Maris (18 page)

"Oh, no," her father laughed. "It's only eight hundred and fifty. But you see, I was going to get a couple of hundred more if I could just to ease things up a little here, keep us going from day to day, you know, and pay a few of the smaller bills. I was hoping things would look up at the office in a month or so, and then everything would be all right again. You know there have been a number of necessary expenses--" He paused in dismay, and Maris took up his words almost cheerfully, briskly, as if she had her hand on the helm of their little lifeboat now and was steering straight for the shore.

"Yes, I know, Father, a lot of
un
necessary expenses, if you ask me, and all connected with getting me married off. But you see, I've come to my senses at last, and I'm taking over as many bills as I can and helping you to get clear of all this that has rested so heavily on you. Now, Merrick, if you'll just get the data from Father, I'll run up and get a check. Merrick, don't you dare let Father go downtown today; I'll be right back!" And Maris was off on light feet speeding up to her desk.

"Oh, but I can't let her do that!" said the father, looking dazedly at his son. "It was to have been her dowry. Mother and I were so glad she had it. And Tilford! What will he think of me?"

"Tilford be hanged! What's he got to do with it? She'll never tell him. She
wants
to do it, Dad. She's a peach, and you mustn't make her feel bad by refusing it. She's been worried about you, I could see. You've got to take it, Dad. Haven't you been giving, giving, giving ever since we were born? And we've just taken and never helped a cent's worth!"

"It's the parents' place to give."

"Well, not forever. It's our place now. I only wish I had a legacy, and I'd turn it all over to you. But I'll find a way to help, too, you'll see."

Suddenly the father's head went down on his lifted hand, and Merrick could see that he was deeply stirred.

"Listen, Dad," said Merrick, trying to clear the huskiness from his throat, "that's no way to take it. It's no humiliation. Why can't we all be glad one of us has got it to clear the rest? Why aren't you pleased Maris isn't selfish? Why aren't you glad this note can be paid and you won't have to worry about it any longer?"

"I am. I will be!" said the father, lifting his head with a sudden smile.

"That's the talk. Here comes Maris. Now, smile again. Turn on the works, quick!"

Mr. Mayberry met his daughter with a smile that was almost blinding as she came down with a check in her hand.

"I'm just so happy I had it, Father," she whispered as she put her arms around his neck and kissed him, and he held her close for a moment.

"You precious child!" he said. "It is wonderful of you to do this. Of course, I didn't mean anybody to find out I was in a tight place, but this has lifted a great burden from me. Wait till I tell your mother about it. Just as soon as she is able to hear it."

"Don't be in too big a hurry, Daddy," warned Maris. "Let her forget for a while that there are burdens. But we're going to make it our business to see that the burdens don't get heavy again, Father. Now, if you want to do something for us, you will go in and drink that nice cold milk and egg that Sally has just made for you, and then you'll go and lie down and sleep a little while before lunch."

When Father had obediently gone smiling in to follow her orders, Maris turned to Merrick.

"Merrick, will you have time to step down to the stationer's office and pay that bill before Father sees it? Here's a blank check, and you can fill it in. Here's what I think it is, but there may be something extra I've forgotten. I'd like to get that bill paid before Father ever sees it."

Merrick flashed her a look.

"I certainly am proud of my sister!" he said. "It's the greatest thing I ever knew a girl to do, right on the edge of her wedding day, too!"

A startled look came over Maris's face and she almost opened her lips to explain, but then she held them tight. Somehow she felt as if she mustn't tell yet that there was to be no wedding. It seemed as if she must tell this first to her mother and father before she broadcast it to the family. She struggled with a sudden desire to hug her brother who all at once seemed so grown up and dependable, but she knew it would embarrass him, so she only smiled.

"It's only what you would have done yourself, you old fraud," she said tenderly.

"Never having been a girl before her wedding, I don't know, but I'm sure I'd like to have the money to try," he said. "Wait till I get to working! You'll see!"

"Of course I will. Now, get away to the city and get that note paid. Have you got Father's bankbook and all the data? And say, Merrick, do you think there are any other notes or things?"

"No, I guess not, but I'll find out. He told me there would be a big caterer's bill and a florist bill, and cars for the wedding and----"

"Yes? Well, we won't worry about those just now," said Maris, "but if there's anything else he ought to pay, please let me know."

"I should say it was my job if there's anything else."

"Well, you haven't got a legacy just now, Merrick."

"No, but I've got an expensive set of golf clubs, two tennis rackets, and a canoe up at college I think I could sell. Watch me! I'll go my share, too. So long! I'll be back in time for dinner. Tell Dad not to worry if I'm late." And Merrick hurried away in the sunshine.

Maris watched him a minute, her heart lighter than it had been for several days. What a dear boy he was anyway! What a precious family she had, and suddenly her heart thrilled with gladness that it was her right and privilege to watch over them and help them now without anyone to hinder or tell her no.

She would have to explain Tilford's absence pretty soon of course, but not until she had got used to things herself and adjusted her life to its new order.

Then she turned and sped upstairs to her patient, who about this time would be demanding some amusement.

But the wedding invitations were still hidden in the attic.

 

 

The rest of that day was very full. It seemed there was no time to do the things she wanted very much to do at once. Lexie was hard to please. She was hot and restless and wanted her mother. She wanted to have the window shades up and be given a picture book, both of which were against the doctor's orders, for her eyes must be guarded carefully.

Maris did her best to make the child happy, meantime letting her own thoughts run ahead with plans. But it was not until almost eight o'clock in the evening that the little patient was finally asleep and Maris was free to do what she would.

She slipped into her mother's room for a minute and saw her father lying on the cot, sleeping with a look of real rest on his face, and her heart was glad that she had been able to relieve him from at least one of his heavy burdens.

Quietly she slipped up to the attic and brought out the wedding invitations. She had a feeling somehow that she was committing burglary.

She had planned to burn them out in the incinerator, but when she touched their smooth, thick surfaces, the double envelopes making such bulky, firm white slabs, she realized that things like that wouldn't burn very easily. She would have to pull them out of their envelopes and burn them one by one. It wouldn't do to leave any traces of them about for Sally to wonder over and perhaps gossip about in the village.

Looking about her, she saw a large box of wood shavings that had come around the only wedding present she had as yet received. It was a great ugly, old-fashioned lamp sent to her by an old friend of the family, now in her nineties, who had moved out west some twenty years ago, when Maris was a baby. It was a hideous thing. The old lady had written that she had heard the Mayberrys' oldest girl was going to be married pretty soon, so she thought she would send her a present. It was a lamp that had been given to her as a wedding present, and she thought Maris might like to have it because it was so old.

It was an oil lamp with a terrible glass shade on which a floral decoration had been poorly painted. Maris had looked at it in despair and written a nice little note of thanks and then hastily gathered up its parts and dumped the whole thing in the attic out of the way, for it came to her that it would never do to let Tilford see that lamp!

So here it was beside her as she turned to go down with her boxes of invitations, an ugly old lamp lying in a great lot of shavings. Just the thing to start the thick envelopes burning.

Quickly she removed the lamp and took the box down with her. Soon those carefully addressed invitations were roaring up in smoke into the summer night, licked by crackling flames. The notable names of the town's Four Hundred stood out boldly in Maris's clear handwriting for an instant and then were crumbled into black parchment.

Maris stood there and watched them burn, fascinated by the thought that her hopes of yesterday, and all she had built up for what she had thought would be happiness, were so quickly destroyed. An expensive little fire, but how much it meant! How quickly God had showed her when He got ready to act. It filled her with a kind of awe. Was God watching all her acts and plans that way? Did He watch everybody so and take account of what was best for them? Was God as personal as that?

She lifted her eyes to the clear sky above, set with many stars. God taking account of her. God arranging things to make her see her mistakes before it was too late!

But yet, she had her own free choice. Suppose she had yielded to Tilford and gone on? Would God have let her have her way and bear the consequences? That was something to think about when she had time. She gave a little shiver there in the darkness when she remembered Tilford's face as he talked to her that morning. What would it be like to be under the authority of a man who did not care for her dear ones? From whom even death could bring no sympathetic word?

She was poking among the ashes, lifting an envelope here and there that was sliding out of the way of the flame and keeping its identity in spite of the fire, when she heard Gwyneth coming through the kitchen. She had left Gwyneth studying hard in the library. Why didn't she stay there? She didn't want Gwyneth to see her holocaust. Gwyneth wouldn't understand and might be horrified. She didn't want to have to explain, not yet. Not while trouble was in the house. Not while Mother lay so ill.

She turned swiftly and met Gwyneth as she opened the kitchen door.

"Oh, here you are!" said the little girl. "Someone wants you on the phone. I think it's the doctor, but I'm not sure."

With sudden fear clutching at her heart, Maris left her fire and hurried in, yet even as she went reason returned. If it was the doctor, it would only be some direction about her nursing. Nothing terrible could come from the doctor when he wasn't at the house. So, more composedly, she went to answer the call. And then it was only a salesperson for a remedy for seasickness. He said he had heard she was going to take a sea trip for her honeymoon and he wanted to recommend this marvelous remedy. Might he stop by and tell her more about it? He had a list of notable people who had used it with great success.

Maris cut him off abruptly with the information that she had no need for any such remedy and, half vexed with a world that was continually meddling in other people's business, went back to her burning.

The fire had died down, and all the white corners seemed to be gone. Just to be sure, however, she put in the last of the shavings with the box that had contained them, and the flames leaped up again in great shape and took every vestige of telltale white paper with them. Maris turned away with a sigh of relief. Those invitations could no more make trouble. They did not exist. It had all been a bad dream, those last days of frantically making out lists and addressing envelopes, of having Tilford telephone that some mistakes had been made in addresses and he had another list, or having her father hover near worrying lest some old friend was being left out or lest the plain little church they attended would not hold all these high-and-mighty guests. That was over. Purged by fire!

She turned a last look at the now dying fire and cast upon it in her thoughts the memory of that pretty wedding procession--the white trailing veil, the rainbow-tinted bridesmaids, her two little sisters, Lexie as flower girl and Gwyneth in her first long dress as maid of honor. All that pretty dream was gone now. She probably would never marry. Though if she did, the dress that Mother made would of course be used, no matter if she married royalty--which of course she wouldn't, having just turned down the nearest approach to anything like wealth and influence that would likely ever cross her path.

Nevertheless, it was with a light heart that she locked the kitchen door and went upstairs. She felt easier in her mind than she had since she had caught that glimpse of the dear shabby old house and sensed the contemptuous scorn in Tilford's tone as he voiced the sentiment that he was not expecting her to have any further connection with it after she was married.

There was one more thing she meant to do tonight before she slept. She must make one more visit to the attic. She wanted to put that precious wedding dress away out of sight, where nothing could happen to it and where no alien eyes could possibly search it out and bring it into criticism. If anything happened to Mother--or if it didn't--that dress would always be her most prized possession.

There was a great white cardboard box lined with satin paper. It had held a pair of lovely white pure wool blankets, the softest, finest blankets that could be found, with wide satin bindings. They were the last things that Mother had bought for her, and she treasured them greatly. They were over Mother now, tucked softly about her quiet form, covered scrupulously with an enshrouding sheet by the careful nurse so that no harm could come to them. Maris was so glad that Mother had them about her. It comforted her to have them there. The dear blankets that Mother had bought. Precious Mother who so seldom bought anything pretty or fine for herself.

And now that beautiful, strong box would be the very thing in which to put away her wedding dress.