New Name
Authors: Grace Livingston Hill
What Christian Authors are Saying about Grace Livingston Hill:
Grace Livingston Hill, often referred to as the “Queen of Christian Romance,” has given millions of readers timeless Christian novels, offering inspiration, romance, and adventure. The simple message in each of her books reminds us that God has the answer to all our questions.
—Wanda E. Brunstetter,
New York Times
bestselling author
I’ve long been a fan of Grace Livingston Hill. Her romance and attention to detail has always captivated me—even as a young girl. I’m excited to see these books will continue to be available to new generations and highly recommend them to readers who haven’t yet tried them. And for those of you like me who have read the books, I hope you’ll revisit the stories and fall in love with them all over again.
—Tracie Peterson, award-winning, bestselling author of the Song of Alaska and Striking a Match series
Grace Livingston Hill’s books are a treasured part of my young adult years. There was such bedrock faith to them along with the fun. Her heroines were intrepid yet vulnerable. Her heroes were pure of heart and noble (unless they needed to be reformed of course). And the books were often adventures. Just writing this makes me want to hunt down and read again a few of my favorites.
—Mary Connealy, Carol Award-winning author of
Cowboy Christmas
and the Lassoed in Texas series
Grace Livingston Hill books were a big part of my life, from the time I was a teenager and onward. My mother loved her books and shared them with me and my sisters. We always knew we could find an engaging, uplifting story between the covers. And her stories are still enjoyable and encouraging. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but
The Girl from Montana
and
Marcia Schuyler
are two of my favorites. Terrific stories!
—Susan Page Davis, author of The Ladies’ Shooting Club and Prairie Dreams series
The hero, in Grace Livingston Hill’s timeless romantic novels, is always a hero. The heroine is always a strong woman who stands up for her beliefs. He is always handsome; she is always beautiful. And an inviting message of faith is woven throughout each story without preaching. These enduring stories will continue to delight a new generation of readers—just as they did for our great-grandmothers.
—Suzanne Woods Fisher, bestselling author of the Lancaster County Secret series
As a young reader just beginning to know what romance was all about, I was introduced to Grace Livingston Hill’s books. She created great characters with interesting backgrounds and then plopped them down into fascinating settings where they managed to get into romantic pickles that kept me reading until the love-conquers-all endings. Her romance-filled stories showed this young aspiring writer that yes, love can make the fictional world go round.
—Ann H. Gabhart, award-winning author
My grandmother was an avid reader, and Grace Livingston Hill’s books lined her shelves for the years of my childhood and adolescence. Once I dipped into one of them, I was hooked. Years of reading Hill’s stories without a doubt influenced my own desire to become a storyteller, and it’s with great fondness that I remember many of her titles.
—Tracy L. Higley, author of
Garden of Madness
If you’ve enjoyed the classic works of writers like Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer, it is way past time for you to discover the inspirational stories of Grace Livingston Hill!
—Anna Schmidt, award-winning author of the Women of Pinecraft series
Ah, Grace Livingstone Hill! Can any other writer compare? Her lyrical, majestic tone, her vivid descriptions…they melt the heart of readers from every generation. Some of my fondest memories from years gone by involve curling up in my mother’s chair and reading her Grace Livington Hill romances. They swept me away to places unknown and reminded me that writers—especially writers of faith—could truly impact their world.
—Janice Hanna Thompson, author of the Weddings by Bella series
Grace Livingston Hill’s stories are like taking a stroll through a garden in the spring: refreshing, fragrant, and delightful—a place you’ll never want to leave.
—MaryLu Tyndall, Christy nominee and author of the Surrender to Destiny series
Enduring stories of hope, triumph over adversity, and true sacrificial love await every time you pick up a Grace Livingston Hill romance.
—Erica Vetsch, author of
A Bride’s Portrait of Dodge City, Kansas
© 2012 by Grace Livingston Hill Print
ISBN 978-1-61626-653-0 eBook
Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-60742-798-8
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-60742-799-5
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.
All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Cover design: Faceout Studio,
www.faceoutstudio.com
Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683,
www.barbourbooks.com
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses
.
Printed in the United States of America.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
1920s
,
Eastern United States
M
urray Van Rensselaer had been waiting for an hour and a quarter in the reception room of the Blakeley Hospital.
He was not good at waiting. Things usually came at his call, or sometimes even anticipated his desires. It was incredible that he should suddenly find himself in such a maddening set of circumstances!
He still wore the great fur-lined overcoat in which he had arrived after the accident, but he seemed to be unaware of it as he paced excitedly up and down the stark leather-upholstered room.
Across the marble corridor he could just see the tip of white, starched linen that was the cap of the uniformed person with bifocals who sat at the rolltop desk and presided over this fiendish place.
Three times he had pranced pompously across the tessellated floor and demanded to know what had become of the patient he had brought in. She had only looked him over coldly, impersonally, and reiterated that word would be sent to him as soon as the examination was completed. Even his name, which he had condescendingly mentioned, had failed to make the slightest impression upon her. She had merely filed his immaculate calling card and ordered him back to the reception room.
The tall clock in the corner, the only live thing in the room, seemed to tick in eons, not seconds. He regarded it belligerently. Why should a clock seem to have eyes that searched to your soul? What was a clock doing there anyway, in a place where they regarded not time, and were absorbed in their own terrible affairs? The clock seemed to be the only connecting link with the outside world.
He strode nearer and read the silver plate of the donor, inscribed in memory of “Elizabeth,” and turned sharply back to the door again with a haunting vision of the white-faced girl he had brought in awhile before. Bessie! Little Bessie Chapparelle! She was “Elizabeth” too.
What a cute kid she had been when he first knew her! Strange that on this day of all days he should have come upon her standing at that corner after all these years, suddenly grown up and stunningly beautiful!
And now she lay crumpled, somewhere up in those distant marble halls!
He shuddered in his heavy coat and mopped the cold perspiration from his brows. If anything should happen to Bessie! And his fault! Everybody would of course say it was his fault! He knew he was a reckless driver. He knew he took chances, but he had always gotten by before! If she hadn’t been so darned pretty, so surprisingly sweet and unusual, and like the child she used to be—and that truck coming around the corner at thirty-five miles an hour!
The air was full of antiseptics. It seemed to him that he had been breathing it in until his head was swimming, that cold, pungent, penetrating smell that dwelt within those white marble walls like a living spirit of the dead!
Gosh! What a place! Why did he stay? He could go home and telephone later. Nobody was compelling him to stay. Bessie was a poor girl with nobody to take her side. Nobody but her mother!
He halted in his excited walk.
Her mother!
If anything happened to Bessie, somebody would have to tell her mother!
A door opened far away in the upper marble regions, and the echo of a delirious cry shivered down through the corridors. Rubber wheels somewhere rolled a heavy object down a space and out of hearing; voices rose in a subdued murmur as if they passed a certain point and drifted away from the main speech, drifted down the stairs, vague, detached words. Then all was still again.
Something dragged at his heart. He had thought they werecoming, and now suddenly he was afraid to have them come. What a relief! Just a little longer respite till he could get ahold of himself. He wasn’t at all fit, or things wouldn’t get ahold of him this way. He had been going pretty hard since he left college. Too many highballs! Too late at night!—Too many cigarettes! The old man was right! If he hadn’t been so infernally offensive in the way he put it! But one couldn’t of course go that pace forever and not feel it.