Treasured Brides Collection (16 page)

Speculation was rife among the elders. What would the young man do when he came back with his education completed? Would he study law and accept a partnership with his uncle, who was somewhat famous as a lawyer in that region? Would he take up a business career as his wealthy father had done? Or would he have a line of his own, journalism perhaps, or philosophy, or art? Everyone was interested and wondering.

But the young girls were all a flutter to get him to their parties, and Eleanor Martin secretly took a few lessons in dancing, though her father and mother did not approve of that amusement, in order that she might not appear awkward before this elegant stranger when he should return and invite them all to his parties, perhaps.

But Lawrence Earle rode into town late in the evening in his own car and drove quietly up to his mother’s door, and made no fuss at all about his homecoming. And when he found on the desk in his old room a pile of invitations, he swept them all aside, and said, “Mother, I don’t have to go to any of these things just yet, do I? I’m bored to death with functions. I just want to spend a little quiet time with you for a few days before I see anyone, can’t I?”

And his mother, with a light in her eyes, smiled and assented.

“Dear, it’s to be just as you want it. If you have any friends you want, they’ll be welcome as always. But it will be my greatest joy to have you all to myself for a while, if that will please you best.”

“Suits me to a T, Mother dear! I want to take you off on one or two long drives, and we’ll have a smashing old-time picnic all by ourselves, like we used to when I was a little kid. I need that to get back to living again. And besides, I’ve a lot of things to tell you that have developed this year and I hadn’t time to write. We’ve got to have a little leisure for this. About the middle of next week, Jimmy and Bryan will come on for a few days on their way to India. I must tell you all about them. They’re great! You’ll like ’em. And Ted will run down for a few days, and we’ll have to get some of the boys together to meet him, but aside from that I’ve no plans. If you have, I’m perfectly willing, only wait a few days, won’t you, so I can get my bearings?”

His mother smiled, the glad light growing in her eyes. Her boy was unchanged, unspoiled. She held her head proudly.

“There aren’t many of the old crowd left, are there? Sam Jones and the Mills boys are down at the foundry, you said, and Fetler is married. Poor little fish! Why didn’t he wait till he had enough money to support a wife? And Cappellar is in California, and Jarvis is gone to New York to study medicine, and Butler and Williams went to South America, and Judson is dead. That leaves Brown and Tommy Moore and the Ellsworths of my class, doesn’t it? I was counting them up on my way home. Not many for a reunion.”

“You don’t say anything about the girls,” suggested his mother.

“Oh, the girls. Well there weren’t so many of them that mattered. Margaret Martin is married, you wrote. I hope she got a good man. She certainly was a peach of a girl! And Wilda Hadley eloped. She always was a fool. Lilly Garner married, too, didn’t she? Lives in New York, you said. What became of Evelyn Bradley? She was the prettiest girl in the class, and knew it, too, didn’t she? Remember the time I caught her posing before that mirror at our senior class party?”

“Evelyn is out in Hollywood in the movies,” said Mrs. Earle, a little sadly. “It was a great disappointment to her mother. She tried to keep her at home. Evelyn has a younger sister now who is even prettier than she was. Don’t you remember Maud, a little bit of a black-eyed girl with soft black curls?”

“Can’t say I do,” answered Lawrence. “I suppose all those babies have grown up, haven’t they?”

“Yes”—smiled the mother—“it’s the babies that were then who are inviting you now. I think Maud is one of those girls in that picnic tomorrow. They came here to ask me if I thought you would come, and I promised to tell you all about it. The Garner girls and Eleanor Martin and Janet Chipley, and a new girl, Cornelia Gilson, very modern with glorious red hair. I’m not sure that I admire her type. Oh, you wouldn’t know the parties nowadays, Lawrence! They’re nothing like the good times you used to have here at home. Why, they wouldn’t be satisfied three minutes with the games you used to play and have such grand times with. They’ve got to dance, dance, dance, and flirt. ‘Petting’ they call it now. My dear! But you haven’t lived out of the world, Son. You know what life is now.”

“Yes, I’ve lived out of it a good deal, Mother, though I know what you mean. I had sort of hoped it wouldn’t have penetrated to our town yet, but I suppose that wasn’t to be expected. But if it’s like that here, too, we’ll just cut it out. I haven’t any use at all for it. Will you make my excuses to those girls, Mother, or shall I have to write?”

“I suppose you had better write a note, Son. But even then they may come down upon you and carry you off. They are perfectly crazy to have you go on this excursion. They have been planning it for days and arranged the time with a special view to your being here.”

“Well, I can’t help it; I’m not going,” said Lawrence, with a firm set of his jaw. “I hate that sort of thing anyway. Why shouldn’t you and I run off for a day, take a drive to Aunt Lila’s or something, and don’t return till the blamed thing is over?”

“I’d love to,” said the mother, “but unfortunately I’ve got a meeting for that day, the Mite Society, and it’s away, out in the country at old Mrs. Petrie’s. You remember her? She is lame and blind and the ladies are going out there to give her a little pleasure, as she can’t come in to the meetings anymore. I’d get out of it if I hadn’t promised to take Mrs. Mason’s place leading the devotional, and then I’m also chairman of the refreshment committee and have to look after the luncheon, and in the afternoon we’re going to present Mrs. Petrie with a little purse, and they’ve asked me to make the speech.”

“Well, of course, you’ve got to go. I’ll drive you over. How’ll that be? And then I’ll take a run around to all my old haunts and come back for you in the afternoon? What time do you go?”

“The meeting starts at half past ten, and it isn’t over till three. I’m afraid you’ll get tired traveling around all that time. Why not come back to lunch with us? Mrs. Petrie would be delighted, and so would all the old ladies. And your mother would certainly be proud to show you off to her old friends.”

“Well, I might if I get around. I’ll see. So that’s settled. But how about our getting off early in the morning before anybody can possibly come around or call up or anything. Wouldn’t you enjoy a ride out to the Rocks, say, before you go to Petrie’s?”

“I certainly would. How ideal. I feel like a girl again with my best boy going to take me out.” And Mrs. Earle stooped and kissed the handsome brow of her son tenderly. “Dear son. It’s so good to have you home again.”

So Lawrence wrote his note and posted it by special delivery, and when Maud Bradley called up in the morning to present a few added attractions and beseech him to reconsider, Lawrence Earle and his mother were driving along the highway at a joyous speed, bound for old Mother Petrie’s, via “the Rocks,” with an ice-cream freezer, two cake boxes, and a big basket of sandwiches stowed in the trunk of the car.

“It’s just too provoking for anything!” said Maud, explaining it to the Garner girls over the telephone. “There I went and made an extra angel cake just for him, and I sat up almost all night to finish the embroidery on my new dress! They say he is just the same as he used to be but I don’t believe it. He’s a snob. He thinks we’re too young for his Royal Highness! But I mean to drag him into our set yet. Mamma’s going to invite him over to dinner Saturday night. She says he used to be real close with Evelyn when they were in school together. We’ll get him yet, and then we’ll have another of these picnics, won’t we?”

“I suppose he thinks we’re too small potatoes,” said Ethel. “But when he learns how speedy we can be, he’ll sit up and take notice. Never mind, Bradley, he’ll come next time. Wait till he hears all we do on this trip. I’ll take measures to have his mother hear all about it. Aunt Beth runs in there often to see her, and Aunt Beth will tell her all about it. By the way, you knew Eleanor was going to be allowed to take her new car, didn’t you? Well, I planned you and the Hall boys and Joe Whiting and Aline would go with her; Minturn, too, can squeeze in if he doesn’t get his own car from the repair shop in time. Reitha and Betty Anne are going with Sam and Fred, and the Loring boys and Jessie Heath will go with us. But it does seem as if half the day was spoiled without Lawrence Earle, doesn’t it? When we’ve counted so on his going, too! Isn’t it hateful?”

“Yes, it is,” gloomed Maud. “If I had known he wasn’t going, I wouldn’t have tried to finish that dress, and I’d have had some sleep. As it is I’ll just have a miserable headache all day long, and all for nothing.”

“Well, you got your dress finished, didn’t you? You can be glad of that much.”

“Yes, but what’s the use? The other boys never notice what you have on. All they want is something to eat at a picnic.”

“Well, give them your angel cake and forget it.” Ethel laughed. “We’ll have a good time anyway, and just remember to be thankful that we didn’t have to cart that disagreeable Effie Martin along. If Lawrence Earle had gone with us and she had been along, I’d have died of mortification to have him think she was one of us.”

“Yes, so should I. You’d better keep Flora away from her vicinity next time. Flora is too soft hearted.”

“Well, I’ve fixed her. She knows what to say the next time Effie Martin asks her for an invitation. I made her understand that we don’t want to be mixed up at any time with a girl who has a reputation like Effie’s! Well, good-bye, I’ve got to finish putting the salt and pepper and olives and things in. Don’t forget the paper plates and napkins.” Maud hung up the receiver with a sigh.

T
he fresh, bracing air and the relaxed position soon brought Effie back to consciousness. At first she was just a little bewildered at her surroundings, for in that brief interval of unconsciousness she had thought herself lying in her mother’s armchair at home and listening to her mother’s sweet voice saying, “My little Euphemia.”

She had never liked her name. It was so strange and old-fashioned, just like the aunt for whom she had been named. But now in her mother’s tones, with that note of pleased surprise in her appearance, she was conscious as she returned to life again that the name sounded pleasant.

Then the scene was suddenly changed, and she lay in the road with a group of curious strangers about her, and heard a strong voice—that same voice that had spoken to the horse in such commanding tones—say, “Raise her head a little. There! She’s opening her eyes. Now, where is that cup of water?” She looked up and saw Lawrence Earle bending anxiously over her.

With her constitutional impulsiveness, she sat up, told them she was all right, and then jumped to her feet, but found she was more unstrung than she knew by her faint, for she tottered and would have fallen again had not Earle reached out a strong arm and supported her. He made her sit down on the bank a few minutes, and someone brought her a tin cup of water from a wayside spring. Effie felt very much astonished, for she could not remember to have been of so much importance since she had scarlet fever many years ago and her mother had given up everything else and ministered to her.

At first she sat on the grass, dazed, not really understanding what had happened, but by degrees her memory returned and she began to realize what she had been through. Then she started up and asked anxiously, “Where is the kid? Is he all right?”

“All right,” said the young man soothingly, as if she were a sick baby. “The woman in the farmhouse took him in to give him a drink of milk. He was only badly frightened. But if he had gone on a few yards farther, nothing could have prevented a catastrophe. You saved the child’s life. The quarry hole is just ahead—”

“I know,” murmured Effie, as if she were remembering a story she had read. “That’s why I jumped at him just then.”

“Well, you certainly did just the right thing,” said Earle heartily. “I never saw a rescue more neatly made. You hurled yourself at that horse as if you had been doing it every day of your life. You certainly had your courage with you all right! Some girl, I should say.”

Effie’s cheeks suddenly flushed red with self-consciousness. “Oh, that wasn’t anything!” she said almost sullenly, her eyes clouding over with bitterness as she remembered the day and why she was off riding alone when she would much rather have been on an excursion with the other girls.

“Well, I guess you’ll find that kid’s parents will think it is something when they get here,” said Earle earnestly. “Why that baby would be lying down in the quarry hole now, if it hadn’t been for you. They say a big rock has fallen from the bank this side of the road, and there wouldn’t have been room for the wagon to pass if the horse had tried to go through. It would have been certain death for the child, if you hadn’t saved him.”

“Well, there wasn’t anybody else to do it,” said Effie. “I had to do my best.” Her voice was still bitterly gloomy.

“Well, you did it all right, and you’re a heroine, though you don’t seem to know it yet.” The young man smiled.

“Humph!” said Effie scornfully, “People don’t make heroines out of my kind of stuff. You’ll find out. They’ll simply say I’m an awful tomboy and I ought to have stood back and waited for some man to take care of the kid. I know; I’ve heard ’em before!”

A rush of sudden tears came surprisingly into Effie’s eyes. She wasn’t a girl inclined to crying in public, but the shock of her recent experience had shaken her up. She brushed the tears away angrily and jerked herself up from the bank.

“Where’s my bicycle?” she asked roughly, as a small boy might have done. “I’ve gotta get out of here before anybody comes around. I’ll never hear the last of this. And I’ve torn my new dress, too!” she ended helplessly, looking ruefully down at a jagged tear under one of the pleats.

“You shouldn’t worry,” said the young man lightly. “You saved the kid’s life. There are more dresses in the world, but you can’t get a new child to take the place of one you love. You sit down again. You aren’t fit to start out yet. You’ve had a shock and must rest.”