Brentwood (3 page)

Her eyes searched his for an instant, keenly, doubtfully. There was a light in his own as he looked possessively down at her now that seemed to be different from any look she had ever noticed there before, but it did not stir her deeply. She tried to think that perhaps this was the rest she sought, Evan’s love and care, but the thought failed to bring any joy or rest. If this was love, she wasn’t ready for it yet, not until she had found out the whole truth about her people.

She drew back and tried gently to take her hands away from his clasp, but he held them firmly and drew her closer.

“Dear little girl!” he said suddenly, putting his face down and laying his cheek against hers, seeking her lips with his own and pressing a kiss upon them.

For an instant she yielded herself to that embrace, her lips to that kiss, but only an instant so brief it might scarcely have been recognized by the man as yielding. For suddenly she sprang away and put out her hands in protest.

“No, please, not now! I can’t think of such things now!”

He snatched at her hands again, trying to draw her back quietly to his embrace.

“Poor child!” he said, kissing her fingers gently. “Don’t you realize that this is where you belong, in my arms? Don’t you love me?”

“I don’t know!” said Marjorie, turning unhappy eyes away from him. “I haven’t ever thought of you in this way. And my heart is full of so many other things now.”

“I know, poor child!” he continued. “But you do love me. I’m sure you do. I’ve seen it in your eyes a thousand times when you have looked at me. You love me, only you haven’t recognized it as love yet! But I will teach you what love means!”

And he suddenly drew her close again and pressed hot kisses on her lips.

But now she sprang away again, covering her face with her hands.

“No! No!” she cried out. “I will not let you kiss me until I am sure, and I am not now! Please, won’t you go away and let me think? My mind is so tired and all mixed up!”

“Poor child!” he said gently. “I am sorry if I have seemed to hurry you. I only wanted to show you that I am your natural protector. But I am willing to wait, to go slow, till your sorrow is not so sharp. I only ask one thing of you, and that is that you will not make any move in this matter of your family till you have talked with me again. That you will think it over, and if anything has to be done you will let me handle it for you. Will you promise?”

Marjorie was still for several seconds, looking down at her hands clasped tightly before her. Then she said slowly, seriously, “I will promise to think over what you said.
Every
thing that you have said.”

She looked up at him quietly and smiled a cold little wistful smile. Then she added, “I’m sorry to seem so uncertain and so unappreciative of your love. But I just can’t seem to think tonight!”

“Well, that’s all right, little girl!” he said, and his voice was very gentle again, as if he were talking to a child who didn’t quite understand. “I know you’ve been terribly upset, and I don’t want to rush you. But I do want you to understand that you can come to me for everything!”

“Thank you!” she said simply, but her face looked white and tired.

He was a wise young man, and he saw that he couldn’t get any further tonight.

“Well, then, we’ll say good night. Are you going to let me kiss you again?”

“Please, no,” she said, with a troubled protest in her eyes.

“All right,” said the young man gravely. “It shall be as you wish, but I wish you would consider that we are engaged. I’d like to put a ring on your finger tomorrow and feel that you are my promised wife.”

Marjorie turned her head away and looked troubled again.

“I can’t think of these things now!” she said. “Please let us be just friends, as we have always been!”

He studied her for a moment, and then his lips set in a firm line of determination.

“Very well,” he said quite cheerfully. “I am just your friend for now, but a very special friend, you know. One whom you can call upon for anything. Will you feel that?”

She smiled with relief.

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you! Good night!” and she put out her hand and gave his a brief, impersonal clasp.

Then he was gone, and she stood alone, looking down at the gardenias he had brought and wondering why she had not thrilled to his touch. Why, somehow, her feeling of his friendliness had been lost in a new something that she did not understand nor want. Not now, anyway.

M
arjorie found she was too excited to sleep when she laid her head on her pillow. But strangely enough, it was not on the eager protests of love that her mind dwelt most during that night’s vigil, but more on Evan’s insistence that she should not search out her people. And the more she thought of it, the less she thought of him.

Still, she knew that was not fair either. If Evan really loved her as he said he did, it might be natural, if not noble, at least for her sake, to wish to protect her against anything that might annoy or embarrass her. And yet, the more she faced the possibility that her family might be embarrassing, the more she felt it her duty to search them out and know the truth.

After all, even if she wanted to accept the love that had been offered her—and she wasn’t at all sure that she did—it was all so new and unexpected, and her reaction to it was tempered by his utter distaste for having her birth family in her background. Could she honestly marry any man without knowing the truth about her family?

And, of course, she could not get away from the fact that they
were
her parents and had a right to a place in her life, whether she or her friends or anybody else wanted them there or not. What that place was to be must be decided before she went on another step in life. No other questions of life or love or future happiness could be settled until she dealt with that. And she would have to deal with it alone. No one else could settle it for her.

She awoke in the morning with the definite purpose in her heart to get the matter over with at once. She would start right away before anything else could possibly delay her. If any more people came in and tried to turn her from her purpose she would become bewildered again.

She dressed hastily and sat down at her desk at once, determined to burn all bridges behind her. She wrote charming little notes declining all her invitations, and then wrote to Evan Brower.

She felt better when the notes were written. It seemed as if she were already started on her journey. But she decided not to mail them until just as she was leaving. She did not want anybody coming in to try to hinder her. Evan would not be able to get away from his office before evening, and if anyone else came she would merely say she was about to visit relatives for the holidays.

She called up the station and made her reservations on a train that left the city a little after six that night. Then she went down to the kitchen and gave the house servants a vacation for the holidays, all except the chauffeur and his wife, who lived over the garage and would care for the house.

After all her worry, it was very simple. The servants were delighted and did not ask her plans. She told them she would be visiting relatives. The house became a hive of industry for the next few hours, though there wasn’t much to be done toward closing up, as the chauffeur’s wife would look after all that. Marjorie went at her packing. It didn’t take long. She took some of her prettiest casual dresses—the Wetherills had never approved of wearing mourning—and two or three plain little house dresses in case she found her relatives in poor circumstances. She must remember not to remind them that she had been brought up to plenty.

She took her checkbook and plenty of money, carefully stowed as she had been taught to do when traveling. She left no address with anybody. She did not want anyone coming after her to try to hinder her in whatever she should decide to do.

At the last she almost turned back, her heart failing her at what might be before her, for she was gifted with a strong imagination and had in the night envisioned a number of situations that might arise that would make her greatly regret this step she was taking. But the servants were gone now, and it was too late to turn back. The taxi was at the door to take her to the station.

She waited long enough to telephone her lawyer that she would be out of the city for a few days, perhaps till after Christmas, and would let him know her address later. Then she locked the door and went down the walk to the taxi, winking back the tears, feeling as if she were bidding good-bye to her former lovely life and stepping off into the great unknown. What a fool she was, she told herself—she didn’t have to stay if she didn’t want to. She could come right back the day she got there if she chose.

And so at last she was on her way, quite worn out with the tumult of her decision and her preparations.

The next morning she arrived in the strange city and went to a hotel. After attempting a sketchy breakfast, she took a taxi and drove to the address that had been given in the letter.

She had meant to do a great deal of thinking before she went to sleep in her berth, but the day of excitement had wearied her more than she knew and she had dropped to sleep at once and had not wakened until the porter called her in the morning. So now, as she rode along in her taxi, she suddenly felt unprepared for the ordeal that was before her. She had intended to plan just how she would open the interview, always supposing she found anybody to have an interview with, but now it seemed too absurd to plan anything for so vague a scene as she was about to stage. She found herself shrinking inexpressibly from the whole thing. If she had it to decide all over again this morning, she would certainly have turned it down as an utterly preposterous proposition. Certain words and phrases of Evan’s came to her mind, a tiny reflection of his sneer when he had told her it might be embarrassing for her to hunt up her relatives.

Then her own honest, loyal nature came to the front and declared to her that whoever or whatever they were, they were hers, something God had put her into the world with as her own, and nobody, not even themselves, had a right to put them asunder. They were her birthright, and something she must not disown.

Now and then it came to her that her adoptive mother should have faced this problem with her long ago, when it wouldn’t have hurt her so much, but instantly her love defended the only mother she had ever known, and her heart owned that it would have been very hard for Mrs. Wetherill. On the whole it was just as well that she should decide this thing for herself and act as she chose. And it was generous, of course, of Mrs. Wetherill to give her a free hand to do what she chose for her birth family.

So her thoughts battled back and forth as she rode along through the strange city, looking out but not seeing the new sights, not taking in a thing but the breathless fact that she was on her way unannounced to meet the people to whom she had been born, and she was frightened.

It seemed a very long drive, out through a scrubby part of the city and then into a sordid street of little cheap houses all alike, brick houses with wooden porches in an endless row, block after block, with untidy vacant lots across the street, ending in unpleasant ash heaps. It was before the last house in the row that the taxi stopped, on the far outskirts of the city, with a desolate stretch of city dump beyond. Marjorie’s heart almost stopped beating, and she nearly told the driver to turn about and take her back to the hotel. Could it be that her people lived in a house like this? A little two-story, seven-by-nine affair, with not even a pavement in front, just a hard clay path worn by the feet of many children playing?

The driver handed her her check, opened the door, and she got out her purse.

“I think perhaps you had better wait for me a minute or two until I make sure this is the right place,” she said hesitantly as she eyed the house with displeasure.

“Yes ma’am, this is the number you give me,” said the man, “1465 Aster Street.”

“Yes, but they might have moved, you know,” said Marjorie hopefully.

So, on feet that were strangely unsteady, she got out and went slowly up the two wooden steps to the door that sadly needed paint. There was no bell, so she knocked timidly, and then again louder when she heard no sound of life within. She was just about to turn away, almost hoping they were gone and she would have no clue to search further, when she heard hurried steps on a bare floor and the door was opened sharply, almost impatiently. Then she found herself face to face with a replica of herself!