Brentwood (35 page)

Then there came a letter from Gideon, and her heart leaped up to welcome it, singing a little song even before she opened it. It wasn’t a long letter. It was mostly about his work and the questions she had asked, and some books he was sending. But it did say how much they missed her, and it started a lilt in her voice and a joy in her eye that even Evan Brower noticed when he dropped in with gardenias.

The next day Gideon sent flowers. Marjorie thought they were some more from Evan and forgot to open them for almost an hour till Thelma, not yet departed, asked if she should put them in water, and brought the card to her. She opened it idly, expecting to find Evan’s name as usual inside, and found instead Gideon Reaver’s card. The soft color came into her face then and her eyes shone with joy. She got up and came over to them. They were crimson roses, deep and dark. She buried her face in their sweetness and closed her eyes as she carried them upstairs to her own private sanctum. She did not want them out of her sight. But Evan Brower’s stately flowers remained downstairs in the reception room.

That same day the lawyer called her up. The man who wanted to buy her house was insistent. His plans had changed and he wanted to move at once. Could she give an answer within the next two days?

Marjorie could and would. The week was up day after tomorrow. She would give an answer then, she told Mr. Melbourne.

Later in the day the chauffer who had served the Wetherills so many years presented himself apologetically, and with many a hem and a haw made bold to ask if it was true that she was going to sell the house and move away, as rumor had it? If she was, he would like the opportunity to see a man about another place he had heard of that paid very good wages and was well-fixed with a tidy house for the chauffeur and his wife.

Marjorie smiled and told him to go and see it, that she would let him know in a couple of days. And so the ties were one by one broken, and again, without her making a single move. It was all very wonderful. She wondered if it was because so many people were praying about it. There was only the old cook left now, and she was hinting that she might give up work and go and live with her sister. She was getting old and rheumatic and wanted a rest.

And then the week was up.

Marjorie awoke with a feeling that great things might happen today. Would her mother write at once, or wasn’t the week long enough for them to decide?
She
had decided. She was only waiting for their word. Would the morning mail bring her answer?

But it came sooner than that. Thelma brought it up to her before she was dressed. A telegram:

It was signed with all their names.

Marjorie wasn’t long in answering that. She caught up her telephone and dictated a telegram:

Then she telephoned her lawyer and told him to go ahead and sell the house. She was moving today. She also called up a mover and asked him to come at once and arrange about the move. Then she got out her lists and began to pack her personal belongings.

Next morning Ted appeared on the scene. A very properly-clad Ted, looking handsome and capable.

“Mother said I was to come and help pack,” he said simply. “She said you oughtn’t be alone. Dad would have come, but he couldn’t leave his new job, of course.”

And then when his sister fell upon his neck and embraced him, crying for joy, he remarked quite casually, though in jubilant tone, “Gideon Reaver said he was coming over on Monday to drive us back home. He said you were bringing your car, and I haven’t any driver’s license yet. He said I was to wire him when we would be ready. He said he might bring Bud along for the ride if you wanted him. He’s crazy to come!”

“Oh, wonderful!” said Marjorie looking up with shining eyes. “Won’t that be great! I was planning to have the chauffeur drive the car over, but now I find he’s got another place and they want him right away this week. That will solve the problem. And what fun we’ll have!”

“It might be bad weather,” remarked Ted, revealing that the matter had been discussed at home.

“Of course, but there is a heater in the car, and we don’t mind weather! Won’t it be great?”

They were hard at work packing, and there was a large van drawn up before the door taking away furniture, some that was to be sent to the auction rooms for sale, and some that was to be given to the mission, when Evan Brower arrived. He had come to take Marjorie over to the park to see some professional skaters who were said to be very fine. He stood in the denuded parlor where furniture was shrouded in summer slips and rugs were rolled up in bundles, and looked blankly about him.

“What in the world does this mean?” he asked sternly as Marjorie came to meet him.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Evan,” she said. “I completely forgot you were coming to take me somewhere. I should have let you know, but I’ve been so busy everything else went out of my head. You see, I’ve sold the house, and I’m moving. It all happened quite suddenly, or I should have called off our engagement. But you can see I can’t possibly go today. I’m sorry. And I guess there won’t be any other time, either, Evan. You know how it is when people move.”

“Moving?” said Evan angrily. “You don’t mean you’ve sold this house without letting me know? Without saying anything to me about it?”

He glared at Marjorie, and then he saw Ted standing straight and unsmiling beside his sister. He hadn’t seen him come in, but there he was!

“Good morning, Mr. Brower,” said Ted. “I think I met you at Christmastime, while my sister was east.”

Evan glared at Ted, with scarcely an inclination of his head, and then he said savagely to Marjorie, “Can I see you alone somewhere?”

Marjorie gave him an absentminded smile.

“Why, yes,” she said, “for just a minute, I guess. The mover will be here in five minutes or so, but we can go into the library. That isn’t so much torn up yet.”

Ted didn’t follow, except with his eyes, but he worked outside in the hall and making enough noise to let it be known that he was there. If his sister needed assistance he would be at hand. He certainly would like to wallop that insolent chump before he left Chicago, but of course he couldn’t.

What was said behind that closed door Marjorie never told him, but it must have been decisive, for the caller presently came out walking as if he were following to the grave after a dead hope.

Marjorie’s face was calm, however, as she came after him briskly and went with him to the door.

“I’m going to make time somehow to see a few people before I leave, of course, Evan, and I’m coming to your mother first of all,” she said pleasantly.

“Most kind of you,” murmured Evan haughtily, “but I beg that you won’t put yourself out in the least for us. Since you have been so self-sufficient in all your arrangements, I suppose, of course, there is nothing we can do for you. You have chosen to make your plans without taking advice from us who supposed we were your best friends. I hope you will not inconvenience yourself to call.”

“Oh, but I want to see you all before I leave,” said Marjorie brightly. “You will run in again won’t you, Evan, of course? We shall not be leaving before Monday or Tuesday.”

He whirled then and looked her full in the face, and Ted in the back of the hall heard his voice savagely say, “Do you really mean to tell me that you are giving up this lovely home and going to live in that little untidy dump where I found you at Christmas?”

Marjorie laughed.

“Oh, no,” she said. “That was just temporary. I am going to live in my father’s house that he has owned for several years. He is moving back to it next week. We’ll be glad to see you out there some day when you are in the east. It is a lovely home. My father is with Martin Heath Company. Perhaps you know the firm. I’m sure the family will be glad to entertain you whenever you are in our vicinity. I have told them what a good friend of the family you have always been.”

“Some sister!” murmured Ted from the depths of the back hall where he had been rolling up more rugs. Then under his breath, he added, “and
some mutt
!”

They were ready to leave Wednesday morning. Marjorie had made her calls, although she had not found Mrs. Brower at home and had to write a note for good-bye. She had called up some of her friends on the telephone and written to others, announcing her sudden departure, and she hadn’t a regret. Chicago had been dear, but Brentwood was dearer. Even Bud was satisfied with the single day of sightseeing Ted and Gideon had given him. He said Chicago wasn’t so much, though he was glad he’d seen it; he liked Brentwood a lot better.

The last truck was filled and started on its way; the cook had wept a farewell and had been taken to her train en route for her sister’s in the far west; the house was locked and the key handed over to the lawyer’s representative for the new owner; and they were all comfortably seated in the big, luxurious car, ready to start.

“It’s a beautiful house,” remarked Gideon. “I’m so glad to have seen where you were brought up.” He smiled at Marjorie. “Yes, it’s a lovely home. But you’re going to one just as pleasant, I think!”

“Sure thing!” said Ted fervently. “Though this one’s all right,” he added as if he feared Marjorie’s feelings might be hurt.

“Some dump, I say!” remarked Bud contemptuously looking toward the fine old house in its setting of evergreens, with the distant blue of winter water edged with snow behind it. “No place ta play baseball anywhere about it, and that old lake out there always behind yer back. ’Spose it might rise someday like the river and drown ya out? Course it would be nice ta wade in summers, but I’d rather have Brentwood. Give me Brentwood every time!”

They all laughed merrily at Bud, and it helped to drive back the sudden smarting tears and the choking sob that threatened Marjorie as she gave one last wistful glance back and realized that the old life was done with forever. Yet she was not sad, for Brentwood was ahead, and Brentwood represented a new life of love and service, companionship with God, and with dear people who loved her. She was glad as they drove away into the new life that she had chosen Brentwood instead of Chicago.

Then they wound down along the lake shore, into the city, and out on the highway for home.

And such a drive as they had!

They had arranged that the trucks should not get to Brentwood ahead of them, for Marjorie wanted to be there to give directions. But they did not have to hurry. The day was bright and clear, and the four were happy and together. It seemed like a great picnic, and every moment was a treasure to be remembered always.

Especially was it a happy time for Gideon and Marjorie, for during that two days of drive they bridged the years that had gone before and got really acquainted with one another, so that by the time they reached their destination they were like old friends.

Evan Brower had not been present to see Marjorie off. When he had stopped in the night before for a moment, hoping even yet to persuade her of her folly and turn her from her purpose, Gideon had opened the door for him and told him that Marjorie had gone with Ted to take some jellies and fruit to an old washwoman who lived a mile away. Though Gideon had cordially invited Evan to wait in the almost empty house until they returned, Evan had declined and gone away in a huff, leaving only his card behind him for farewell. Marjorie would have to learn her mistake by sad experience, he decided. But when she discovered it, it would probably be too late.

So the four journeyed back to the east over a hard white road under a blazing sun and had a happy time, and never once thought of Evan Brower all day long.

But oh, that homecoming. How precious it was! To be folded in her mother’s arms and to know that she was at home! To watch the lovelight on her father’s face as he said, “Welcome home, my daughter!” To feel the children’s eager, sticky kisses and hear their screams of welcome. To see real joy in Betty’s face, real welcome! Ah! That was better than all the other world had to offer her.

And then to drive hastily over to Brentwood and meet the trucks, which had just arrived, and with Betty direct where things should go. It was great!

They had reached home early in the afternoon, and by evening all the trucks were empty and the house in fair order.

Ted had had the floors refinished, and they laid the rugs down first, so that everything could be set in place at once.

There were many hands to work. There was Betty in the parlor with Keith Sheridan to help, taking off the covers from the upholstered furniture. There was Bud, bringing endless armfuls of wood to the woodbox, and under Ted’s strict directions carefully laying a fire in the fireplace for later in the evening. And there was Gideon, going quietly about doing things without having to ask what to do next, just as if he were a son of the house and had always lived with this furniture and these rooms.

“You want this here, don’t you, Marjorie?” he would say, and proceed to put it there.

And once in the back hall, toward dusk, those two came hastily upon each other, Marjorie from the way of the kitchen and Gideon from the big pleasant library where he had just deposited an armload of books that had been misplaced by the movers, and they ran right into each other. Gideon put out his arms and enfolded her, perhaps to save her from falling, but it became more than that of itself as suddenly they were close to one another, and Gideon stooped and placed a tender kiss on her lips.

Then, just as suddenly, while they were still under the spell of the wonder of each other’s lips, and did not know anyone else in the world for a moment, there stood Betty and Keith hand in hand.