Chance of a Lifetime (25 page)

Alan looked up, startled, and then smiled to think how often that phrase had been in his mind of late. He had thought that about the desert trip, and Bob had said it was
his
chance, and Sherry’s family thought her going to New York was the chance of her lifetime! He sighed at that thought— Oh, what if it should prove to be a chance that would take her away from him forever— Who was that poor fish that had brought her home from that villainous party anyhow? Wasn’t there anything besides sending forget-me-nots that he could do?

“S
AY IT WITH FLOWERS
,” flaunted an advertisement in the weekly local as he turned the empty pages over, so he went out and said it with Parma violets, and then sauntering home, he passed her house and saw the old stone barn set way back in the lot next door, a big elm etched against the evening sky above one end and a group of spruce trees down in one corner near the street. That was an idea! Why hadn’t he thought of that before? Sherrill wanted to build that over into a house. Well, why not, someday? He would pay a sizeable deposit on it, and if he used his old car for another year instead of turning it in … and that would give him something to think about and plan for anyway, while Sherrill was gone. So Alan went to see Henderson.

S
herrill had a heart-to-heart talk with her uncle on the way down to the symphony concert, and he must have said something very decided to the rest of the family afterward; at least no more was said about either dancing or bridge lessons, and when there came an invitation to a dance or any other function that Sherrill felt would be out of her sphere, she was allowed to stay home.

It may be that this state of things was helped somewhat by the fact that Carol was fiercely jealous of her cousin and was just as well pleased to have her stay at home rather than have her winning personality and her lovely clothes to compete with.

It cut Carol deeply that Sherrill seemed to have landed the catch of the season right at the start; Barney Fennimore continued to drop in every day or two and ask for Sherrill. Carol always acted just as if he were calling on herself personally and did her best to claim the center of the stage, but she knew in her heart that it was her cousin he came to see, and she was furious about it.

A climax was reached one Friday afternoon when Carol and her mother had been away for nearly all day, attending various shopping and social functions, and arrived home just in time to see Barney Fennimore take his departure, a more than usually serious look upon his face. Uncle Weston had been away all the week on a business trip, and Sherrill had not had an especially easy time.

“I think that it’s time that something was done about this!” stormed Carol, stamping her expensively shod foot. “Eloise, are you going to sit and see my cousin take away my men friends from right under my nose?”

“Really, Sherrill,” said Aunt Eloise, giving her niece a withering glance, “I think for a saint, and a novice, that you are doing very well. I scarcely anticipated when I invited you here that you would be so ambitious as to set your cap for the most inaccessible man in town. I think you scarcely can realize his position, and his wealth and family. He wouldn’t
marry
you, you know. He’s only playing! Young men like that do play around with a girl without any thought of getting settled in life. He doubtless thinks perhaps that you have money just because you managed somehow to get some clever clothes, but when he came to find out, he would have some excuse—”

The danger signals flamed out on Sherrill’s fair cheeks, and a brilliant flash came into her eyes. She swung around toward her aunt and opened fire in the midst of her sentence. “Stop!” she cried. “You’ve no right to talk to me in that way! I have never asked that young man to come and see me, nor urged him to stay, nor encouraged him in anyway. And I have no desire to marry him, or anybody else at the present, anyway. And if I had, I should not have come away from home to find somebody. I will not stand being spoken to in that way! I think you are—
disgusting
! Oh!”

Her voice was trembling with tears. She could not trust herself another instant. Pressing her fingers to her eyes to stay the torrent that threatened, she fled from the room.

“Oh, so the little saint has become a spitfire!” pursued the clear, icy tones of her aunt as she hurried down the hall.

Locked in her room, Sherrill fell upon her knees beside the bed and sobbed her heart out. She had failed, failed, miserably and abjectly. She had lost all chance of being a witness in that house. She had let her tongue get away with her pride, and abased herself so low by answering back that she felt the case was hopeless. She could never undo what she had just done. No woman, especially Aunt Eloise, would ever forgive being called disgusting! Oh, why had she cared so much after all? The nasty little things they had said had just been the enemy’s way of trying her. And she had fallen!

Over and over came the words about her Savior in His hour of trial:
“And He answered them not a word.”
Oh, if she could have done that! Have remembered that it was not flesh and blood she was striving against, but the rulers of the darkness of this world. If she had only remembered the resurrection power that was hers to claim in any time of temptation, over the weakness of the flesh.

Well, but now, having done this, she must go and apologize. That of course was the obvious thing for a lady, much more a Christian, to do.

So after praying for strength she arose, bathed her eyes, and went to her aunt’s door, tapping gently for admittance.

There was an irritable permission to enter, and Sherrill opened the door and came to the point at once. “Aunt Eloise, I’m sorry I lost my temper and spoke to you as I did. I don’t suppose you realized how angry it would make me to have you say what you did, but I was very wrong to let my tongue—”

The elder woman interrupted her pettishly. “Is this supposed to be an apology you are making? Because, if it is, you may spare your breath and my time. I never listen to apologies. People never make apologies except to show how much better they think they are than anybody else. Actions speak louder than words. Just let the matter rest. I have my opinion and you have yours!”

Sherrill looked at her aunt blankly for a moment and then with a quiver of her lip turned and went back to her room. This was the end, surely. One could not live with a woman who would not even allow an acknowledgment of wrong done. She was impossible.

Sherrill knelt down again and prayed softly. “Oh, God, my Father, please let me go home now. I can’t stand this any longer.”

Then she got up and began to pack.

It gave her swift pleasure to be folding her pretty garments into her trunk. She had prevailed upon the maid to leave her trunk in the ample closet and not send it to the trunk room, so now she did not have to make public what she was doing. She felt that she must make this final, and get ready before she told anybody she was going, even get her trunk off if possible.

She worked rapidly, carefully, with a clearness of thought that brought results, and soon the closet was empty and the trunk about ready to close. Then she went downstairs to reconnoiter.

Maida came from the dining room to get the mail from the postbox, and Sherrill asked her if she knew whether the chauffeur was going downtown that afternoon again. She wanted him to do an errand for her.

“He’s just taken Madam to that tea, but he’ll be back soon. He has to take Miss Carol’s suitcase to her at the dressmaker’s, and perhaps he can do your errand then. I’ll leave word with the cook to tell him, and he’ll let you know when he comes. I have to pack now for Madam and Miss Carol. They are going to that weekend house party on Long Island. They go for dinner. You’re not to go, Madam said?”

The words were a statement but the tone was a question.

“No,” said Sherrill brightly, “I’ve changed my plans, and—I’m going home. I find I have to.”

She passed on into her room, her head up.

The house party! She had forgotten it! It had been a mooted question, and she had wanted to get out of it, but the hostess was the sweet old white-haired woman in black velvet and old lace whom she had met at her first tea in New York. The invitation was especially pressing, so that her aunt had been insistent. But now it seemed she was going without her. She drew a breath of relief. Just so easily had the way been made plain for her to go home. They would all be out of the way and she might write a note of farewell and take the midnight train. But she must work quickly.

Taking advantage of the temporary absence of everybody, Sherrill went to the telephone booth and called up the Pennsylvania Station to find out about trains. Then, to burn the bridges behind her, sent a telegram to her brother.

They would wonder, and be a little worried, but not much, and they would not have long to worry. Anyway, they would get used to the idea of her return before she had to explain it. It was humiliating to be a failure, of course, but she ought not to have come at all. That was very plain. She had prayed and prayed to be shown the way and why she was here, and nothing had come but more trouble. Now it was good to be going home.

Swiftly she put the last things in her trunk, made sure that everything was left out that she would need on her journey, packed her overnight bag, and was ready when the chauffeur tapped at her door.

“I’m having to leave tonight, Morton,” she said pleasantly, slipping a bill into his hand. “I’m wondering if you could find it convenient to just look after checking my trunk. Here’s my ticket, and it’s the midnight train south. Can you get me a reservation on the sleeper, too?”

Sherrill knew the tip was generous, even for New York, but she wanted service and had done it intentionally. The man melted and was gracious accordingly. In another hour Sherrill received her tickets and checks and saw her trunk depart to the station. She drew a long breath of relief and began to feel thrilled at the thought of being at home in the morning. Home! Dear home! She would never leave it again. It was all the chance of a lifetime she wanted.

There was just one more thing to be done before she left New York, and that was to return a couple of books that she had taken out of the public library on her uncle’s card, which he had put at her disposal. Nobody else in the family ever read books, and she did not wish to trouble anybody to return them.

So she put on her hat and coat, and started.

The bus at the corner would take her downtown in the neighborhood of the library. It was good not to have anyone there to question her action. Her aunt would probably not return from the tea before half past five, and she could be back in her room by that time. Then if her aunt wished to speak with her, she would send for her. She did not wish to go away like a coward, but, on the other hand, there was no use trying to explain anything to Aunt Eloise. She was just impossible.

So Sherrill climbed happily into the bus with a sense of new freedom she had not had since she came to New York and suddenly remembered that Christmas was almost at hand, and she must get something for each of the dear ones at home to take back with her. Christmas at home! A great wave of joy went over her. And she knew just what she meant to get. She had thought it all out for each one. She had saved a nice little nest egg from the money Keith had given her for clothes for just that purpose. She went over the items now, in her mind, and decided to stop at the library first and leave her books and not have to carry them about the stores with her. It was late, of course, and she must hurry. She glanced at her watch, four o’clock! Perhaps she better go to the shops first.

Shopping is more expeditious when one knows beforehand just what one wants, and Sherrill had spent some happy moments several times during the past three weeks looking at and pricing her gifts. She went straight to the spot and got through it in short order and then wended her way through the late afternoon traffic.

But suddenly out of the crowd of Fifth Avenue, there loomed up the tall, attractive form of Barney Fennimore, and though Sherrill tried to drop her eyes and not be seen, he greeted her joyously.

“Do you know, I was just going back to see you,” he said. “I felt I had come away too soon.”

“Oh,” said Sherrill in a small worried voice, “I was just on my way to the library. You see—I find—I have to go home!”

“Go home!” echoed the young man with a blackness in his voice. “But I don’t want you to go home.”

Sherrill laughed; there was something so genuine and friendly in his tone.

“You haven’t got bad news, have you?” he asked sympathetically.

“Oh no,” she said joyously, “it’s all good.”

“When are you going?” he asked, frowning.

“Tonight!” There was a ring of triumph in her voice.

“Tonight!” he said it in honest dismay. “And just as I was getting to know that there was such a girl as you! Well, then, you and I need to get busy. May I go with you? And why all these bundles? Where is your car?”

“Oh, I’m on my feet, and those are just gifts for the folks. I’m on my way to return a couple of books to the library.”

“Good! That’s a much better place than the house with your ever-present relatives getting in the way. You haven’t answered the most important part of my question yet, whether I may go with you, but I’m going anyway, so it’s all right. I have to have a heart-to-heart talk with you.”

There was nothing for Sherrill to do but give him a welcoming smile, although she had momentary visions of the Washburn car driving by, with Carol and Aunt Eloise looking out, watching her.

But she was presently within the sheltering walls of the stately library, and what did it matter anyway? She was going home. No words of malice that Aunt Eloise could write would ever turn the dear hearts of the home folks against her, and she would not have to bear contempt anymore. Why not be happy?