The Strange Proposal (15 page)

Mary Elizabeth looked as if she wanted to jump right up from her chair and embrace him, though she didn’t. She only sat eagerly and outlined her plans.

“Better take some of your friends down with you, first, and see how the old house looks. That will probably cure you,” said her father with another sad little smile.

“No,” said the girl, her eyes shining. “I’m only taking Sam. He and I get along famously, and when we’ve looked things over, I’ll report. Do I need to take a carpenter and a plumber and an electrician down, or can I find them there?”

“Find them there, of course. That’s the fair way to treat a place where you own property anyway, employ local men. But I should say you’d better take some servants along.”

“Not till I’ve seen it,” said the girl firmly. “Just Sam and I are going first to look things over. Uncle Rob said Sam might go, though I don’t think Aunt Clarice liked it very much. She has a pet camp where she wants him to go, and he hates it.”

“I see. Well, if you think Sam would be happy going with you, I’ll call your uncle up and ask him to see that he goes to take care of you. How is that?”

“Fine,” said the daughter, giving him a loving look. “I think we’ll start tomorrow morning. It’s only a two-hour drive, isn’t it? I’ve almost forgotten.”

“About that!” said her father. “Better have the car gone over before you leave, and don’t run any risks.”

“I won’t,” said the girl with shining eyes. “And Dad, please don’t inform anybody where I’ve gone or what we’re going to do. I’ve got a special reason for asking.”

He looked at her keenly for an instant.

“Of course not,” he said. “You’re not running away from anybody, are you?”

“Not anybody that matters,” said Mary Elizabeth with a comforting smile. “Not now that you’ve promised to go along.”

“All right, little girl. And if you decide to really carry out this scheme, you’d better leave an order for the telephone to be connected.”

Mary Elizabeth’s next move was to call her uncle’s house and ask for Sam.

Fortunately Aunt Clarice was not at home. The housekeeper answered.

“Mr. Sam’s went down to the office with his father this morning, Miss Mary,” said the woman. “He mostly goes with his father, lately.”

So Mary Elizabeth, with a question in her eyes, called up her uncle’s office.

“Uncle Rob,” she asked crisply, “is Sam there? And if I come down to the office, could I see you and him for five minutes? I’ll promise not to stay longer.”

“You’ll be welcome, Mary Beth,” said her uncle, “and you can stay as long as you like. You always had good sense.”

So Mary Elizabeth went to her uncle’s office and was welcomed eagerly by both the old and young Wainwright.

“It’s about Sam,” she said with a gleam in her eye for both relatives. “Is Sam working regularly in the office now?”

“Well, he’s been helping me out the last few days,” said his father, looking at the boy with a twinkle and a grin. “Why, Mary Beth? Did you wish to offer him another position?”

Sam grinned at his father’s grave tone.

“Well, I wanted him to help me out for a few days,” said the girl, “but I wouldn’t want to take him away from a regular job.”

“Well, I don’t know but I could spare him awhile if it’s anything important. How about it, Sam? Can you help your cousin out?”

“Sure thing!” said the boy with embarrassed eyes.

“Well, I’m driving down to the shore to look the old cottage over for Dad, and I’d like a man along,” said Mary Elizabeth.

“Hmm!” said her uncle comically. “This is the first time I’ve ever known you to be short a man, Mary Beth, and I wouldn’t want to see you in a situation like that. But are you sure there isn’t some more eligible man?”

“I’d rather have Sam, Uncle Rob, if you can spare him.”

“Of course I can spare him, if you really need him. When do you want to start?”

“Tomorrow morning early, if that’s not too soon.”

“Well, Son, speak up. Will you go?”

“Gosh, yes!” said Sam with a look of delight in his face.

“Then I would advise you to go home early, boy, and get your fishing tackle and your bathing suit together. You might need them in between helping.” Uncle Robert gave a wink toward Mary Elizabeth. “How long are you staying, Mary Beth?”

“Probably only two or three days now. It depends on how I find things and what needs to be done. Are you still willing I should take Sam down with me if we decide to stay there this summer? Dad thinks he’d like it. He’ll come down weekends anyway. Perhaps you’d come with him sometimes?”

“Sure, I’ll come. I’d love to. It gets rather dull here in the city when your aunt is in the mountains. Yes, Sam can come if he likes. There won’t be so much for him to do here in the office during the hot weather. I think he can finish the lists he’s making between trips.” He gave his niece another broad wink and a curious twist of his kind, pleasant mouth that looked sometimes so much like his son Jeffrey’s mouth.

“That’s great! Then he doesn’t have to go to camp?”

“No!” said his father. “I’ve put my foot down about that.”

So Mary Elizabeth carried Sam off in her car and landed him at home to pack and went back to her own preparations as gleeful as if she were only thirteen herself.

The next morning they started like two children on a picnic, Mary Elizabeth reflecting wickedly that she would be away when Boothby Farwell called that morning, according to a note she had received the night before, and her maid was instructed to say only that she was away for a few days. So she would not be followed, and she would have time to examine herself and find out just where she stood. For Mary Elizabeth had not yet answered John Saxon’s letter, and that was one of the things she meant to do when she got to the shore. It had seemed to her that there, in the stillness and beauty and freedom from her world, she could more properly answer that letter, and her soul was impatient to find out just what she was going to allow it to say.

The day was fair and lovely, neither too cool nor too hot, a rare day, a June day at its best. The roads were good, and the way open with little traffic.

By common consent the two travelers talked but little till they were out in the open country with only a little clean village by the way now and then.

“I had a letter from Mr. Saxon,” volunteered Sam at last, settling comfortably back with his eyes peeled for a startled rabbit that might spring out of the scrub oak along the way.

“Did you?” answered Mary Elizabeth coolly, with no sign of the start the announcement had given her senses. “How is he? Did he say?”

“Naw! He doesn’t talk about things like that. He doesn’t talk about himself. He was talking about us fellas. He’s writing to us every little while, every week, maybe. If we do the work he sets us and answer him, then we get another letter.”

“Work? What work are you doing for him?”

“Why, the Bible lessons he sends. We’re taking a course, see? He sends us a new one as soon as we get the first one worked out.”

“That sounds interesting,” chirruped Mary Elizabeth. “I’d like to see them. Has he sent you any yet?”

“Oh, sure! This is the second one I have.”

“Did you bring them along?”

“Course! I expect to do a lotta studying while I’m down here—that is, if you think I’ll have time.”

“Why, of course,” said Mary Elizabeth. “There’ll be heaps of time. We just have to give orders to men and things like that and then wait around and see that they do it. I’d like to do some studying myself, if you think I’m not too stupid. I never knew much about the Bible.”

“Aw, quit yer kidding!” said the boy.

“I mean it,” said Mary Elizabeth. “I’ve never studied the Bible at all. I’d like to see if I could understand it. You see, I’ve never had a scoutmaster to teach me.”

“Well, ya can read my papers. I guess you can understand ’em if I can.”

“All right, we’ll try. Now, how soon do you think we’d better stop for lunch? I asked the cook to pack us a lunch. I didn’t seem to remember any very inviting place to stop along this road. She put some lemonade in one Thermos bottle and some milk in the other so we can have cold drinks without stopping, and Father says there’s a nice place to eat when we get there, so we’re sure of a good dinner tonight.”

“Gee! Aren’t we having fun?” said Sam.

The old Wainwright summer place stood up a little from the shore, a fine old colonial house, spacious yet simple, and lovely of line. Its lawn ran down incredibly near to the sea, and its outlook was clear to the skyline, though it was partly surrounded by great pines and other imported trees, which in the time of the house’s greatness had been the wonder of the resort. The white fluted columns, which had been kept painted every year, still gleamed out among the dark pines, almost like marble, and the stately piazza across the front, the lovely fantail window over the front door, and the high iron grille that surrounded the place were in perfect repair, and the lawn kept trimmed as if it were in use. The place stood out among the quieter, smaller homes as a great estate of a bygone day, quaint and restful and almost awe-inspiring in contrast to its rows of bungalow neighbors, which had crept up nearer and nearer to its greatness as fashion receded from the resort and tales of its wealthy owner became a mere tradition in a quiet, comfortable, but straggling town. Thus early in the season, there were few summer residents, only the winter inhabitants who stayed there because they had no other place to go and because it was cheaper to stay there and vegetate than to migrate. It was almost like visiting a deserted village, as they drove down the wide main highway that wound around behind the Wainwright estate, locked in behind its massive iron grille.

“Oh, boy! Isn’t this great!” sighed Sam in delight. “No boardwalk! No dolled-up people cluttering the beach. We gotta beach all to ourselves! I was never down here. Why didn’t we come before? Why don’t all of our family come down ta this place and stay all summer?”

“Well, I’ll bite, why?” asked Mary Elizabeth boyishly, her eyes taking in the beauty of the sea spread before her, the plumy pines, the gleaming of the white, white mansion set up on a slight eminence.

“I guess it’s because there wouldn’t be any chance ta dress up and show off!” said Sam thoughtfully, studying the scattered humble cottages in the near distance.

“Well,” said Mary Elizabeth, “perhaps you may have hit the nail on the head. But how would you like to get out, Sam, and see if you can open our gate with this great big old funny key?”

Sam accepted the key with delight and scrambled out to try the well-oiled lock, which the caretaker kept always in order, and presently they were driving along the graveled winding way, skirting the house till they came to the front, where the trees were cut away to show the sea in all its broad blue and gold beauty, under a perfect sky.

Mary Elizabeth stopped the car and sat looking off at the wonder of it all, and even Sam kept still and took it all in.

“Gosh, I don’t know what they’d want of any prettier place than this!” he said at last with a sigh—“they” meaning his mother, who was the general that managed all of their family migrations.

“Yes,” said Mary Elizabeth, “I’ve been almost around the world, Sam, and I don’t remember anything prettier than this. And listen to those pines, boy, they are whispering in perfect rhythm with the waves down on the shore! I suppose they’ve got used to it, being together so much all these years. Especially in winter they’ve nothing else to do but practice, and it must be magnificent to listen to their harmony. There must be some grand music in a storm. Sometime I’m coming here in a storm just to hear it!”

“Oh, boy! Say, I’ll come, too, then!”

“All right! That’ll be a compact. Now, shall we go in?”

But just then there appeared a man walking around the path that skirted the house, his cap in his hand deferentially.

“Is this Miss Wainwright?” he asked. “I had a wire this morning from Mr. Wainwright saying you was coming. I hope you’ll find everything in order, miss. We’ve always tried to keep it as though the family might come in any minute!”

“Why, that’s wonderful!” said Mary Elizabeth, beaming at him. “I wish we had come before! You’re Mr. Bateman, aren’t you? Father said you would be here. You have the keys?”

“Yes, miss, and you can call me Frank. It’s easier to remember.”

“All right, Frank, and this is Sam Wainwright, my cousin. You’ll be showing him all around and telling him about everything, I know.”

“I had the windows open, miss, all morning. And you’ll find everything all right. My wife, Susan, was over getting out fresh linen. She thought you might want her to get you a bit of dinner tonight. She’s a fine cook, if you think she can please you.”

“Why, that would be lovely,” said Mary Elizabeth, interested at once. “If you think she would. Sam and I had our lunch by the way, so we wouldn’t want anything before six, I should think.” She glanced at her watch. “Tell her just something simple will do. We don’t want anything elaborate. And how about a place to stay tonight? Is there a hotel open yet?”

“Not any hotel in Seacrest, not yet. We haven’t but one in the town left now, and it went broke last fall. I don’t know if it will open at all. The rest are all standing idle, with their shutters down like so many of the dead. But we thought, Susan and I, that perhaps you’d be staying here in the house. We could make you comfortable. We’ve been using the servant’s quarters ourselves you know, so the house isn’t to say closed, nor damp. We’ve had some part open to air most every day.”

“Well, I should say there wouldn’t be anything better than that,” said Mary Elizabeth, looking around with delighted eyes. “I would rather stay here than anywhere else, wouldn’t you, Sam?”

“Sure thing!” said the boy, grinning his delight.

“Well, we thought you might, so Susan made up two of the rooms, and she’ll be glad to be of service in any way. She used ta be the lady’s maid to a senator’s wife before I married her, so she ain’t to say ignorant exactly.”

“Well, that’s wonderful,” said Mary Elizabeth, her eyes dancing, “but I don’t need a maid. We’re going to live simply here. I’m quite sure everything is going to be lovely. Father said you would tell me about things, and whether any repairs were needed.”