Brentwood (17 page)

“No, he’s outside getting that ice off the step. He’s afraid somebody will fall. He’s been waiting for you. I think he’s keen on having you go with him. I shouldn’t wonder if he wants to show you where we used to live.”

“Oh, is the church near where we used to live?” asked Marjorie, and knew not that she had said “we.”

Betty gave her a quick look and then said with satisfaction, “Yes.”

“Well, I’d like to go in the daytime so I can see it. But are you sure you don’t want me to stay and take care of the children?”

“Mercy, no. They’re used to taking care of themselves, and now that Bonnie’s up again, Sunny is no trouble at all. She invents things to keep him happy. Go on. Dinner won’t be ready till after you get back, and you can help clear away if lack of work troubles your conscience.”

So Marjorie and her brother started off to church.

Ted wasn’t much dressed up. He hadn’t anything to dress up in. But he had brushed his clothes spic and span, had combed his red curls to a shining polished mahogany, had shined his old shoes, and he was scrupulously clean. Marjorie secretly admired his ease of manner and walk in spite of his clothes, though she could see he was conscious of his shabbiness, eyeing her handsome fur coat, and finally remarking, “I guess you’ll be ashamed of me, but they don’t mind clothes where we’re going.”

“No,” said Marjorie thoughtfully, “I’m not ashamed of you, I’m proud of you. Things like that are only comparative, anyway, aren’t they? They shouldn’t have any part in going to church.”

Ted eyed her speculatively and finally ventured another question. “I guess you’re saved, aren’t you?”

“Saved?” said Marjorie, altogether startled. The phrase was not common among the young people she knew. “I am a church member. Is that what you mean?”

Ted was visibly embarrassed.

“No,” he said, “that doesn’t getcha anywhere in being saved. That’s what comes afterward. It’s the sorta sign for others to see, but everybody who joins church isn’t saved, by a long shot.”

Marjorie gave him another keen look. What kind of a place was this church to which he was taking her? Obviously not an ordinary church. People didn’t talk that way in the church to which the Wetherills belonged. They attended church and were very faithful in contributing to its support, but they didn’t ask each other if they were saved.

“You haveta be born again, you know.”

She gave him another keen look, and as if he were answering the question in her eyes, he said, “You believe, you know, that’s how you get to be born again. That’s how you get saved. You just believe.”

“Believe?” said Marjorie inquiringly. She didn’t say “believe what?” But her tone said it. So he answered.

“Believe that Jesus is the Son of God and died to take our sins upon Himself and suffer the penalty.” He explained it gravely, as if he had done it before and understood thoroughly what it meant.

“Why, I guess I believe that,” said Marjorie “I’ve never really thought much about it, but I believe it, of course. It’s all in the Bible, isn’t it? I believe the Bible. I was taught to believe that when I was very young, though I’m not sure I know much about it.”

“Gee, it’s great when you get ta studying it!” said Ted.

Marjorie looked at him in surprise.

“Have you studied it?”

“Sure! We had Bible classes twice a week at the Brentwood chapel. Gosh, I was sorry to move away! It’s a whole lot harder to live the Christian life when you can’t go where there are a lot of believers. Now I can’t go any time except Sunday, and I certainly do miss those classes.”

“You must have had a good teacher,” said Marjorie with wonder.

“I’ll say he was! He was
swell
! He seemed ta know just what you’d been going through that day and how to show you where you’d got off the track, see? Of course, we have him Sundays, too, but I certainly do miss the regular weekday classes. I tried for a while to keep up, but when you get up at four o’clock and deliver papers, and then work all day, you don’t seem to have much brains for study at night. But I certainly do miss it.”

“Who is this teacher?”

“Gideon Reaver’s his name. He’s just a young fella, only been out of seminary a little over a year, but he certainly knows his Bible. He can preach all around any preacher I ever heard before, even most of the big guns that come to the chapel now and then because they know him. He doesn’t preach anyway, he just talks and tells us what the Bible means. He’s a great big fellow, six feet. And a pair of shoulders! Oh, boy! He’s got a nice face, too. The girls all go crazy over him, but he doesn’t seem to know it. He just looks right over them and smiles and goes on talking, and by and by they settle down and listen and get sensible. The fellows like him, too. Oh, boy, do they like him! And how! But you’ll hear him. You’ll see what he’s like.”

“Well, I hope I shall be able to keep from going crazy over him.” Marjorie smiled.

Ted turned red.

“Oh, you’re not like that. You’re sensible! But he’s a prince, you know. I’m not blaming ’em for going crazy over him. If I was a girl I might do it myself.”

“Did Betty go to church with you when you lived in Brentwood?” asked Marjorie.

Ted’s face darkened.

“No!” he said shortly. “She wouldn’t go. She said she had no time for church. She was all taken up with a poor fish in the office where she worked. He useta come out in a secondhand roadster and take her places. He made me sick. Had one of those little misplaced eyebrows on his upper lip, thought he was smart, could smoke more cigarettes in an hour than anybody I ever heard of, and wore his hat way off on the back of his head like he was bored with the world and thought he was too good to associate with common people. He useta call me, ‘M’lad!’ just like that, as though he thought he was some prince and I was to wait on him. I didn’t stick around much when he came here. But he put Betts off the notion of going to church entirely. I couldn’t get her near it. And then, even if she’d wanted to go, she wouldn’t attend a plain little chapel. She wanted some swell church where they had high-hats and swell music.”

“Then she doesn’t know Gideon Reaver.”

“No, she wouldn’t be introduced one day when I brought him home. She said she didn’t care to know preachers, they would bore her, and it might be embarrassing to have him hanging around. Oh, she makes me sick, sometimes.”

“I guess she’s had a rather hard time,” suggested Marjorie gently.

“Sure she has! We’ve all had a hard time. And she’s been a good scout, worked like everything to take care of Mother and Father, and all that, but still—sometimes she makes me sick.”

“Is she what you called saved?” Marjorie asked hesitantly.

“Not she!” said her brother sorrowfully. “She won’t let me talk to her, and she won’t go anywhere where she can hear the truth. She says she doesn’t believe in a God who would let us suffer the way we have! I try to tell her about what the Bible says, but she won’t listen.

“There!” He suddenly broke off and his voice grew jubilant. “There’s Brentwood now! See it up there on the hill? And that’s our house, that long, low stone house with the white pillars on the porch. Isn’t that some swell location? And there! Upon my word, if there doesn’t come Gideon Reaver now! He must have been up on the hill visiting some sick person. Gosh, that’s great! Now I can introduce you to him before the service!”

Then Marjorie looked up to see a tall, finely-built young man coming toward her with astonishingly wonderful eyes that seemed to have seen further into life than most men see, yet they had a deep, sweet, settled peace in them. She wondered if it could be real. She had never seen a young man who had that look.

M
eantime, back on Aster Street, Betty was having a time of her own.

Bud had found a forlorn little alley cat shivering with the cold, rescued her from a ring of small dogs who were threatening her worthless life, and brought her into the house. Her fur was caked with mud and ice, with a tinting of blood from her recent fight, and altogether she was a pitiful object. He hoped, faintly, to persuade Betty to take an interest in her, though he was pretty sure she wouldn’t. Anyway, he meant to sneak some food out for her.

When he found that Betty had gone upstairs to make the beds, it seemed to him an excellent chance to carry out his purposes, so with one free arm he filled the dishpan with nice warm water, took the dish soap, and plunged the poor astonished kitten into a lovely warm bath.

“There, kitty, there, poor pussy!” he said tenderly, holding the struggling frantic creature firmly, and dousing her underwater in his efforts. “There, nice little cat! Can’t you see you gotta be clean? Stop your scratching, you poor fish, you! Didn’t I rescue you from the dogs? You aren’t a bit grateful. But you gotta be clean. Don’t you understand? After I get you clean I’ll give you some nice dinner. Nice warm milk. Won’t that be nice, kitty?”

Appeared on the scene Bonnie, wide-eyed and eager.

“Oh, Buddie, what you got? Where d’you get that cat?”

“Shh!” warned Bud, in the midst of his struggles, mingling his own life’s blood with that of the dirty little cat. “Ain’t you got any sense at all, Bonnie Gay? Don’tcha know ya mustn’t make a noise an’ wake Mother? Don’tcha know I gotta get this cat clean before Betty gets down here?”

Sunny came running. Yelling.

“Tat, where’s a tat? I wantta see ze tat! Oh! Kitty! Kitty! See ze funny ’ittle kitty!”

“Can’t ya shut up, Sunny Gay? Can’t ya get outta my way?”

The children were plastered eagerly up to the sink, one on either side, Sunny with his chin on the edge of the sink, Bonnie holding on and watching, and suddenly the dishpan, which was a trifle too large for the inadequate sink, and much too full of dirty soapy water, tilted crazily, and Bud, in his efforts to right it, released one hand from the cat. The cat had learned to take any advantage, no matter how small, that came to her miserable life, and she clutched and clawed at the edge of the pan, floundered away from Bud, and made a dive, anywhere out of that awful bath. One instant she wetly clutched Bud’s neck, digging her nails in deep, the next she trailed sloppily across his front and slid from his grasp, thumping down on the floor with a flop and then scuttling dazedly like a little drowned imp through dining room and hall, finding refuge at last in the best upholstered chair the Gay family owned, and began licking away furiously at her outraged fur.

But the pan she had left behind her had attempted to follow her descent and poured wildly over poor frightened Bud, with branches in every direction, one going right down Sunny’s handy little neck and into his shoes, and another splashing into Bonnie’s face and deluging her neck and arms and the front of her dress.

A united howl arose, Sunny dancing up and down with his eyes shut and screaming, and Bonnie setting up a wail like none she had ever given before.

“Aw, shut up, ya little pests, ya! Now see whatchuve done!”

Betty came flying downstairs hushing them up, her eyes flashing fire! She beheld the dripping crowd in horror.

“Buddie Gay! What are you doing? You naughty,
naughty
boy!”

She seized Bud’s arm and jerked him back from the sink, but some subconscious reaction compelled him to keep his hold on the dishpan, which he had been trying to right, and when Betty removed him from the sink, the dishpan with its remaining dirty water came along and deluged her. She had just changed her kitchen dress for the pretty little house dress Marjorie had given her that morning. She had been upstairs getting ready to meet the doctor when she heard the tumult downstairs.

Betty looked down at herself in horror and gasped, the more so as the nature of the element that was doused over her was gradually revealed by the dregs of dirt in the dishpan.

It was just at that opportune second that the doctor arrived and rang the bell. Only Bonnie heard it, and stopping her wail midway, she went to open the door, then went on with her wail.

“Why, what’s the matter, little girl?” he asked, looking at her distressed face in astonishment.

“Buddie was w–w–washing the kitty!” she sobbed, “and the kitty flew, an’ it’s all over us!” She opened her mouth in another howl and led the way to the kitchen where the two boys and Betty were carrying on.

“You wicked boy!” said Betty, in a cold, hard tone, never the tone she would have had the nice young doctor hear. “You wicked,
wicked
little boy! What on earth were you doing to make all this trouble?”

“I was—washing—a cat!” howled Bud, forgetting his years and reverting to babyhood. “She—was—all bluggy! The dogs were—f–f–fighting her!”

“Do you mean to tell me that you dared to bring a cat in here from the street and wash it in my
dishpan
? A dirty little alley cat? In my clean dishpan! And my dish soap, too!” she said as she sighted the sloppy cake of soap winking at her from across the floor under the table. “Oh, you unspeakable child! As if I didn’t have enough to do without all this mess. And you’ve ruined this pretty dress, too! You knew it was naughty to bring a dirty cat in here and wash it, didn’t you? Answer me, Buddie Gay, you knew it, didn’t you?”

“She—w–was—all cold—and trembling—and—and—s–s–scared!” howled Buddie, now in paroxysms of hysteria.

“I don’t care if she was frozen stark to death!” said Betty, in a hard, cold tone of fury. “Where is she now? Answer me, Bud! Where is that cat now?”

“I d–d–don’t k–k–know!” howled Bud. “She–she–she—clawed me, and then she f–f–flew! I might bleed ta death mebbe, but you wouldn’t c–c–care!”

Then Sunny put in with a cheerful excitement.

“Her went in ze parlor, her did! Her is in muvver’s big chair wif the wockers, sittin’ up an’ wipin’ her fezzers wif her little wed tongue!”

Sunny was dripping from neck to toes, and there were both tears and drops of dirty water on his cheeks, but his face was eager with excitement.

Then suddenly Betty looked up and saw the doctor standing in the doorway with the most comical look of amusement and pity on his face that a man could wear, and all at once she knew that she, too, was crying! The utmost humiliation that life could bring had descended upon her. The handsome young doctor had seen her like this, wet and dirty and angry! He had
heard
her like this. It was something she could never undo. The echo of her angry voice was still ringing in her ears, like the sound of a gong echoing long after the ringer is gone. No amount of apology or excuse could ever make him forget her that way. She was undone before him, disgraced forever.