An Unwilling Guest (16 page)

"You poor dear! I am so sorry for you!" Her words were from her heart too, which surprised her even more. She had never had much to draw out her sympathy and knew not that her soul contained any.

"Oh, Evelyn, is that you?" he said,
eagerly grasping her hand. "No
body ever looked so good before. I've been in this wretched spot for ages it seems to me. Last night was a purgatory. That nurse is a fool!"

Evelyn meantime was swiftly taking off wraps and hat and noting with observing eye what was needed. How could she the most quickly make him comfortable? His forehead was hot when she kissed him. His eager response to her greeting touched her more than she cared to show. She laid hands upon a cle
an towel and dipped it unceremo
niously into the ice pitcher and went over to him to bathe his face and hands.

"Oh, how good that feels!" he said, closing his eyes and submitting to her gentle passes on face and hands. "Why didn't that fellow think of it when I felt as if my head was on fire. He is as stupid as a boiled owl."

The nurse meanwhile had taken advantage of the presence of the lady to slip into the hall and tell his g
rievances to a sympathetic cham
bermaid, who was answering calls from early risers and hovering near a linen closet.

Evelyn wiped her brother's face and hands gently and
straightened
his bedclothes. She found his hair brush and brushed his hair. Then after ringing for a maid and a bill of fare she ordered up a dainty breakfast, and strange to say she did not select expensive dainties such as she had been used to do, but chose rather some of the plain, homely things which she remembered as tasting so good at
Hillcroft
. They would not
be so good as Allison's, of course, but perhaps their very homeliness might coax Dick to taste them.

He watched her as she moved about, setting a chair at just the right angle here, opening a blind and arranging a curtain there. The room looked like a different place since she had come into it. He had always known that his sister was beautiful; but he had never noticed that tender, lovely expression of womanliness that she wore this gray morning. Had it always been there and he too blind to see it, or had some new influence come into her life? He felt his heart quicken with a new feeling toward her.

When the breakfast came up she sent the heavy-eyed nurse to get something to eat while she remained and fed her brother herself and ate her breakfast there with him from the same tray. The Evelyn he thought he knew would have taken her breakfast before she came up to see him at all and then have left thin
gs to the hired nurse. This Eve
lyn seemed to know beforehand what he wanted. When the breakfast was over she darkened the room and soothed him to sleep by gentle passes of her hand across his forehead, utterly refusing to talk until he should have had a good long rest. She had seen Allison put her father to sleep in this way more than once when he came home in the evening with a hard headache after an unusually trying day. It was marvelous how much her three weeks' visit had taught her. There was not a turn she had to take now but something Mrs. Grey or Allison had done guided her in her untried way. It was strange they should influence her so, she thought. She forgot that they were almost the only people she had ever watched about homely work-a-day life. She sat for a while in the darkened room while her brother slept and thought about it all, and wondered what she should do next, and if she would be able to carry out her new character till Dick was well. Then she shut her lips a good deal as Allison had done and resolved that she would; after that she set herself to see what she coul
d do to make the room more home
like.

When Richard Rutherford awoke after a long, refreshing sleep he thought that he had been moved to another place. The sun had come
out and the curtains were drawn back to let a flood of it across the room. This had been done as he showed signs of waking. There was a glowing fire in the hitherto cold, black grate, and his sister in a crimson dress sat in a little rocking-chair by it with her feet on the fender. A large bright screen kept the light from hurting his eyes and the delicate perfume of
Jacqueminot
roses floated through the air from a large bowlful on a little stand near the bed, which also contained several new books and the morning paper.

The
transforming of that stiff angular dreary hotel room into a homelike spot was not a difficult th
ing for Evelyn Rutherford to ac
complish. She was a girl who generally achieved what she set about. The reason she did not often do nice things was that she did not rouse herself from her own pleasure or eas
e to take the trouble. Now, how
ever, it pleased her whim to leave no stone unturned to make this first attempt at goodness a success. Perhaps the very energy she put into this and the strange vagaries into which her fancy led her were only the ways in which she eased the pains of a newly aroused conscience which she knew not how to soothe to sleep again, or at least she had at hand none of her other means of doing so.

It is not difficult to do nice things with plenty of money and taste at command. She had known at a glance what was needed, and sent a messenger boy out to one of the great stores nearby with a written order for a few articles to be delivered on approval. After the boy had started down the hall a new thought came to her and she recalled him and added an order for a few plainly framed good pictures, within a certain price, to be sent, from which she could m
ake a selection. Per
haps it was these as much as anything else which gave the "at home" air to the room when Richard Rutherford awoke, though he did not at first notice them. His sister had selected them by fancy rather than knowledge, for she was not an art student and did not judge pictures by their worth, only by the way they spoke to her. She had chosen from the lot sent over to her some horses' heads and dogs by Rosa Bonheur, a pretty etching, and Hoffman's child head of Christ. It was a curious collection. She knew that her brother was fond of horses and
dogs. The Hoffman she had seen at the
Greys'
and been struck by the wonderful expression of the face, and a fancied likeness in the eyes of Doctor Grey. That it was supposed to represent the boy Christ Jesus, strange to say, she did not know until after she had bought it. She had this hung on the wall opposite the foot of the bed, and when her brother began to notice the pictures this was the first one his eyes rested upon.

He lay quietly looking about him for a moment when he first awoke. There was a restful, homelike quiet pervading the room. His sister had her head turned away from him and seemed to be thinking. The nurse was nowhere to be seen. The door opened softly and the doctor stepped in. The patient looked up with a smile.

"Why, you look more cheerful to
day, and what's happened to the place? It bears the touches of a woman's hand." He glanced about, and then seeing Evelyn, who had arisen in surprise and was standing by the mantel, a half-suppressed "Ah!" escaped him.

Evelyn wondered if it was her imagination that detected a note of pride in her brother's voice as he said: "My sister, Doctor
MacFarlan
, come all the way from Ohio to coddle me." At least, whether it were fancy or truth, it went far toward strengthening Evelyn's purpose in her new way. Ways of carrying out her plan crowded into her mind thick and fast. She actually began to plan for self-sacrifice, a thing she had always detested. It made her feel more virtuous when she had done something to please her brother to know that it had cost her an effort, or the surrender of something which made life pleasanter"

When the doctor was gone and the nurse had made his patient as comfortable as was possible, Evelyn ordered dinner. This time the table was set by the bedside in regular order, the roses in the center and everything as dainty as if she were serving a luncheon at home. This became the established way of taking their meals. Evelyn did not attempt to go down to the dining room at all, but stayed with her brother after she found that it seemed pleasanter to him. It is true this did not require much sacrifice on her part, as she was alone and would not enjoy dining by herself, but she liked to think she was doing a good deal by this little act. Indeed, in the days that followed she began to
feel that she could almost compete with Allison herself for deeds of valor and sanctity. She intended to make up for it by a gay season in New York when this siege was over, but in the meantime why not cover herself with glory and still her
conscience? So she wrought dili
gently, even arising at night once or twice to bathe her brother's aching head and read aloud to him when she heard from her adjoining room his restless moans and knew he could not sleep.

She gamed for all this devotion a tender acknowledgment once, "Oh, you are a good sister!" This went farther into her heart than all her self-praise had done and brought her nearer to her brot
her. Never
theless there were days when he was cross and hard to manage and soothe. And in these days she would have found it easy to return to her former habitual haughtiness and let him entirely alone, were it not for her growing interest in her experiment.

All this time her little daily prayer
was uttered with a growing com
placency and a tendency to forget its import, to merely continue the habit as a sort of talisman to keep her right in the eyes of a man whom she respected and honored.

It was the afternoon of her arrival that they had their talk about the
Greys
.

"I don't remember to have seen that Hoffman before," said the young man, looking earnestly at a picture hang
ing on the wall in front of him
. "Where did it come from? Nor in fact any of these o
ther pic
tures," looking around curiously. "I have not been moved, have I? This surely is the same room, for I have
counted the cracks in the ceil
ing enough times to have them indelibly impressed on my memory, and that surely is the same little imp glaring at me from the wallpaper. I cannot be mistaken. How did you
manage it, Evelyn? Are you a ma
gician, to wave a wand and bring forth beauties everywhere?"

Evelyn smiled. It was pleasant to have her efforts noticed.

"Oh, I sent over to
Woolth
's
for some pictures and chose a few I
thought you would like. What did you call that head you were looking at? A Hoffman? Who is it supposed to be? They had it in
Hillcroft
, and Allison was very fond of it. It seems a remarkable face. I was glad they sent it over, for I always liked it."

"Why, Evelyn, don't you know that picture? It is from the famous painting of the child Christ in the temple, by Hoffman," said the brother, who was more of a devotee of art than his sister and knew pictures and their artists, by name at least.

Evelyn started and actually flushed, she knew not why. Was this then the Christ picture? Was that why it had appealed so to her? And the likeness of Doctor Grey. Had she not heard in that young people's meeting in
Hillcroft
something said about the followers of Christ growing into his image, or likeness?
whether from the Bible or else
where she knew not. Was this, then, the explanation? Of course the picture was but a figment of the artist's imagination, anyway, for no one knew how the real Christ looked
, but still she could not under
stand the ideal. And this ideal Christ-expression was the same she had noted in his follower on that hill-top as he looked off and saw
in
fancy the opening heavens and his coming Lord.

Evelyn turned away from the pic
ture with a sigh almost of impa
tience. Was this thing then to pursue her everywhere? Could she get away from it in no way? Here she had deliberately chosen this picture and now she could no more look at it in comfort. How annoying that she should not have known! Of course she had supposed it was some religious character or some saint, but not the Christ himself,

"No, I did not know what it was supposed to represent," said Evelyn slowly. "Perhaps you would rather have some other picture hanging there where you have to look at it all the t
ime
. We can exchange any of these."

"No, leave it," he said, looking at it thoughtfully. "It is a fine face and I like to study it. There is such bu
oyancy of youth and entire hope
fulness in the face. It rests one. Somehow I shall not dare complain so much with the cheerful countenance over there. Who is this Allison you speak of? That is a peculiar name. I don't remember ever to have heard it before. Does it belong to man, woman, or child?"

Evelyn laughed. "Allison Grey is a very beautiful girl, Dick. You would simply rave over her, and say she ought to be painted and '
sculped
' and have poetry written to her
, and all those things your art
ist friends do. She lives in
Hillcroft
, and it was in her home I was s
tay
ing, much against my will. Oh, no, it was not uncomfortable. I assure you I was treated most delightfully, and now that it is past I look back upon the experience as something rich. I don't know but I was rather sorry to come away after all. I never was in a place where people seemed to think so much of one another and of their home, before. Allison is Dr. Maurice Grey's sister. You remember him, do you not?"

"Grey? Why, surely. You don't say! How peculiar! I remember now, he did live out West somewhere, but I never bothered my head to learn where. Odd to think he lived in the same town with our revered aunt and we never knew it. The world isn't so large after all, is it? Grey was a good fellow. We would have been close chums if he had not been so overwhelmingly busy all the time. When he was not buried in his books he was out slumming or off at a prayer meeting. He tried to get me into all those things, but somehow I
didn't incline that way. I some
times think it might have been a good thing for me if I had stuck to him and his schemes. He wasn't any of your molly-coddles, either. He was captain of the baseball team at one time and a first-rate runner and good at all outdoor sports. And
he had a voice like a whole or
chestra, from the bass drum up. Did you ever hear him sing? No, of course you didn't. My, but he can sing! He was head of the glee club, but gave it up because he had so little time. He was one of the men that make you think t
here is something in life worth
while besides just the pleasure you can get out of it. You like to have him around. You feel safe when he is by. You know nothing very bad can happen to him. Though I don't know but he makes you feel uncomfortable too; he is doing so tremendously well with his own life that you feel mean to look at your own. I have often wonde
red what kind of a home the fel
low had. He used to speak of his mother and sister, and father too, with real affection; but he was one who would feel affection for a cat that belonged to him, so you could not judg
e by that. Besides, he is so un
usual that there can't be many like him. His family are doubtless quite commonplace. How did you find them?"

"Anything but commonplace," answered Evelyn quickly. "They are the most extraordinary people I ever met. They do absolutely nothing to please themselves, so far as I could find out, without first inquiring
whet
her it will help or hinder some
one else. I felt smaller and smaller the longer I stayed. Not that they obtruded their goodness, oh, dear me, no! They were sweetness itself, but I could not help seeing how differently they looked at everything. Still, they seemed very happy."

She stopped, musing, and looked at the picture.

"Tell me all about it," said her brot
her, looking interested. "Hu
manity is always interesting. I like to get hold of a new type. What kind of a house do they live in, and what do they do from morning to night? Begin at the beginning and tell what they did the first thing in the morning and what they had for breakfast. I'm sick of all the people I've met lately; perhaps these will be a change. I suppose you found a good many pretty funny things didn't you?"

Evelyn hesitated. She suddenly found that there were some things she did not care to tell; also it grated on her just the least little bit to seem to make fun of the people who had been so kind to her. Dick doubtless would think some things very queer and they had seemed so to her when they occurred, but now that she had come to tell them for someone else to laugh over she shrank from it, she knew not why. Moreover, the thing that had impressed Evelyn more than any other habit of the Grey household had been the family worship, held before breakfast every morning. At first she had not known about it, because she came down late; but afterward, when
she began to get down earlier, she found that they came together to ask God's blessing upon the day. Whenever the family were all gathered at the evening hour for retiring they also knelt in prayer together. This had been so utterly new and embarrassing together to Evelyn that she did not like to speak of it. She felt afraid of betraying her own emotion in her voice if she should attempt to do so. How could she help remembering the strange, creepy sensation that came over her when she first heard Mr. Grey's kind voice as if he were talking to a friend, say:

"And bring to the stranger who has come into our home for a little while a rich blessing. May she be a help to us, and may we in no way hinder her."