Treasured Brides Collection (26 page)

And what would she have done under this crisis if she had not found a refuge and stronghold in Christ? Surely the prayers of Lawrence Earle had been what had kept her from slipping away from God during those first months when she had been so discouraged, and perhaps they were helping even now. It gave her comfort to think that this was so and to feel that somewhere, somehow, she had an earthly friend, as well as a heavenly, who would at least care and pray for her, if he knew her need. Then she would drop softly asleep and waken to another day full of labor and sunshine, for she was the sunshine of her mother’s room.

M
rs. Martin went down to the verge of the grave and lingered for weeks, merging into months, but at last, slowly, gradually, so gradually that they could hardly be sure from day to day whether it was true or not, she began to creep back to them again. To take a little interest in their coming back and forth to her room, tiptoeing in with bated breath to watch her quiet face upon the pillow; to open her eyes and smile; to lift her head one morning for a flower that Euphemia brought in, and then to ask after the baby and want to see him.

Eleanor had not come home. They had not told her how ill her mother was. The doctor said it would not do for her to have the excitement of Eleanor’s coming.

Eleanor was “doing” the West in a wildly exciting wedding trip with all the accessories that money could provide. She wrote brief, breezy occasional postals home, saying very little and conveying less. Euphemia seemed to feel an undertone of discontent even yet, and wondered, but there was little time to think of Eleanor.

Her mother was coming back to them, from the grave, and Euphemia’s heart was full of deep, sweet joy. God had heard her prayer. Almost with awe she gave thanks. It seemed that she had come very close to Christ during her time of trial and was coming to trust Him more and more restfully.

The day that her mother was first able to sit up for a little while was like a grand holiday. Father came home and sat with her and brought roses! The kind he used to bring Mother when he was courting her. And Euphemia noticed with another thrill of joy that the worn look was passing from his face, and his tired eyes were lit with new hope.

“Well,” he said, after he had sat for a while holding his wife’s hand and looking at her hungrily. “Mother, I guess it won’t do you any harm to know we’re going to pull through in the business now.”

“Really?” said Euphemia, springing softly up and coming to lay her hand on her father’s shoulder.

“Yes, we signed the big contract today. We get it all, and it means that by this time next year, we’ll be entirely out of the hole. We are practically now, only the money won’t all come in at once. But we’re standing on firm ground at last, thank God. And Euphemia, little daughter,” he added, turning to the girl, “it’s partly due to you. There was a time just after Mother took sick when I thought I couldn’t weather it. And then you took hold and lifted burden after burden from my shoulders. And you stayed at home from college, and saved all that expense, and cut down the expenses here at home, and saved Mother for me. Little girl, I never can tell you what you have been to me, to your mother, to John, and to the baby and all of us! You are a daughter such as no father and mother ever had before. Isn’t she, Mother?”

And the mother’s eyes lighted with the old sweet light as she said tenderly, “She’s all of that and more.”

Euphemia thought that her cup of joy was filled, but her father went on.

“There’s another thing, Daughter, too, that I must mention while I’m singing your praises. I want Mother to know what you have done for John. Mother knows how anxious we were about him. He had got going with a bad crowd and it seemed as if nothing could stop him, but somehow you have woven an influence about him that has pulled him away from it all. He came down to the office today and told me he wanted me to take him in and train him for a partnership. He wanted to begin at the bottom and go up as fast as he was able. And I told him I’d be glad to. It will be better for him than fooling his time away at college the way he did last year. And I think he really means business. I’d have been glad to have him have the rest of his college course, but he says, and I agree with him, that he can go and take the rest of his course later if he finds he needs it. It’s never too late to study. And he knows I cannot afford to send him just now. He says when he goes he’s going on his own money. And I feel that is the right spirit. But I think his change of attitude is all due to his sister!”

It was sweet living those days, with Mother coming back fast to daily life now, and the spring coming on, and all the good things her father had said to think about. And Euphemia went about with a continual smile upon her lips.

And then, one day when Euphemia was walking home from an errand with her hands full of lilacs that a neighbor had sent to her mother, she noticed that the windows of the Earle house were open at last, and a few minutes later met another neighbor who told her that Mrs. Earle was returning that afternoon.

Euphemia came home with her eyes bright with the news. She wondered to herself many things. Would Lawrence Earle come, too? Probably not. She knew that his mother had been during the past year in California again with her invalid sister, and that the sister was not expected to live long. That was the news that had drifted back to the hometown. In a general way, Lawrence Earle was supposed still to be in foreign lands pursuing an occupation which the town was beginning to call by the name of “missionary.” Some new kind of missionary, they said he was, doing something about Bible teaching.

Mrs. Earle had indeed returned and began at once to set her house in order, and it began to be rumored that her son was coming later and would perhaps spend the whole summer with her. The story drifted out and around, without Mrs. Earle’s having even dropped a hint of any such thing. But some of her neighbors gathered, perhaps from things she had not said, that her son was going to bring someone home with him, presumably his bride. The suppositions grew to the proportions of confident statement and were spread abroad as such. They came to Euphemia Martin’s ears. Now Euphemia Martin was too happy over her mother’s recovery to be other than glad over anything, and when she thought about this report at all, she wondered if Lawrence Earle’s wife would be one in whom she could confide. Of course she would, she told herself, for he would choose no other than a good and true and lovely woman. And so in her heart she liked to think the coming Mrs. Earle would be a friend of hers. She held Lawrence Earle in a kind of awe, as someone higher than the ordinary mortal, who had condescended for a little time to help her. He had forgotten her long ago, but she would always revere him. Euphemia would always be of humble mind after that severe experience she had had of seeing herself as others saw her.

One bright spring morning, when Mrs. Martin was feeling quite well and was able to be about the house once more, doing what little her efficient daughter had left for her to do of household tasks, Euphemia picked a great bunch of fragrant violets from the bank in their backyard, and with heart throbbing over her temerity and cheeks flushed slightly from the excitement of what she was about to do, went timidly to call on Mrs. Earle and leave her gift of violets.

She had a pleasant call. It seemed delightful to her. Mrs. Earle put her arms about her, drew her gently in, and called her “my dear.” It all seemed very, very charming. Euphemia wished she had ventured before, and was even moved to ask some questions that in times past had troubled her so much, and which on account of her mother’s illness she had been obliged to solve without a counselor. Before she went home, Mrs. Earle showed her some photographs of her son and several pictures taken during their trips abroad. In two or three of them there were other friends, whom Mrs. Earle said had been traveling with them. One sweet-faced girl was among those. Euphemia wondered if that was the coming Mrs. Earle, Jr., but lacked the courage to ask. She carried the vision of that face home with her and began to make a friend of it at once. Mrs. Earle asked her to come again, and there was begun a friendship, which to both became very pleasant. Thus the springtime passed and summer was already at hand, and scarcely a day went by but Mrs. Earle ran over to bring some delicacy to her old friend, Mrs. Martin, or Euphemia ran in to take some message from her mother. The old friendship was renewed and knit the closer between the two older women because the young girl was so dear to them both.

And nearer and nearer drew the day for the homecoming of the son, but Euphemia somehow was strangely silent when the mother spoke of him. It seemed a subject in which she now had no part, save as an onlooker. A glad one, of course, but still a mere outsider.

L
awrence Earle boarded the New York Express, and after settling himself comfortably, took an unopened letter from his pocket. It was from his mother and had arrived just as he was leaving for the station. Being attended by a friend with whom he had spent the night in New York, he had put the letter by until he was at leisure on the train. He leaned back to enjoy it. His mother’s letters were always a luxury. He read on through page after page of the closely written letter, smiling here and there at some sentence or expression that sounded so like his mother. He was greatly amused at the story she had to tell him of his supposed marriage, and stopped in his reading several times to look out of the window and laugh heartily. His mother had much talent in describing the words and tones of some of her many curious neighbors, and her son enjoyed her bits of quaint humor.

“They’ve settled it all, my son, even down to the bride, and whether she is to have charge of the house or not. I don’t know what they will say when you come home without her. And I must say, my boy, though I know I should lose much of your precious society and be no longer first in your thoughts as I have been, that I could wish it were true. For you know, I cannot always stay with you, and you are getting to be ‘quite a man.’ ”

At that sentence the young man smiled, while yet the moisture gathered in his eyes, and a tender expression about his mouth.

The quotation was from the oft-spoken comment of an old neighbor who used to annoy him when he was a child by always telling him that he was getting to be “quite a man.” When his mother wanted to be playful she often used the phrase. There followed some words about a certain young woman they had met abroad, and he stopped his reading once more to look thoughtfully out of the window. But at last he seemed to shake his head slightly and went back seriously to his letter. There was a description of the changes she had made in certain rooms and of repairs and additions she thought it would be pleasant to make. There were little items of pleasantry about the town and the people. She told of the changes in certain families during their absence. “But there is no one who has changed more and for the better than your little friend. You will remember her, Euphemia Martin. She called to see me soon after my return in the spring. She seems to be a very lovable girl. I hear good things of her on every side. She has not only beauty, but character in her face, and not only that, but chastened, sweetened character. She is one of Christ’s own children. I liked her sweet and gentle manners and her neat and graceful dress. She certainly has grown into a lovely girl and is going to be another such as her mother was before her. Her mother was a beautiful woman before she took upon her heavier cares than she was able to bear. She, by the way, has been very ill for the past two years, and Euphemia has become the mainstay of the home and the very life of her mother. I am really growing extravagantly fond of her. I had no idea she would ever develop into such a lovely character. Some people used not to like her, and now everyone in town has a good word for her. The pretty sister, Eleanor, whom I always thought looked selfish, you remember, has married and gone to California to live. And to tell you the truth, I am thankful for I was always afraid you would become fond of her. You thought so much of the older sister Margaret when you were a mere boy. But Eleanor was no more like Margaret than night is like day. Euphemia seems to be more like Margaret, yet with an added charm which I cannot quite describe. You will have to see her to understand.”

The letter went on to mention other friends or neighbors.

“Maud Bradley married a movie actor, and there are rumors that she is very unhappy and thinking of applying for a divorce. Ethel Garner and her sister, Flora, are both married and gone—Ethel to New England, Flora to live in the south, Virginia, I think. Janet Chipley was killed in an automobile accident. Her little sister, Bessie, you remember, with whom you used to play tennis, has grown into a pert little upstart of the modern times, with her hair cut close like a boy and an impudent, loaferish way of intruding herself into the public eye. She is very pretty, but exceedingly unpleasant to watch. She seems to have lost all sense of all the graces of womanhood.

“Do you remember a flashy little girl with copper-colored hair who used to wear bright yellow and burnt orange so much? Her name is Cornelia Gibson. She married your friend John Babcock. I think they ran away and got married, and John’s father was so upset by the affair that he had a stroke of paralysis and has never been able to get around since. I understand that Cornelia is making John very unhappy. John looks twenty years older than when you saw him last. His hair is beginning to turn gray. He will be glad to see you again. He looks so wistful I feel sorry for him. I thought you ought to understand the situation before you see him. What a pity he could not have married someone like Euphemia Martin instead of that heartless little flirt!”

There was more in the same strain about other friends and neighbors, and a page telling how happy she was to have her son coming home at last to stay in his own country, and how delighted she was that he was to be employed in the Lord’s service in a great work that was opening up.

When Lawrence Earle had finished reading, he folded the letter thoughtfully and put it into his pocket.