The Tryst (Annotated) (Grace Livingston Hill Book) (25 page)

“But I want what I want, whether God wants it or not!” declared the girl stormily. “He's no right to put me here in a certain station in life and then dangle somebody else out of another station in life right in front of my eyes and expect me to turn my head away and not see how fine they are!”

Her cheeks were crimson, and her eyes were downcast. She hardly realized how much of herself she was revealing. The young man watched her with an illuminated expression. So then this poor child was being lured by some man who was very likely beneath her! Could he save her, help her in any way to her better self? He could see she was worth saving. There was a streak of frankness about her that was most appealing. It stirred all the gallantry in him, and moved him to her protection. His face softened. 

“But you would not want to have your wish if you knew it meant a lot of pain and suffering and disappointment when the illusions were past. Suppose God knows that if He gave you your wish it would bring bitterness and no joy.” 

“Well, then I want it anyway!” 

She lifted dark stormy eyes to him: 

“Wouldn't you rather suffer and be disappointed even, with a real person for company, than go all your life alone in the company of the richest fool that ever walked this earth? I would. Of course you think I'm a little silly like all boarding-school girls in stories, and that I am deceived in my judgment, but I'm not. If you understood you would think I am right. I'm just as sure you would. You seem real! You make me think of him a little!”

Treeves looked down at her startled, the child and the woman in her were struggling together, but the child was uppermost, and he felt he could not turn away: 

“Look here, little sister,” he said gently, “I guess since we've begun this question we better sift it to the bottom. Suppose we go over into some room where we'll be alone for a few minutes and you tell me all about it, that is if you want to, of course?” 

“Oh, I do!” said Marjorie with unspeakable pleading in her eyes. “I have no one; no one to help me!” 

“I don't know that I can help you,” said Treeves as he sat down in the big leather chair in the library by the open fire where she had led him, “but I can at least find out whether you are being fooled by some man that isn't worth walking over.” 

A smouldering fire leaped into the girl's eyes. 

“There! Don't be angry!” he smiled. “I shan't be any harder on him than you would. Let’s hear the story, little sister.” 

There was an elder, brotherly kindness in his voice that reassured her and she began falteringly to tell her story. Five minutes later Mrs. Horliss-Cole, in search of her daughter, paused a second before the open door of the library and saw the two seated before the fire in earnest converse. A flicker of satisfaction passed over her well-preserved smile and she passed on to her guests once more. 

Ten minutes later, having carefully noted down all data which Marjorie had given him concerning one Allen Winters, en voyage to the Philippines, John Treeves sat up and looked at his companion thoughtfully. 

“You know,” he said with a pleasant smile, “if this young man is all you think he is, he's worth waiting for, and a little waiting never hurt a real true love, only proves it, so I've heard. Of course I don't know much about those things myself, but it seems reasonable, doesn't it? And meanwhile, you're in your father's home. He loves you and has cared for you all your life. He has a right to your loyally. If I were you I wouldn't do a thing that would in any way be disloyal to your father and mother. You won't be worthy of any great happiness that may be coming to you if you do. You'll only spoil it. If the young man is worthy of you he will agree in that, I'm sure. And besides, you're really quite young yet, aren’t you? If this is the real thing, time and --God will bring it out right.” 

“Why, that's almost exactly what Edith Fisher said,” exclaimed Marjorie suddenly. “How funny!” 

“Fisher! Fisher!” said the young man startled. “Where have I heard that name?” Some vague disappointment lurked in his memory in connection with it. 

“Why, Edith Fisher is just Auntie Cole's companion. I don't suppose you have met her, though you're liable to see her around almost any time. She does some of mamma's secretary work sometimes, too. She's a very pretty, well-bred girl and a nice sort. They used to have money, I guess, but she never seems to complain. She's very good company when you haven't anything to do. Of course she's busy all the time and doesn't go out or anything, but I often talk to her. It isn't like talking to the girls; she's kind of out of my world, you know!” 

Unconsciously Marjorie had put on her society drawl of condescension as she said this about Patty, and Treeves looked at her keenly: 

“You know,” he said speculatively, “the young man isn't the only one that's got to be proved. You've got to find out whether you are worthy of him. You can't just stick a little money or a name onto him and bring him into your world, the changing has got to be mutual, and it sometimes takes more sterling grit to step down than it does to step up. Often the stepper-down discovers he is really the stepper-up.” 

“I don't know what you mean!”said Marjorie Horliss-Cole, lifting a haughty chin and staring at him much as her mother might have done. 

“I mean,” said John Treeves with a squaring of the Treeves chin, and a kindling of his mother's gray eyes, “I mean that you may not be worthy of your man after you find he is worthy of you. I tell you unless you can get out into his world and be at home you can never expect him to get out into yours. This thing has got to be mutual before you can create a world of your own together.” 

“Oh!” said Marjorie, a trifle angrily, a trifle puzzled. 

“You know,” said John Treeves with a wistful look in his gray eyes and a persuasive gentleness in his voice, “I wish you could bring yourself to go at this thing in the way I suggested. Jesus Christ is a strong true Friend, and He can see all the way to the end of this. I can only point the way. But I know Him, and I wish you'd try Him.” 

“Perhaps I will,” said Marjorie softly, with a long, deep look at the first. “But one would have to be awfully sure of Him to give up entirely -- EVERYthing that way--!” 

“He makes you sure as soon as you do it. There is no assurance beforehand. That is the test.”

They were still a long time till the big expensive log in the fireplace fell apart with a soft crushing of rosy sparks that brightened and flickered and grew gray. 

“I think,” said Marjorie Horliss-Cole with a light little laugh that covered a deeper feeling, “I think it is awfully queer that a man like you should belong to Calvin Treeves!” 

John Treeves sat up startled: 

“What,” said he alertly, “do you know about me and my Uncle Calvin?” 

“Why, I met you down at the mountain Inn with him. Have you forgotten already?” 

“Pardon me,” he said with a slight mortification. “Of course you did. Of course that explains it all. You see, I was a bit upset that evening with other matters, and it passed from my mind entirely where I had met you first.” 

“That's all right,” said Marjorie, “I'll forgive you. You've been awfully good to me. But come, we must go back into the other room or mother will never forgive me.” 

John Treeves thought of it again the next morning as he sat in the stately New York pulpit and looked over the church bulletin for the day which a thoughtful sexton had placed in the open Bible. He read his own name, J. Dunham Treeves, and pondered. Where did they get that name? Not from him, for he always signed his letters John D. Treeves, or more formally J. D. Perhaps that girl had heard it down at the hotel where he met her. Very likely his uncle had had him registered that way. But the wonder over it lingered, till he was obliged to put it forcibly away. What difference anyway about a name? He was here to preach the Gospel. He must keep his mind and heart open for the message from above. So he rose to speak; and there facing him, as if her countenance were the only one in the vast sea of faces, he saw his old friend Patty staring up at him in wonder and amazement!  

Quite early that same Sunday morning as Patty was coming down the hall from Miss Cole's apartments she had suddenly come face to face with John Treeves, who was going out for an early walk in the quiet of the day, before the world had awakened to its weekly Sabbath-breaking rollick. The delight on both faces for the instant was unmistakable. John Treeves put out his hands eagerly for greeting: 

“Patty!” he said joyously. “I have found--” 

Just then a door opened behind him and Patty was recalled to her situation by seeing Marjorie Horliss-Cole come blithely forth arrayed as if for a walk. 

The smile that had been on Patty's face went out blankly like a thing that was not. It was like a curtain falling suddenly and completely on a play just about to begin, the impersonal, formal, business-like attitude of one who serves. Her lips had been open to exclaim “John!” as eagerly as he had said “Patty!” but instead they spoke coolly: 

“Miss Fisher, sir, Miss Cole's secretary. Can I be of service to you?” 

John Treeves stopped puzzled, aghast, stared at her a moment, his face growing pink with embarrassment: 

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I took you for an old friend.” 

She smiled faintly, acknowledging the apology, swept him a downward glance and turned on her way down the hall, continuing beyond her own room to the servants' staircase, which was in an alcove out of sight. She could hear Marjorie's blithe good morning and a question about going walking in the Park, and somehow she knew without turning back that he had watched her out of sight; but her knees were trembling and her ankles seemed to be like water as she sank upon the upper step of the servants' stair and buried her white face in her arms. What an awful mess she had made of things now, and how could she ever get out of it or brave it out? It was like the old legend about a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. She hadn't meant to deceive in the first place; it had seemed necessary. But there must have been something wrong somewhere, for look at all this! Whoever had supposed John Treeves would turn up again where she would see him? And, oh, the bitterness of having to deny him welcome in answer to that joyous sound of her own true name “Patty!” How good it had been! And he had been glad to see her! He surely had! No one could doubt that. Her face grew rosy at the thought and then wretchedly white again as she realized how she had compelled her own voice into coldness and put all recognition away. Forever, too, perhaps, for how could she ever, ever explain it all? In fact, was she justified in making a mess like this to save her mother and sister? How far away they seemed and unreal, as she sat on the back stairs that morning and listened to the servants' chatter down in the butler's pantry: One voice came ringing above the rest: 

“Yes, and he's old Calvin Treeves's nephew, rich as a king. They say the missus is just throwing Miss Marjorie at his head!” 

“Looks to me like she was willing enough herself!” came a laughing answer from a parlor maid. “They just went past the window toward the park. My word! A young lady don’t get up this time of a Sunday morning for a walk unless it means something.” 

Then the door swung to and shut further sound away and Patty arose, her face white and still with misery and her heart beating violently with a new kind of ache. She went to her room, locked the door, and dropped in a little silent heap upon her bed. It was worse than a long fit of weeping, that dry still kind of grief like inward bleeding that saps the life, and it told upon her young face in gray haggard lines. She roused herself after a while and began to get ready for the day, making her plans to keep absolutely out of sight. She was glad that Miss Cole wanted to go to church. Miss Cole did not often go to church, but had sent for her quite early, saying she had decided to try it once more. They would go in the car that was kept always for Miss Cole's special use when she was in the city, and they would not be bothered with the rest of the family, she was sure. Miss Cole liked it that way and so did the family. Moreover none of the family ever bothered the church much excepting Mr. Cole, who always went by himself in the morning, Patty having overheard remarks to the effect that he went officially rather than personally, and that the office he held was one which had more to do with things financial than with things spiritual. So Patty felt safe. Evidently John Treeves was a guest in the house for the week-end. There had been so many guests the night before, and Patty had been so busy with the little details of the Christmas festivities that she had not noticed who they were to be. 

For Patty had gradually drifted into a place of general factotum in the household. Miss Cole sometimes complained that the rest of the family kept her so busy that she had no time to give to the one she was supposed to be especially attending. For Patty knew how to do many things. She could paint dinner cards in a trice, and arrange flowers: she could write many graceful notes in no time at all, and answer the telephone sweetly with just the right inflection to convey Mrs. Horliss-Cole's innermost feelings; she could play lady's maid on occasion, and even gracefully take the place of a dinner guest absent at the last moment. Oh, Patty was a handy person to have about the house and Miss Cole was beginning to grimly reflect that she would better take her young companion away to another mountain resort pretty soon if she did not wish to have her absorbed bodily by the whole family and nothing whatever left for herself. 

Marjorie Horliss-Cole had, on the whole, been a friendly person to Patty, although on her return to the city she had dropped the intimate on-an-equality tone of her intercourse, and treated Patty more like an upper servant. Never except in case of an absent guest whose place absolutely must be filled was Patty asked among the family, and then on both occasions --for it had happened but twice — she was condescendingly advised to say as little as possible about herself. But Patty was an adept in that for her own sake and got on admirably. So now she thanked her lucky stars that there was no danger of her being asked down to dinner or having to pass through the rooms again where this most unexpected guest would be likely to be. She resolved to plead a headache after church, which she had good cause for feeling was already on its rampant way. Then a tray would be sent to her room and she would be to herself the rest of the day. Very likely John Treeves would go away on the morrow. She had no notion whatever that he was to be the speaker of the day nor even that he was a minister at all. It was quite natural to suppose that he was here in the house as a guest to see Marjorie. She sighed as she turned away from the mirror where she had been adjusting her hat, and began slowly putting on her gloves. It was her own doing that John Treeves was out walking in the park with another girl instead of his friend of long ago. It was her own doing that he would go away again in the morning puzzled and perhaps hurt over what had happened. But she could not help it. Not until her father came home and advised her could she explain her strange situation. That was firmly settled in her loyal young heart.