THE CHRISTMAS BRIDE (24 page)

About half past two, having smoked up all the cigarettes she had with her, the lady went so far as to ask Margaret for some more. Margaret told her courteously that she didn’t use them. The visitor looked her up and down contemptuously and said after a pause, “No,
you
wouldn’t!” Then she whirled on her heel and went to the desk, sitting down and taking a sheet of paper out of the drawer. She wrote rapidly for a minute, and then flinging the pen down on the blotter, took an abrupt leave.

M
argaret had been working steadily all the morning ever since her arrival. She had not stopped for lunch. She did not even like to go across the hall into the dining room. She had a feeling that the visitor would examine every nook and cranny if she did, and there were a lot of papers in the back office that she did not want disturbed. Besides, who was this woman? What right had she in here anyway? Mr. Sterling might blame her if she left her alone. So Margaret stayed.

Mrs. Harris had rung the little silver lunch bell and waited five minutes. Finally, she opened the door of the back office softly and signed to Margaret with uplifted brows that lunch was ready. Margaret gave a noiseless signal that she understood but couldn’t come at present, and in a few minutes, the good little landlady appeared as silently as a bird might have entered the room with a nice lunch on a small tray and set it down noiselessly beside Margaret, departing as soundlessly as she had come—a feather could not have trod more lightly—but with an expression on her face that spoke volumes.

Margaret had managed a bit now and then surreptitiously, noiselessly, a bite to chew on, a swallow of the delicious milk, and worked on, making her fingers fly over the keys in constant monotony.

When the lady at last took her leave and Margaret heard the lady’s car start away from the house, she sat back in her chair and drew a sigh of relief. Then she got up and went into the front office. There on the desk lay the paper the lady had written, and without intending to read it, her eyes took in at a glance the few words it contained:

There it lay in letters so large that anyone coming into the room could not fail to catch its gist. If Mrs. Harris should come in, she could not help seeing it!

Margaret went to the window and stood looking out with troubled eyes for a minute, trying to think what was her duty. Then she came back, folded the paper, and slipped it inside an envelope, laying the envelope on the blotter where Greg would not fail to find it. Now he need not know that she had seen it. Then she went back and finished her cold lunch, eating slowly, thoughtfully, a cloud over her face.

Presently came Mrs. Harris for the tray.

“Well, is she gone at last?” She peered cautiously into the other room and, finding it empty, stepped through and went and looked out the window. Margaret was glad she had put the note decently into an envelope.

“Yes, she’s gone,” she said, trying to make her tone casual. She would protect her employer as far as she could.

“Do you know who she is?” Mrs. Harris came back to the inner room.

“No,” said Margaret, still brightly casual. “I think somebody perhaps come for advice. Maybe somebody in trouble. She seemed awfully restless.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Harris, considering that view, “you don’t think then that she’s any of his
friends
—or relatives?”

“I shouldn’t suppose so,” said Margaret. “She doesn’t look like his kind.”

“Well, I should hope not,” said the little old lady, setting her lips firmly. “I certainly never had a woman like that in my house! She didn’t really look respectable. Such red lips! And those long earrings! She looked outlandish!”

“People do dress that way nowadays,” said Margaret thoughtfully. “A great many people do.”

“Not
nice
people!” said Mrs. Harris. “All that
makeup
! My! I can’t see how they can bear themselves! I think they look just grotesque, don’t you? You don’t wear makeup.”

“No, I don’t care for it,” said Margaret.

“Did you see her car?”

“Why, no! I didn’t happen to go to the window. Did she have a nice car?”

“Nice! Well, it wasn’t ladylike. It was painted white with a red stripe around it, and it was one of those strange low kind of cars that sporting men drive. I really felt kind of ashamed to have a woman like that coming out of my house and driving away in a car like that. Did she say she was coming again?”

“She didn’t say,” said Margaret. “She asked when Mr. Sterling was coming back, and I told her I didn’t know.”

“H’m!” said Mrs. Harris. “Well, I’m glad she’s gone! Poor thing, you look all beat out! Eating your lunch in that piecemeal way. Well, I sincerely hope she doesn’t come again!”

Greg came in about four o’clock. He seemed happy and a bit absent-minded. He sat down and began to read some small books he had brought with him. Margaret told him about the caller and gave him the note, and he looked annoyed.

“How long did you say she stayed? Heavens and earth! Where’s that telephone book? Thank you.”

He applied himself to the telephone, and Margaret vanished into the other room trying to rattle her machine so that she wouldn’t hear the conversation. She wondered if she ought to go upstairs for a few minutes and give him privacy. Then she reflected that he could close the doors between the rooms if he so desired. Anyhow, she was only a secretary. He probably wouldn’t think it mattered what she heard. Perhaps it was just as well she should know what attitude he took toward her so that she would know what to do in case the woman came again.

And then she heard Greg’s voice booming out clearly over her machine’s clatter.

“That you, Alice? Too bad you had such a long wait this morning, and I’m sorry, but I can’t make it to your dinner tonight. You’ll have to get somebody else in my place. I’ve made other arrangements for the evening. No, I can’t make it tomorrow evening. You’ll have to excuse me. I’m awfully busy these days, and I don’t fit into that kind of thing anyway…. What’s that?…No, not then either…. I just haven’t time for social affairs…. No, not possibly! But what is the trouble? Just give me an idea. You aren’t sick are you? Nothing happened to your mother or sister? Nobody dead?…Oh, money! I see!…Debts? What kind of debts? Debts of honor? What does that mean—gambling?…Sorry, but I haven’t any money to pay anybody’s gambling debts. Don’t believe in them. It’s God’s money, not mine, and I can’t use it that way…. Yes, perhaps I am old-fashioned. I don’t mind…. What night? Sunday night? No, I’m going to church…. Yes, I suppose
that
is old-fashioned, too…. No, not any night, Alice. I’m a busy working man and can’t turn night into day. To tell you the truth, I don’t like the crowd you run with. They’re too speedy for me. And I don’t care to go to places where everybody is drinking. It’s disgusting to me…. No, I haven’t changed my ideas on that subject either…. What? You’re afraid they’ll sell you out? Your
friends
sell you out! Seems to me I wouldn’t call them friends…. Oh, you mean you might lose your apartment? You mean your landlord might
put
you out? Well, I’m not sure but that would be a good thing for you. You know, I think it would be a lot better for you if you went home with your mother…. Oh yes, I know you always used to say you didn’t get along, but that’s not right either. One only has one mother, you know. Listen, Alice! You really oughtn’t to be living alone that way. It isn’t right, especially in your position. You might be misunderstood…. Oh well. You can laugh, but I’m telling you…. You really ought to go home. People would think a lot more of you…. All right, you can laugh if you like, but it’s the truth….”

Suddenly Margaret heard that sharp peculiar click of the telephone that indicated an angry conversationalist at the other end of the wire had reached her limit and hung up, and then she heard Greg chuckle amusedly and sit back in his chair. When she glanced through into the next room a few minutes later, he was deep in his book again, his brows drawn together in concentration.

Margaret went on with her work, an undertone of relief in her mind. Nevertheless, she wondered who was this lady to whom he had talked so frankly, obviously admitting a past in which he had known her well. A wild idea that perhaps she had once been his wife and was divorced came to her. Greg had told her his brief story but hadn’t mentioned any girls. There hadn’t been any place in that brief autobiography he had given her in the tearoom for any episode of this sort. Had he been merely reassuring her? Yet he seemed so frank. Well, it was none of her business, of course, how many wives and sweethearts he had. He was only her employer, and because he was her employer, she had no business finding fault with him. What did it matter? She would just forget it and do her work and be happy.

But the subject would keep coming back and troubling her. It wasn’t just curiosity. She wanted her Mr. Sterling to be all that he seemed to be.

Of course she knew that there were men who had a great many girlfriends of different kinds and thought nothing of it. But a friend like the woman who had been in the office that day was not consistent with his profession of Christianity, or with the unique business he was trying to establish. Still, he couldn’t help how old friends turned out, of course.

Well, he hadn’t gone to her dinner anyway! He had told her plainly that he didn’t like her crowd and wouldn’t drink! What more did she, a mere secretary, want to reassure her?

So she tried to put the subject away from her mind.

Mrs. Harris tapped at the door just as dusk was coming down to bring a special delivery letter that had just arrived, and Greg looked up from his book to thank her.

“By the way, Mrs. Harris,” he said with a boyish grin, “could you take an extra boarder for dinner tonight? I’ve got some work I want to do here in the office this evening, and a man is coming here about eight o’clock to see me. I don’t want to waste the time to go out and get something to eat.”

“I certainly can!” said Mrs. Harris in pleased dignity.

“We’re having a beefsteak, and there’ll be plenty to go around.

“That sounds good,” said Greg with another grin, and went back to his book.

Margaret, in the other room, paused in her work and wondered.

At dinner he was just like a merry boy, asking for more fried potatoes and string beans, praising everything on the table, saying a great deal about the strawberry jam, which he declared was just like his mother’s. Mrs. Harris was immensely pleased.

After dinner Margaret hesitated a moment at the door.

“Shall you need me tonight, Mr. Sterling?” she asked quite formally.

“No, not tonight, thank you, Miss McLaren,” he said with a pleasant smile. And then looking at her more intently, he said, “You’d better get a good rest. You look as if you’ve had a hard day.”

“Oh no!” she protested. “I enjoy my work.”

As she went upstairs to her room, she found that she was a trifle disappointed that she was dismissed this evening. She must deal with herself about this, she told herself severely. He was only an employer, and she was only a secretary. She had been looking on the business with as much interest as if they were partners, and she must just realize that she was a hired servant. That was probably what that dreadful woman had been sent to the office for today, to make her realize that she must guard herself. Her life was such a lonely one that she would be greatly in danger of getting too much interested in a man who had been so kind to her as Sterling had been. She must look out for herself. He was a very attractive man, and he didn’t seem to be aware of it either. So many were.

So Margaret worked demurely through Saturday, shep herded her thoughts on Sunday, and went back again to her work Monday morning quite rested and refreshed. She had written a long letter to her grandmother. She had been figuring out her necessary expenses, what she must buy to be presentable at her work, and how much she could save. She was overjoyed to find that she would soon be able to give her grandparents quite a substantial sum toward paying the mortgage off. She only wished that she were at home for a few hours so that she might find out if they were really getting along all right otherwise. It seemed so awful to have to have them away off there alone. But it must be in God’s plan that she should be here. She would trust it to God.

There was no letter from Vermont on Monday morning, and Margaret was grave and a bit sad at her work.

Greg breezed in near noon and told her he had joined a class in a Bible school. He was very enthusiastic about it. He said there was a great deal about the Bible that he never knew he didn’t know, and it was going to be great, studying it this way. He couldn’t go regularly, of course, at least not every day, but he would run in when he could and study their books between times. He had just come from a class that morning.

He sat down at his desk a few minutes and read his mail, dictated a letter or two in his brief, direct style, asked a few questions about some books he had ordered that hadn’t arrived, then picked up his hat and overcoat to go out again, and Margaret went back to her typewriter.

“By the way,” he said, stepping to her doorway, “I’ve got to be away for a few days this week. I’m going up to Vermont on business. Just where does your family live? I was wondering if you wouldn’t like to drive up with me and spend Thanksgiving with your grandmother. I could drop you at your home and pick you up the day after Thanksgiving, or maybe Saturday if I couldn’t get through sooner.”

Margaret’s hands lifted from the keys of her machine and flew to her heart, her eyes grew large, and her face was fairly white with delighted wonder.

“Oh, but I couldn’t let you do that for me after all the rest!” she said.

Greg’s eyes lingered almost tenderly on her.
Poor little girl
, he thought.
She must still be afraid of me!

“I know,” he hastened to say shyly, “I know I’m only a stranger to you still, and perhaps you think it isn’t quite the thing for you to take such a long ride with your employer, especially when you haven’t known me very well. I’d thought of that, and I wondered if you would like someone to go along, a sort of chaperone? Only I wondered where we’d take her until we got ready to go back. Your people might not want anybody else around when they have you only a day or so. They might want you all to themselves. I’d thought of Mrs. Harris. I heard her say once she used to live up in New England. But she told me last night her folks up there are all dead, so of course she couldn’t go and visit anybody, and besides, she says her niece is to be here with her over Thanksgiving. Then I thought of that Nurse Gowen. We might be able to get her if she’s through with that nervous case, but—what would you do with her when we got there?”