The Tryst (Annotated) (Grace Livingston Hill Book) (31 page)

Mr. Horliss-Cole looked at the young preacher as if he had suddenly broken out with some very great blasphemy. He was actually embarrassed by the intimate way in which John Treeves spoke of Jesus Christ. It seemed to him a little crude to say the least, and not at all befitting the dignity of a minister of the Gospel. He paused, looking down at the floor offendedly, and while he hesitated for an answer to such purblind folly, John Treeves spoke again: 

“Mr. Horliss-Cole, I have fully made up my mind about this, and I would like to settle the matter at once. I am interested in your Plant and feel that I could do good work there, as well as pursue the study I have determined to take up. Are you willing that I should apply for a position in your Plant or must I look elsewhere?” 

Mr. Horliss-Cole was sadly put to it for an answer. He certainly did not want the young scion of a great house who had so publicly been associated with the old church to go to work like a common laborer in some other man's plant, for there was no knowing what queer thing he might take it into his wild undisciplined head to do, and no end to the publicity that would be made of it in the newspapers. If the fellow must have his fling in a factory, by all means it was best to keep the matter as quiet as possible. If he let him have some kind of a nominal job in The Plant he could control the matter, and arrange things so that he would soon tire of it; also, he could explain it quietly as a little fad of the young man, and it need never come to the ears of the curious public nor even the church as a whole. At any rate he must not antagonize the peppery young man and send him elsewhere until he had had a talk with the rest of the committee. 

So, tapping the thick Persian rug nervously with his elegant boot, he lifted his eyebrows longsufferingly at the young man with a sigh that denoted patience much tried, and replied: 

“Oh, of course, if you feel that you must go through this experience I shall be glad to further your investigations in every possible way. I will speak to my foreman this week and see what can be done to give you all opportunity for the study you wish to take up.” 

It was characteristic of Horliss-Cole that he picked out the only attitude possible to him under the trying circumstances and took his stand as if there had been no other attitude he might have taken. He intended by every word, look and action to impress it upon the young man that this was a study in social science, not a taking of a job like a common workman. 

John Treeves looked at him a trifle uncertainly: 

“You understand, Mr. Horliss-Cole, that I wish to enter as a common workman, plain John Treeves, with no Reverend or any tale of family or friends attached to my name. I want to be one of them and get to know them. I want to try myself out and see if I can live Jesus Christ among them, and bring them to know Him. If I can do that, I shall feel that I have a right to preach. Otherwise I don't think I shall.” 

“Oh, of course, that shall be as you please,” said Horliss-Cole, considering whether it might not after all be kept an entire secret from everyone save the committee. Of course the committee --he would not like to take the responsibility without their backing, for a thing like this was always in danger of coming out sometime, and one must be prepared. 

So after the stately Sunday dinner and after Marjorie had gone with the minister to church, he retired to his den and called up Maxim Petrol, who never went out to church at night, though he often frequented the homes of his friends, or some concert hall or popular lecture on Sunday evening. Maxim Petrol was quite ready to spend the evening with his friend, Horliss-Code, and came tipping daintily in in dove-colored spats half an hour later attended by his younger brother Merriman, a rounder, pleasanter, merrier replica of himself. 

“I thought I'd best bring Merry along,” he explained. “He's taken a great fancy to that young minister, and as he's on the committee it isn't bad to have three heads instead of two to talk the matter over.” 

So with the help of a bit of refreshment now and then and a good many gold monogrammed cigars, they talked John Treeves up and down, out and over, and in again to their hearts' content. 

“Well, I think you better let him have a try at his socialism,” declared Merry Petrol, mixing himself another cocktail cheerily. “It'll make him all the more popular and help to antidote some of his archaic theology. If he gets out among men like that he's sure to be a hero, and nowadays you've got to have something if you want to get a crowd at all. He'll either have to be an ex-ball player, or notoriously broad, so that some people would cry out against him as being unorthodox, or else he'll have to be some kind of a reformer, or he can't make this church go. It's dead and you know it, and it needs something to wake it up. Let him go and work a week or maybe two – it won't last more than that. No man really likes to work unless he has to; it won't last long, and it'll bring the people in while it does. He'll get off some of his stories. Oh, you needn't wince, Jim, he'll lug in some of your sins, of course, but it'll only show up your virtues all the brighter, and you can't beat this kind of dope for bringing in the people, and getting everybody agog to hear him.” 

“I should think it ought to be enough that he is a nephew of old Calvin Treeves,” said Mr. Horliss-Cole haughtily. 

“Well, it isn't,” snapped Merry Petrol crisply. “You'll find out we're in a new age. The world is changing and we can't afford to ignore jazz even in the old church. Get me, Jim? He's got lots of pep, that kid has, and that's what we need nowadays.” 

Five weeks later Merriman Petrol “dropped in” at the Mountain House for a night's rest and a chat with Calvin Treeves on his way to Palm Beach. 

Calvin Treeves looked older than when his nephew had visited him, and there was in his eye a kind of frightened backward glance now and then that betokened a constant consciousness of his enemy lurking in the offing. But his voice had the same sporty chirrup and he greeted Merriman with a hearty good fellowship. He was one of the few people with whom he never quarreled and whom he never ordered about. 

“Hello, Merry! You here! Now that's the good old sport. Sit down and tell me the news. Hespur get him a drink of something. No, you needn't worry, I won't ask for any. The doctor's forbidden 'em, worse luck, and I'm obeying orders for a day or so till I get on my feet. Had a bad turn yesterday again. Old carcass all worn out. But I'm pretty tough; they can't down me!” He cast the furtive backward glance, and laughed his hollow cackle. “Sit down, sit down. What's the news, Merry, old man! I haven't heard a bit of gossip since I came to this old cat's paradise, because I hate the old cats so.” 

Merriman sat down and accepted the glass of wine that Hespur proffered : 

“Well, the news is that you've got a great little old nephew!” declared Merriman Petrol, draining the last swallow and handing the glass to Hespur, who flushed with pleasure at his words, although his face was perfectly immobile. 

“What! What! WHAT! What's this? My nephew! My NEPHEW? How do you know I have a nephew?” 

“Oh, I know! Don't you think I know what's going on in this world? Guess I've been listening to him preach the last three or four weeks and he's all there with bells! He's got Horliss-Cole and my revered brother Maxim eating right out of his hand!” 

“Horliss-Cole!” The old man's eyes twinkled with triumph. 

“Yes, and you ought to see 'em worrying. He's got 'em guessing what he's going to do next and they're so scared he won't accept their old call to the church they don't know what to do.” 

“He has?” said Calvin Treeves breathlessly. “He HAS! He HAS?” 

“Oh, yes, and that isn't all, he's got New York by the horns and everybody's crazy about him. You see, when he wouldn't accept the call, Horliss-Cole made him promise he would preach a few more Sundays till they could find someone else. He set it out that the committee didn't want to have any more untried preachers, till they could find one they could recommend, and so finally Treeves said he'd preach if they'd let him alone and let him preach what he really thought. It went hard with 'em to give in to that, but they did it, and so he is pledged to stay awhile, and the people just throng to hear him. They have something about him in the paper almost every day. They call him a “second Paul” It seems there was a man in the Bible named Paul. And they can't talk enough about him. He's the sensation of the hour. And the worst of it is he hates it. He told them if they didn't stop writing him up he'd quit. But they can't seem to stop it, and Jim Horliss-Cole and my brother Maxim are going around like a coupla kids driving a too-fast horse and he's getting away with 'em." 

The old eyes twinkled and the leathery lips worked nervously, happily. 

“Can--does he--What does he preach about, Merry?” he quavered, wetting his dry lips again and again with the tip of his withered old tongue. 

“Oh, but that's the best of it all. He lets it out from the shoulders. Gives 'em straight talk about their sins. Oh, he doesn't leave any of them out, stands them all up in front of him every Sunday and shows them how there's no Heaven for them, every last one of them. 'Us,' I should say, for he's had me in, too. Every one recognizes himself, though I doubt if Treeves knows who he's preaching at. It certainly is funny. I laughed till I split the other day watching Horliss-Cole while he was being preached about, old hypocrite that he is, with all his church poses and his benevolences, and his pretenses that he's so much better than the next one. His face was purple with rage, but he had to pretend it was great. And all the time that good old sport of a grouchy sister of his --” 

“Sylvia!” There was something strange and reverential in the tone the old man used. Merriman Petrol stopped and stared for a moment. 

“Yes, Sylvia, I believe. Well, she was grinning inside. You could see it in the set of her shoulders.” 

“Does Sylvia go to church?” 

“Oh, yes, she comes every Sunday, she and that pretty little quaint thing they call Fisher, some kind of a relation that's spending the winter there.” 

“So they go to church!” 

“Why, man, I've been myself! Went first to please Maxim because he was on the committee. Then they put me on and I had to go, and bless my lucky stars if I didn't enjoy it. Some nephew, that is! I don't much blame Marjorie Horliss-Cole for tagging him around. But he's as indifferent as snow in summer. Man! But he's a peach!” 

When Merriman Petrol was gone the old man lay silent a long time wetting his lips and picking away nervously at the rug that was over him. He no longer sat in his wheeled chair now, but lay flat on his great deep bed, like an old bird in a too-large nest. 

“Hespur!” he said in a weak voice, turning his face toward the dark window where Hespur stood looking out at the stars above the pines. “Whisper, did you ever happen to find a Paul in that Bible?” 

“I've seen the name, sir. Yes, sir, come to think I remember passing it, sir. Some letters he wrote I figured, sir. I don't rightly remember who. 'I Paul' --that was like it. I'll take the new Bible that you had sent down from New York, sir, and cipher around in it awhile, sir. There's a thing they call something like a 'Concord' at the back, sir. It'll maybe be having Paul in it. There's notes, sir, that speak how to find it. I sighted a Moses this morning and had a try at him whilst you was napping, sir. It wasn't, so to speak, difficult, sir. I'll maybe find a Paul.” 

The old man lay and waited eagerly till Hespur had discovered Paul in the concordance, and then listened to passage after passage. 

“There seems to be a right smart lot about him, sir. He must have been a rather important character, sir, in them days, sir. It appears to have been an honor to be like him, sir. Now, you take a bit of sleep, sir, and I'll be getting your broth ready, and afterwhiles we have another try at the Book.” 

And so, with a smile that softened the hard lines in his old face, Calvin Treeves fell asleep for a little. 

Patty had a whole day to herself for the first time since she came to live with Miss Cole. That good lady was going on a brief visit from morning until evening to an old school friend whom she visited once a year on her birthday. The annual pilgrimage had become something almost sacred since the friend had been bedridden, and looked forward with eagerness always to Sylvia's coming. 

“I can't take you with me,” explained Miss Sylvia, “because you see she's in reduced circumstances and they haven't room for many people. It would bewilder her and make her feel as if somehow I wasn't as close to her as I used to be if I took some one with me. And she has a little maid servant who will do all for me that is necessary. I shall go and come in the car, and there isn't an earthly bit of use in your being made to take that trip when you might be out somewhere enjoying yourself. You haven't had a day to yourself since you came. Now take it and do for goodness' sake go and buy something frivolous for yourself, or take in a show, or do something nice. You're always penned up with an old woman and it isn't good for a girl. I wish to goodness Marjorie had some sense. You could have real good times together. But she has her head so full of beaus and clothes that there isn't room for much else. There, take that and buy something you'd really like. Spend it all and don't think you've got to come and tell me what you did with it or buy something sensible, or save it. I want you to be extravagant for once and act like any girl, and if you don't want to be back till late to-night it will be all right. I can get along without any help for once. I'm feeling quite frisky these days.” 

She stuffed a roll of bills into Patty's hands and hurried off to her car before Fatty could so much as thank her, and when Patty came to count them there was twenty-five dollars, and a scrap of paper on which was scrawled in Miss Cole's odd characters. “Now, mind, you spend it all and don't get anything sensible. I want you to be crazy for once and do as you please.” 

So Patty went back to her room and sat down and wept a bright little tear, because it had somehow come to her that Miss Sylvia loved her. Underneath all her gruffness she had a heart end she really loved her. Not in all the years had her mother ever done anything like this for her. It wasn't the money nor the amount, it was the wish that she should be a girl and have a good time; the recognition that she had been faithful in her work and deserved something nice. It made a warm, lonely, little feeling around her heart. Oh, if her mother were only like that and she might go home and live like other girls! Oh, if her dear father were only back ! How strange it was that she heard nothing from him. By this time surely he must have received her letter, and it would be like him to telegraph or cable at once some little message to let her know she had his trust whatever she was doing and wherever she was. She had been expecting it for a long time and a puzzled, queer, ghastly, little ache was coming now whenever she thought about it.