Bright Arrows (2 page)

But the young man sat, still watching her intently.

"You don't understand, my dear! I mean all this in utter kindness. That is why my mother and I talked it over and decided that she and I would give up everything else and devote ourselves to you. Mother will arrive on the early train in the morning. She had to come from the far West, you know, and could not get here in time for the service today, but we talked it over on the telephone and arranged it all. Mother is coming here to live with you and chaperone you of course. You could not think of living here alone. It would not be respectable. Your father would never approve of that, I'm sure, and so it was up to your nearest relatives to come to your rescue----"

"Stop!" said Eden, tense with anger now. "I do not wish to have either you or your mother here, and besides, I have other arrangements----"

"Oh, really? Who is going to stay with you?"

"I don't wish to discuss the matter with you, either now or at any other time. My affairs are my own, and you have nothing to do with them. If you will leave at once, that will be all I shall ask of you."

The door into the hall had opened so quietly that neither of them realized that there were two other people standing in the room. It was the old butler who spoke firmly--his old voice sounded almost as young again as when he first began to serve his beloved employer.

"You rang, my lady," he said, standing at attention, with even his white gloves on his hands, giving an air of formality to his hastily donned uniform.

And just a step behind him, to one side, stood old Janet, her eyes wide and angry, her lips shut thinly and her hands folded flatly across her stomach in her most formal servantly humility, just as she had been accustomed to serve all her life.

The young man stood up, startled into embarrassed awkwardness for an instant. But he quickly rallied to what he called his "poise"--though there had been others who called it merely "brass"--and smiled an ingratiating smile.

"My word!" he said with a note of forced delight in his voice. "If there isn't dear old Janet. Alive yet! I remember how I used to delight in her gingerbread and chocolate cakes. And old Tabor, as faithful as ever. Say, this is a wonder. Eden you ought to--"

But Eden was talking in a clear, firm voice that cut like a knife through Ellery Fane's paltry prattle.

"Yes, Tabor, I'm glad you came. Will you kindly see this person to the door, and make sure that every door and window is carefully locked? And Janet, could I have a cup of tea?"

"Oh, but I'm not going out again tonight, Cousin Eden. I had planned to stay here all night. Didn't I tell you? You see, my mother is expecting to arrive here in the morning, and I thought we could talk it over and settle about our rooms--"
But Eden spoke coolly and firmly again.

"No," she said forcefully, "you are
not
going to stay here tonight, and your mother is
not
coming here tomorrow. If you know how to reach her on the train, you had better wire her when you get to the station. It will not be convenient for me to have either of you stay here
at any time
. You had better go now, Ellery. I wouldn't like to have to call the police." The young man grinned impudently, as if it were a joke, but Tabor announced carefully:

"I've already called them, my lady! Your father made me promise to do so, if ever there were intruders--and I think I hear the police car at the door now."

"Thank you, Tabor," said Eden pleasantly, as if he had just announced friendly callers. Ellery saw by the set of the girl's shoulders and the lifting of her head that this was no joke. And without further adieu he turned to the hall door.

"Oh, well, if you feel that way about it," he said and vanished into the dimness of the dark hall, retrieving his hat and coat from a chair near the front door and pausing only to shout back: "I'll send you a card with my address, and anytime you need me you can send for me. I'm sorry you took it this way when I merely intended to help you. Good night."

So the unwanted caller left the house, even as Mike McGregor, the big policeman, entered the kitchen door. Eden stood quietly until she heard the front door shut and Tabor, after a short conference with Mike, returned to the library again. Then Eden slowly sank into her chair and dropped her face down on her folded arms on the desk. It was then that old Janet noticed that her nursling's face was wet with tears.

Quietly Janet slipped over and put a tender arm around Eden's shoulders.

"There, my little one," she said tenderly, smoothing the soft hair and patting the beloved shoulders. "How ever did that little rat get intae the hoose, I'd like tae know? I didna sight him at the service. He surely wouldna have had the impertinence tae coom openly. He allus useta work on the sly everything he did. He's not tae be troosted."

Then Eden lifted her tear-wet face and smiled.

"It's all right, Janet. It just upset me for a minute, but I'm glad it's over. And now, Janet, I think we had better keep this room locked, at night especially, because I don't like the idea of anybody being able to steal into Daddy's special room where he kept all his important things."

"Of coorse not, my wee lamb. We'll see tae thet right away," said Janet with a look toward Tabor.

"Yes, my lady," said Tabor capably. "And I'll have my word with the police to keep an eye on the place. In fact, I'm not sure but they intend to anyway. Your father may have mentioned it to McGregor when he was in to see him the other day. I thought as much for the answer he gave me when I spoke with him earlier this evening."

"Oh!" said Eden, looking startled. "But Father did not know where Ellery was, I'm sure. I knew he distrusted him, but we haven't heard from him since Father sent him away that time he made all the trouble for him at the bank. I shouldn't think he would dare to come again."

"That rat would dare onything," said Janet. "He's just been bidin' his time till there wasna onybody tae stop him. But don't ye worry. We'll see thet you're looked after."

"Why, I'm not worrying, Janet." Eden gave a vague little smile. "Only it was so dreadful to have him come in just when I was reading some last words from Daddy. Janet, I think I would like to take that second drawer up to my room. It's just letters, nothing really valuable except to me, but I wouldn't like to think of anybody like Ellery getting his hands on them."

"Of coorse not, my lamb. We'll take it right up tae yer room, an' I'll be sleepin' across the hall the night. Tabor will make oop his bed at the end of the downstairs hall, so ye'll be weel guarded, blessed child!"

"Oh, I'm not afraid, you know, Janet. But it will be nice to know you are near at hand. It
is
lonely this first night of course."

"Is it this drawer you want, Miss Eden?" asked Tabor, stooping to lift it out. "But it's locked."

"Yes, Tabor. Here is the key."

The man unlocked the drawer and drew it out.

"Is this the only one you want, Miss Eden?" he asked.

"Yes, I think so. Wait. None of the rest are locked. I'll see if I need others."

Swiftly she drew them out one at a time and glanced over the orderly contents.

"No, they are just routine things. Records, receipts, things that aren't very important." She closed them all and they started up the stairs, Tabor carrying the drawer and leading the way.

"Just put it down on the table by my desk," said Eden, "and thank you, Tabor. Now don't you two worry any more about me. I shall be quite all right, and I hope you won't lose any more sleep over prowlers. I'm quite sure Ellery Fane is the only one who would dare, and I think you thoroughly scared him off with your promise of the police."

"Right you are, Miss Eden. I'm positive you'll be entirely safe from any intruders from now on."

So the two servants were presently gone, and Eden locked her door and sat down to the reading of her father's letter, entirely assured that this time she would not look up to see Ellery's hateful eyes looking at her.

Sitting there in her own pretty room, in the luxurious chair that had been her father's gift on her last birthday, with all her pretty belongings about her, she could take a deep breath and really enjoy this last little conversation that her father had prepared to help her through the first hard evening after he had left her finally.

And so she began to read:

 

Dear little lass:

I promised you a last few words, so you could feel this first night that my love is still with you.

Because I have felt for a long time that you had missed the most beautiful thing out of your little-girl life, when your mother was called away, I have been casting about in my mind to find something that will partly make up for it. So I am now leaving you a packet of her own letters, which have for years been the most precious possession I owned and which nobody else but myself has ever read. Of course, I have told you a great deal about your dear mother, but even at its best the telling of a thing is never as good as the thing itself. Just hearing about what a mother you had could never be like growing up from childhood under her loving care. It is for this reason that I have left you her letters, that you may gather from them the atmosphere of the home into which you were born and really sense what a wonderful mother you had.

We talked a lot about you before you came, and afterward before she went away. You have a right to know what we said, and how we loved you, and what we hoped for your future. You will gather much of that from these letters, which are now yours, dear lassie. Don't weep when you read them. Just be glad to know we are safe with our heavenly Father, who is always watching over you.

Good-bye, little one, till we meet in heaven, and don't forget we'll be counting on your coming Home when your work down here is done.

Your loving father,

Charles Hamilton Thurston

 

Eden did not weep as she read the last words and let her eyes trace the precious familiar signature with a tender glance. But her cheeks were flushed, and there was a wonderful light in her eyes as she lifted them for an instant to look into a far distance, as if she were trying to send a smile beyond the gates of heaven to let her father know that she was being true to her promise that she would not let herself grieve for him.

A great swelling of her heart came as she folded up her father's letter and slipped it inside her blouse just over her heart. It seemed to her when it was there that she could feel his dear hand resting on her head, his voice telling her to be strong and not to think about her disappointments, but just trust and not be afraid.

Then half shyly she put out her hand to take the first letter of her unknown mother, whom she could scarcely remember, except as a sweet presence; she was always smiling. How glad that mother must be now that her dear husband had come to be with her in heaven. But it was all so vague. Did people live and feel and think and rejoice in heaven as they did on earth? Sometime when she found some very wise person who had studied about heaven she would ask about that.

Then her glance came down to the letter, as she took it out of the delicate envelope and scanned the beautiful writing. Oh, she had seen her mother's writing before of course. There was a lovely little white book, her own baby record written in this same charming penmanship, but somehow this was different. The book was a formal record with an occasional little merry account of some quaint child saying or bright idea.

But this letter was different. It was going to be like listening to her darling mother talking with her precious father.

"Dear Charlie."

The words thrilled the heart of the young girl, and for the first time some faint realization came to her of what it must have been to her mother to be in love with her father, as he must have been when he was young. Then she settled down breathlessly to read that sweet wonderful letter, the first real love letter that Eden had ever read. Oh, she had read love letters in novels of course, just fiction. But this was real life. This love letter had been
lived
, and by special dispensation was so linked to her life that she had a right not only to read it but to cherish it as a very part of herself.

Breathlessly she read the lovely girl-thoughts. More beautiful than all the dreams of romance that had ever visited her imagination--waking or dreaming.

On she read through the sweet impassioned words, which grew only more tender and delicate in expression as she went from one charming letter to the next. Reading a rare continued love story, through the first days of the beautiful courtship and on to the wedding day.

Then came a letter that told of a visit to relatives. It was most enlightening--Aunt Phoebe in a pale gray silk with blush roses in her little gray bonnet tied under her sweet little trembly chin. Eden remembered her only as a little old woman with tired eyes and skin like old parchment and a way of falling asleep in her chair. Grandma Haybrook with snapping black eyes that couldn't brook a fault in any but herself. She almost laughed aloud as she read about Uncle Pepperill, who would continue to take a pinch of snuff, even at a wedding.

There were fewer letters after that, save now and then a note written just for the joy of saying, "I love you." For she sensed that the two were continually together now, seldom separated except for a day or two occasionally for some business reason. But ever was that perfect flow of harmony and love in the very atmosphere, even of the brief silences between the letters.

There were little notations on the envelopes to mark these absences of letter. One read: "The first letter after Eden was born, while I was absent for a day at a banking conference."

Eagerly she opened that letter and found a wee snapshot of herself as a tiny baby, and a tender line:

 

I never knew or even dreamed what it would be like to have a little soul entrusted to our care! And to think our little Eden has such a wonderful father! I shall ever thank God for that! Oh, how can we ever hope to find a man as good as you, my beloved, as fine and strong and tender, and worthy to marry her? We must ask God Himself to prepare one for her.