kind of hinting that the family wouldn’t stand for Dana’s making up to you. And Grandma, she talks, too. I shouldn’t wonder if she would send us off someday. She asked me when I had to go back to New York. And Jessie Belle, I don’t know what we’ll do. There won’t be any more money coming in from Papa’s lawyer till the last of October. Jessie Belle, I wish you’d be more careful and not go off with that young man all the time and make his folks mad at you so we can’t stay here. Why’n’t you get some fancy work for yourself? Make some of that bead work you’re always admiring so much, or a sofa pillow to give to Mrs. Whipple when we leave, or get some goods and cut out a dress for yourself. I’ll give you enough money for the goods if you won’t go over a dollar and a half a yard. Justine will go with you to buy it. Or if you don’t want to do that, set around and read a little. My soul! I don’t see what you and Dana have to talk about so much off alone together! It don’t seem decent, it really don’t Jessie—I mean Jessie Belle!”
Said Jessie Belle, “Oh, rats! Ella, shut up! I wantta go to sleep. I wasn’t asking your advice!”
Variations of this were played night after night no matter what time Jessie Belle and Dana came in from a movie or a ride, and afterward Ella Smith lay in the bed beside her child and wept. Grandma felt sorry for her, too, in a way, though she was worse than Amelia she felt, in her lack of “git-up-and-git.”
“Spoiled her child; that’s what’s the matter with all of ‘em,” she told herself grimly. “I guess it’s better to have ‘em dead!” and she sighed this time instead of cackling. It had been long years since her son was laid in the grave, but he had not been spoiled. Grandma had never lacked “git-up-and-git.”
Matters were drawing quickly to a crisis with Dana and Jessie Belle as the summer began to wane.
The day before Dana went down to New York to preach in that coveted pulpit, the last Saturday in August, Jessie Belle climbed into the car and settled back in satisfaction, a gleam of triumph in her eyes. They had spent the day in the woods and she fe
lt mighty sure of her ground.
“Well, Dana, I s’pose we better get married right away, hadn’t we?” she said nonchalantly.
Dana was silent a long time. She almost thought he was not going to answer. His face had a haggard, hunted look, like one who had thrown away his birthright and had just found it out.
“I suppose we’ll have to,” he said miserably, with white lips that struggled for their old dignity and found it lacking. He had faced this thing for days and nights and tried to fling it from him and now it had him by the throat. Something inherent in his weak soul, or something about his conventional upbringing, would not let him be a scoundrel and run away. He had flirted with Jessie Belle. He had been a fool! And now there was just no way out of the consequences. He never meant to be a fool. He had thought he was a perfectly cool, calculating man, strong and self-controlled, and Jessie Belle had shown him that he was not. Therefore he almost hated her. And yet so strong was her hold upon him that he could not fling it off.
But now that she had brought the subject out in the open and he had said the words that acknowledged her right to do so, his soul reacted suddenly. Why, why did he have to do this awful thing and spoil his whole life? Yes, he saw in a flash that it would spoil his life. It would affect his reputation, too. How could he ever take a girl like Jessie Belle into a congregation as the minister’s wife? Besides, he did not really want to marry Jessie Belle. He was getting deadly tired of her vapid little chatter. It was only when she tempted him with her white arms and her red lips that he crushed her fiercely to him and was ready to sell his soul for the privilege of holding her in his arms.
They were driving toward home now, and the way reminded him suddenly of Lynette and the things she used to say about the flowers by the roadside. Such a little thing as a clump of maidenhair ferns that he had scarcely ever noticed before conjured her vision among the trees and wrung his heart with sudden recollection.
He stopped the car and turned in desperation to the girl who sat beside him.
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