Rainbow Cottage (29 page)

“You are always welcome,” said Grandmother. “If you are really in earnest and not to make fun.”

“I couldn’t make fun,” said Malcolm with an unwonted look in his eyes. “This seems to be real. I must know more about it. Betty’s got hold of something. It’s beginning to hit me tremendously. If she’s going religious on my hands, I’ll have to do it, too, or leave her. I never saw such a change in any human being in three weeks in my life. I want to get at the source.”

“Jesus Christ is the Source, Malcolm Galbraith,” said Grandmother. “He is ‘the way, the truth, and the life.’ ”

So Malcolm came down with Betty almost every morning, and somehow Betty began to have a happier look on her face. They were almost like two lovers, always sitting near to one another, watching out that each had the right place. And one day they drove down instead of coming by the beach and brought Marget Galbraith with them.

“I had to come, Myra,” explained Grandmother’s old friend. “I had to see what it is these children are so interested in. It’s made a big difference in our house. Even Hugh is noticing it. I guess I’ll have to get in on it, too.”

“That’s nice,” said Grandmother. “I’ve just heard of a wonderful young man from one of the big Bible schools who is speaking at a conference place not far from here. He’s coming over tomorrow to show us how to go about this study better. The more we have, the better I’ll like it.”

T
he young Bible teacher proved to be a great find in every way.

The original group had grown by several additions now—a few summer friends who dropped in one at a time.

But one morning quite out of the blue, Jacqueline arrived, utterly unexpected and unheralded, according to her usual custom.

The group was just filing into their usual places in the garden, where Grandmother had placed more chairs now and added a table or two for the convenience of the class. The teacher had just alighted from his roadster and was coming into the gate as the red car drove up. He gave its driver a keen, appraising glance and decided she had come just in time. Only she didn’t understand the leather case he held in his hand. Was he a doctor? Was someone sick?

Jacqueline alighted and followed the young man up the walk and around to where she heard voices in the garden and stood a moment in amazement, looking over the mixed company gathered there, wondering what it was all about.

“What in Pete’s name!” she called as she spied Malcolm Galbraith. “What the heck is going on here? A party?”

Betty looked up, and her heart sank. Then she turned a quick look at her husband.

But Malcolm stood gravely regarding the newcomer. “Here’s a chair, Jac,” he said, just as if she had always been attending the class. “You got here just in time. The teacher has just arrived.”

“Teacher?” said Jacqueline, looking wildly around. “For cat’s sake, what is this? A bridge party?”

“No, it’s a Bible study class!” said Malcolm, his face quite serious. “Sit down, Jac. It’s wonderful.”

“For heaven’s sake, Malcolm! Let’s get out of this quick. Come on Betty, you come, too.” She leaned over and motioned to Betty.

Betty came reluctantly toward her, struggling with a newfound grace and an old temptation.

“Come on, Betty, help me get a bathing suit,” whispered Jacqueline. “I’m dying for a swim. Can’t you and Malcolm sneak out? Who is that young chap over there by the table? Can’t you give him the high sign and sneak him along, too? Let’s get out of this saint’s rest. I shall die!”

Betty looked frightened again and turned a sorrowful glance at her husband, but Malcolm came to the front in a new character.

“Sorry, Jac,” he said pleasantly yet a trifle formally. “Betty and I are committed to this, and really you couldn’t tempt us away. The young man over there by the table is our teacher. He’s a crackerjack. Better sit down, Jac; it’s worth it, it really is! No kidding!”

Jacqueline looked at Malcolm with a face in which amazement and incredulity were struggling for the uppermost. Then she gazed at Betty curiously.

“Is that so, or is he kidding me?” she asked sharply.

“Oh, it is so!” said Betty radiantly.

“Good night!” said Jacqueline, turning away in disgust. “This is no place for a child of sin like myself. I’d better pass out of the picture.”

“I wish you would stay,” said Betty with a gentle note of pleading in her voice that caused Jacqueline to turn and look at her again, curiously.

“Well, you are changed, if that is really true,” she said bitterly. “Thanks, no, I prefer the world, the flesh, and the devil!” And she swept on down the walk to the wicket gate and out to her car. In a moment more they could hear her motor throbbing as she flashed along the beach toward a more congenial world.

It was that very night that Sheila saw a face against the dark window, looking in, a face that strangely reminded her of terror and her flight. It couldn’t be, of course, but it looked a little like Buck’s face pressed against the screen, looking in.

Sheila had been studying down in the living room by the big table where her books were scattered, and it had grown late without her realizing it.

Grandmother was a little tired that evening and confessed to it for a wonder, and Sheila had sent her early to bed.

Janet also had gone to bed right after supper with a toothache, and Sheila had had a long uninterrupted evening. She had always enjoyed study, and this new opening up of scripture was to her an ever-increasing wonder.

But there was something else besides the study that made her glad tonight to have this evening to herself. She had inside her Bible a letter that afternoon received from the far West, and when she finished the study she had prescribed for her evening’s work, she meant to read it over again, slowly, and enjoy every word of it.

It was not the first time that Angus Galbraith had written to her since he had taken his first flight westward. He had written to Grandmother a good many times and often sent her messages, and several times he had written her concerning her mother’s grave and the progress he was making about the stone and the fixing of the cemetery lot, if lot it could be called on that bleak prairie.

But this letter was more like a pleasant chat than business. He told her, it is true, about the placing of the stone and the arrangement he had made for the perpetual care of the lot, but he entered more into detail about his journey, with descriptions of this and that. He had been to see Ma Higgins and her insignificant husband, and he gave her messages that brought the tears to Sheila’s eyes. She had never realized how Ma Higgins really had loved her and had missed her after she left.

He told of visiting the place where she had lived and how he had looked around and tried to think of her there getting ready for life, with that wonderful mother of hers. How he dignified her home in the shack with her mother! How he honored her beloved mother!

It seemed he had even been to the cabaret and seen where her mother sang. People had told him of her last wonderful song, of her clean, fine life and the strength of her character. He had been for miles around there meeting people she used to know. She wondered as she read on how he came to meet all those people. Yet she rejoiced that he had. It seemed so wonderful to have this new friend linked to her life with her mother in this way. And she did not anymore shrink from having him know her poverty and the squalor of her early home. He looked beyond the outside shell. He understood something deeper than appearances. He had seen the beauty with which her mother had surrounded her life, a beauty that could not be purchased with money nor gained by education or travel. A beauty of the heart-life.

She had read the letter over for the third time before suddenly she felt that there was someone in the room, and a cold chill of fear, a terrible premonition of evil, seemed to possess her.

She looked up to dispel this sense of an enemy at hand, and there stood Buck! Her strength seemed running from the ends of her fingers and seeping out from the toes of her slippers as she sat and looked at him in horror.

Yet even as this great fright seized her, something whispered, “God kept you on the rock in that terrible storm, and can He not keep you through this also? Remember the rainbow!”

Then something cool and quieting seemed to come to her, a strength not her own. Quite calmly she folded her letter with her cold fingers and laid it smoothly in her Bible, looking all the time into the evil eyes of the man who stood amusedly, contemptuously, looking at her.

Then she rose and reached out to the table where the telephone extension always stood.

He did not move but continued to watch her with that smile of amusement on his hateful face while she picked up the receiver and tried to call the operator. She was trying to think whether she had better call The Cliffs or the private officer who had charge of watching this section of the shore cottages when Buck’s voice broke harshly on her senses with a laugh.

“That won’t do any good,” he said. “You don’t suppose I’m a fool, do you? You can call as much as you like, and no one will answer.”

Instantly there came to her the thought,
Ah, but the lines up are not cut. My God will hear when I call
.

She hung up the receiver quietly and put the phone back on the table.

“I see,” she said quietly. “Well, won’t you be seated?”

He laughed. “No thanks,” he said, “and you won’t sit there long either. I’ve chased you good and far, and now you’re going to do what I told you you had to do before you sneaked away on me. You’re going to listen to me.”

“Excuse me a moment until I call my grandmother,” said Sheila, thinking to get away where she could call someone and then realizing how futile it was to suggest that. She saw by the man’s eyes that he knew he had her in his power.

“Not much I won’t. Your grandmother’s good and fast asleep, and she’s going to stay there till I get ready to wake her up. I made sure of that before I came in. The kitchen girl is asleep, too. I heard both their snores before I made a move. Now, you stand right still where you are till I tell you what I want from you. If you do just as I say, you won’t be harmed a hair, though I ought to pay you good for the trick you played on me running away, and I would, anyway, if it weren’t a matter of time with me. But if you don’t do what I say, I’ll pay you back good and pretty, and that’s a fact! See that gun? Well, maybe you don’t know I’m considered the neatest shot in the state of Idaho.”

Something seemed suddenly to come up in Sheila’s throat and choke her. Something like a veil kept dropping down before her eyes. A great dizziness swept over her, but she shut her lips firmly and kept her feet, steadying herself by the tips of the fingers of one hand resting on the table.

She had seen guns out in her Western life, and they had not seemed so awful to her as this one, here in Grandmother’s sweet, safe living room. It looked so large, so crude, so horrible!

Was this a dream perhaps? Maybe she had fallen asleep in her chair. Maybe she was having a nightmare. But she must be very careful not to make an outcry whether it were real or fancied, for Grandmother must not be wakened.

“What is it you want from me?”

She felt her stiff lips forming the words, her strange voice speaking them.

“All right. That’s sensible. You’re going to be reasonable and do what you’re told, are you? That’s right. Well then, we won’t waste time. You just keep your eye on my gun and do as I say and I’ll be through with you in a short time. You’ve got a paper I want, and you’re going to get it for me. That’s all!”

He saw by the startled look on her face that she knew what paper he meant, but in a moment she was able to answer him steadily again.

“I haven’t any paper that you could want, I am sure,” she said, looking at him with a clear eye.

“Oh, so you’ve learned to lie!” he sneered. “I thought they told me you was such an honest person!”

She did not answer that. She waited to be guided. Her throat seemed powerless to utter anything more; her words would not come.

“Now, we’ll begin again,” said the man. “You’ve got a paper that I want, and I mean to have it. In just three minutes you’re going to get it and bring it to me, or I’m going to shoot your ankles so you can’t walk anymore.”

“I couldn’t do anything for you, certainly, if you did that,” said Sheila and wondered why those words had come from her lips; they were so futile.

“Yes, you could. You could crawl, and I’d find a way to make you do it, don’t forget it! Now, that paper. You go get it right now. Get me?”

“What kind of paper is it you want?” asked Sheila to make time, though she wondered how that would do any good. She would have to make a whole night of time if she would hope to escape. She began to think she was so frightened that her good sense was leaving her.

“You know what paper it is that I want. Your dad gave it to your mother and told her never to part with it, or words to that effect. Your mother must have told you the same thing. Your dad had it put away good and safe. He told me he had it in a pencil holder. Yes, I see you know. I’m used to watching the pupils of eyes. I can read ’em. Now, you go get that paper and make it snappy. I gotta catch a train.”