Brentwood (19 page)

“Oh, I will!” she said fervently. “What you have said seems to be something I’ve been searching for a long time.”

His face lit up with a kind of glory light.

“Oh, I
am
glad!” he said quietly.

Then came Ted with his shy smile of adoration.

“Great service!” he said quietly, and it suddenly seemed to Marjorie that those two had some secret bond of fellowship that swept aside all inequalities of age or position or station and made them friends. She looked at her new brother with wondering eyes, seeing him in another light and remembering what he had said to her on the way over about being saved. It became at once apparent to her that this was the real Ted, this was his main interest in life. Whatever other relationships he might have in life were subservient in his eyes to this, whatever it was, that this plain, little old-fashioned chapel, and this strangely interesting young man, represented. She felt a pang of envy going through her heart. Would that she might know something of this mystic order that seemed to dignify all other things of life and make them more worthwhile for its sake!

“I wish I could run you home in my car, Ted,” said the young preacher wistfully, “but I have a funeral in half an hour and just barely time to get to it. Strange time for a funeral, isn’t it, Sunday just after church? But some of the family have come a long distance and have to be back again to work tomorrow morning, so they are driving right back as soon as it is over. Sorry, I’d enjoy taking you.”

He included Marjorie in his smile.

“Oh, that’s all right, Mr. Reaver,” said Ted. “I’m going to take my sister over to see our old place. She’s never seen it, you know.”

And then as the minister looked at her inquiringly, Ted explained.

“You know she’s been away a long time. She’s never seen it.”

“Oh,” said the minister, looking at Marjorie quickly again, “then you’re not the sister I saw before? I thought there was something different about you. You’re not twins, are you?”

“Yes,” said Marjorie, “and I guess we’re quite alike in looks, at least.”

“Well, isn’t that interesting. I’ll have to take time off someday and come and call and get acquainted with you both. But you know, I really thought you were—different somehow—when I didn’t know you weren’t!”

They all laughed, and then the minister looked at his watch and said, “Well, I’ll have to be off. Hope you come again, Miss Gay.”

“Oh, I will!” said Marjorie, a bit breathless from hearing herself called a new name.

Then the brother and sister walked on in silence. Ted was burning to ask her how she liked the minister, but his boy-code forbade his opening his lips on the subject. Finally, as they turned the corner and the minister went driving by in his car, bowing to them and smiling as he passed, Marjorie followed him with her eyes until he turned another corner and was out of sight, and then she said slowly, gravely, “He’s rather wonderful, isn’t he?”

“You’re telling me?” said Ted in a reverential tone.

T
he Brentwood house made a great impression on Marjorie. As they approached it, Ted watched her with jealous eyes. She had liked his minister; now would she like the house he loved? These were the two tests he had set for this new sister, although perhaps he did not realize that he was testing her at all. But he did not miss a single expression on her face as she looked, and every question she asked proved to him that she was really interested in what he said, not just making talk to kill time, not merely to be pleasant.

“Why, isn’t it occupied?” she asked as they came in sight of the For Sale sign.

“No,” said Ted with a heavy sigh. “I’ve been expecting every time I come this way to find that sign gone, but it stays. I don’t know what’s the reason. Perhaps they are asking too much for these hard times. And then, of course, it isn’t in the new part of town. The snobs are all moving to Rose Hill. That’s half a mile farther over and has a big, fashionable church and a club house and golf course. But I like Brentwood all the better for that. It’s quiet here, and it’s near the chapel, and besides, we had enough land to do as we pleased. We were far enough from neighbors not to be bothered by what they did, nor have them watching us all the time.”

“It’s lovely!” said Marjorie, taking in the tall elm trees that were placed just right to make a picture of the house. The long slope of snowy lawn, the shrubbery and hemlock trees heavy with their burden of snow and making a delightful screen from the street, all added to the picture.

“Could we go up closer to the house?” Marjorie paused before the gate of iron grillwork and looked up the path.

“Sure we could,” said Ted, lifting the latch and opening the gate.

As they went up the long path, Marjorie was imagining a firelight’s glow through those windows, the house filled with laughter and song, the children playing on the lawn, riding downhill on their sleds. It was indeed a lovely place. And in summer it would be wonderful.

Marjorie, used as she was to the great beautiful Wetherill house on the North Shore in a suburb of Chicago, with its delightful surroundings and perfection of detail, could yet see something most alluring in this lovely old stone house on its hill. The very ramblingness of its architecture that was stamped with thoughts of generations past spoke of lives unhampered by conventionalities, of freedom and love and a real home. The Chicago house was grand and she loved it, but there was something cheerful and inviting about this one that just seemed to fit her dear family. And suddenly Marjorie knew that she loved them all deeply. She didn’t know them very well, but she loved them anyway. And she liked this house and loved to think of them as living here.

Ted led her around to the back and opened a loose shutter to let her look into the long, low living room with its great fireplace, flanked on either side by bookcases reaching to the ceiling, and her enthusiasm for the house mounted till it equaled the boy’s own.

She stood a moment on the front porch afterward and looked down toward the street and the village, picking out the slender tower of the quaint little stone chapel, and her eyes grew quiet and thoughtful as she gazed.

As they turned away from the gate at last, Marjorie took note of the signboard and made a mental memorandum of the name of the real estate agent.

“Now,” she said as they walked on toward home, “tell me about it, Ted. How did Father come to lose it?”

“Oh, it was just one thing after another,” said Ted sorrowfully. “First the head of the firm died where Dad was expert accountant, then the business dried up, and after Dad got their affairs straightened out for them, he got very sick. And about that time the bank where Dad kept his savings closed its doors and hasn’t opened them yet. That’s the story. We couldn’t pay the interest on the mortgage, and we couldn’t pay the taxes; three times it lapsed, and Dad was getting into debt and nearly crazy, and finally the loan company that held the mortgage went under, too, and then the committee that had its affairs in charge got ugly and demanded the full amount of the personal bond right off the bat, and of course Dad couldn’t pay it, and there wasn’t anywhere he could borrow it. Anyway, he was too sick to do anything about it, and of course I wasn’t old enough to do anything. So they took the house away. It was awfully hard on Dad when he got better, because the way they did it they fixed Dad so he can’t own any property anymore. I don’t know all the details, but that’s how it is.”

“Are those people whose names are on the sign the ones who did that?”

“No, I guess not. They’re only the real estate firm that’s trying to sell it. They’re a sort of trust company or something. Maybe they took it over. I don’t know. But anyway, it’s gone, and that’s that!”

Ted rambled on about the school he used to attend in Brentwood and the way he came to get interested in the chapel, and Marjorie let him talk, getting sidelights on her brother’s character that were interesting. But all the time she was carrying on a separate line of thought.

For it had come to her in the watches of the night, while she was lying beside her sister on the hard, lumpy bed in Betty’s room, which they now occupied, with Bonnie’s crib across the foot filling up most of the space between the bed and the door, that if she was to see much of her family in the future, something had to be done about the place where they were living. She couldn’t help realizing that she was in the way, as things were now. The very bed she occupied took from Betty’s rightful rest, being only a child-size bed, and it was uncomfortable enough even without two people in it. And there wouldn’t be room for twin beds if they had them.

Was she going to make her permanent home with them? She hadn’t had time to think about it at all, she had been so engaged in helping them to meet the present crisis. Did they want her to stay? That was another question. Well, things would have to work out. She mustn’t hasten decisions.

But even if she only meant to visit them occasionally, it meant discomfort for them all to crowd so to get her in. Of course, they were lovely about it. Not even the belligerent Betty had made a sign that she was in the way. She realized that she had been saving them from starvation and freezing, and probably that had something to do with Betty’s willingness to be inconvenienced. But there again was something that she must wait for. She must see whether they were going to grow together in real family love or were going to irritate each other. She couldn’t make any plans for herself until she was sure.

But meantime, even if she herself went back to Chicago to live her own life apart from them, they were cramped and uncomfortable in that little six-roomed house. There were too many of them. She could never be happy back in her home of luxury knowing they were living in poverty and discomfort.

But then there was that matter of their pride! What could she do to better their situation that would not hurt them terribly, humble them utterly? Her father could not hope to recover his fortune and be able to support them as he had done in the past, even if he got some little job right away. It would barely supply food and clothing for them all, even if it did that. Poor Father! What could she do to help him on his feet again? He wasn’t an old man, but he looked older than his years because of the heavy burdens he was carrying. Was there something she could do about that? Something that wouldn’t humiliate him too much?

But the Brentwood house. Could she possibly make some arrangement with the people who had taken it over whereby they would transfer it back to her father’s name,
clear
, so that she could hand him the deed of it without any obligations for him to pay whatever? How she would love to give it to him for Christmas! Could a thing like that be done so quickly? There was still almost a week to Christmas!

So she carried on an undercurrent of thought while Ted rambled on, giving now and then a bit of information about the house that fit right in with her thoughts.

“How many bedrooms are there in that house, Ted?” she asked suddenly.

“Seven!” he said promptly. “And then there was a servant’s room over the kitchen, and two big rooms in the attic. Oh, it was great! I wanted them to keep it and rent the rooms or take boarders, but then Mother got sick and Betty got a job, so that didn’t work out.”

Ted sighed. He was beginning to take a man’s responsibility upon his young shoulders.

“I don’t suppose Dad will ever get a job again,” he said sadly. “There aren’t many jobs now, and when a man has been out of things for a couple of years the way Dad has, people have forgotten how good he is. And then there are so many young ones coming on! I suppose it’s going to be up to me to take care of the family, and I’m going to do my best. They’re a swell family, I think, anyhow!” He finished with a half-defiant look at the new sister.

“They certainly are!” said Marjorie, turning a full, frank gaze upon her brother. “And I’m with you, brother! You’re sort of wonderful yourself, you know. At least I think so!”

Ted met her look of real sisterly affection for an instant, and then his eyes dropped and the color swept up into his lean, young face.

“You’re pretty swell yourself!” he murmured embarrassedly.

“Well, but I mean that, Ted. It happens that I can do quite a little just now, and I am so glad I am able to, but the thing is, how can I do it best without hurting Father and Mother? I think you and I will have to work together in this. Betty is pretty proud, too. I don’t blame her. I like her the better for it, of course, and all of you, but if I can just get them to realize that I’m one of the family as much as you or any of them are, perhaps it won’t be so hard for them. Shall we work together?”

“Sure thing,” murmured Ted shyly. “It’s great of you!”

“No, that’s not the way to take it. You don’t think it’s great of you to want to do all you can to help your father, do you? Then why should you think it’s great of me? Am I supposed to be any more selfish than the rest of you? Just because I happened to be brought up outside the family, which I couldn’t help, does that make any difference? Just because I could get away with utter indifference, does that make me great that I don’t want to? And suppose, Ted, that tomorrow morning some great man should send for you and tell you that he had been watching you and he liked the way you were doing, and he had a fine position ready for you at, say, ten thousand or so a year, and he would give you some of it in advance if you wanted it. Would you think you were great if you decided to use that money for your home and parents instead of buying yourself a Rolls-Royce?”

Ted grinned.

“Fat chance!” he said.

“Of course,” Marjorie said with a smile, “but if you had it, I think I know you well enough already to know that you would just delight to turn in every penny you could to the family treasury and make them all comfortable before you thought a thing about any luxuries for yourself.”

“Sure thing!” said Ted, with shining eyes.

“And if some unheard-of relative off in Europe or somewhere should die and leave you a million dollars, I wonder what is the first thing you would buy? I wish you would tell me that, Ted. I’d like to know what it is.”