An Unwilling Guest (17 page)

But her brother was urging her impatiently: "Go on, Evelyn. What t
ime
did you get up at
Hillcroft
?"

Thus urged Evelyn began:

"We had what they c
alled prayers the first thing in
the morning, and at night before retiring they had them again."

She paused, expecting her brother to rail out against a perpetual prayer meeting. He was looking dreamily at the picture and he only answered:

"Ah! that accounts for it!" then he tu
rned to his sister, suddenly re
membering that she had been for a ti
me a part of this strange house
hold. "I suppose it was rather hard on you, wasn't it?"

Why she should resent this she did
not know, but she did. Neverthe
less she went on to describe the white house with green blinds, wide porches, and pretty lawns; the village, and what people she had met; and above all, the life of commonplace, everyday work and kindliness. She did not use many words nor express any opinions herself, but she gave a very true picture of
Hillcroft
.

"It sounds pleasant," said the young man with his eyes closed. "I think I shall visit Aunt Joan myself someday. It would be interesting to walk about that quiet little town and meet Miss Rebecca
Bascomb
. Do you think the star-eyed goddess
with the gold hair would conde
scend to
fli
rt with a fellow for a few days?"

"Dick!" said Evelyn, almost sharply. "Don't! You don't know her. She would no more flirt than she would commit murder."

"Really! That sounds interesting! A young woman who will not flirt! I shall surely visit Aunt Joan someday. Such a curiosity as a young woman who will not flirt ought certainly to be brought to New York. If you are right, which I very much doubt, there is still some hope for the human race," and he laughed as he saw the color mounting swiftly into his sister's face.

"Dick!" she said in a vexed tone.

"I beg your pardon, my beloved siste
r, but isn't it true? Come, con
fess. By the way, what has become of Hal Worthington, upon whom I last saw you exercising that art? Have you dropped him for another victim, or only loaned him to Jane while you were away. I hear she has quite taken him up."

Evelyn's eyes grew dark with irritation, but it was not her way to break into angry exclamation.

"I know nothing about Mr. Worthington," she said
freezingly
, "and if you talk in this way I shall certainly leave you to the tender mercies of your nurse."

"A truce! A truce, sister! I beg your pardon humbly. I cannot afford to quarrel with you now. Tell me more about
Hillcroft
. But, indeed, you have relieved my mind. Let Hal Worthington alone, he isn't worth your notice."

"You men always are hard upon one another," said Evelyn coldly. "There's nothing the matter with Mr. Worthington."

"Just as you women are on one another," responded the brother laughing. "But there's everything t
he matter with Worthington, Eve
lyn, believe me. I hope you won't have anything more to do with him."

"Indeed!" said Evelyn politely. "I'm obliged to you for your advice, but it's wholly unnecessary. I assure you I choose my friends where I please, and consider myself fully able to tell a man when I see him."

Richard Rutherford frowned and was about to speak angrily again, and perhaps tell his sister some truths which she might as well have heard then as later, and the whole of Evelyn's scheme was well-nigh on the verge of shipwreck when the doctor, with his light tap on the door, entered and put a stop to the talk.

Evelyn retired to her room to smooth her ruffled feelings. She was more annoyed than she cared to have her brother know. Two natures were striving within her for the mastery. The one was typified by her association with Mr. Worthington, the other by her chance meeting with that other man, Doctor Grey. Each was antagonistic to the other. Since she had been at
Hillcroft
she had begun to feel out of harmony with Mr. Worthington. If her brother had said nothing about him she would not have felt inclined to renew her friendship with him, but she hated above all things to be managed and advised and treated as if she were a child. Therefore she resolved to show her brother when she got home that she could take care of herself. In her private heart, however, she laid aside the warning and concluded that it was as well for her not to go with that young man anymore.

During the days that followed she told her brother many things about the Grey family, and Allison was mentioned more than once. Bert also came up for a description and the young man
laughed loud and long over his sister's discomfiture in the Pullman car. He also showed surprise and hearty approval as she told of her adventure—for so she accounted it—in playing at a prayer meeting. He declared he should like to meet Bert and forthwith demanded to have "The Sky Pilot" and "Black Rock" read aloud to him. After these were finished Evelyn bethought herself of the upper row in the library at
Hillcroft
and sailed forth to the book store, returning with a number of them.

The young man seemed interested in these books. They were in a new line for him. They were studies of human character and as such he recognized their worth and beauty and was not a little touched with their pathos. He laughed till he cried over Abe, the stage driver, and Bronco Bill, and he turned his head aside to wipe away the tears over little Gwen and the coming into port of the Pilot. When they came to "Snow and Heather" and read of
Steenie's
"Bonnie Man" he lay with thoughtful eyes on the picture of the boy Christ before him.

It was while they read "A Singular Life" one day that Richard broke in upon the reading:

"He joined the student volunteers
when he was in college I remem
ber. Did you ever hear about it? I wonder if he outgrew it or what was the matter that he gave it up. He was very enthusiastic."

"Of whom, pray, are you speaking? Emanuel Bayard in this story? And what may a student volunteer be, I should like to inquire?" said the reader pausing and closing the book with her finger
in
the place.

"Why, I was speaking of Maurice Grey. Someway Bayard reminds me of him. He was much such a fellow. And a student volunteer—why Evelyn, you are certainly very ignorant. It was a movement that swept through the colleges; I don't know but it's going on yet. A great many students joined it, promising to go to foreign fields as missionaries if possible. I know Grey was one, for
he tried his best to get me in
terested."

"Really! How strange! What would he want to go as a missionary for? It would be bad enough to be a m
issionary at home. I can't imag
ine anyone getting to that point of sacrifice. Not one so well educated and cultured as Doctor Grey. I suppose he has given it up as one of the follies of his boyhood. Of course he did not expect to succeed in his profession as he has, at that time."

Then she went back to her readin
g, her mind keeping up an under
tone of thought of which Doctor Grey was the center, typified by the hero of the story she read.

In
the meantime Dr. Maurice Grey
had not been idle. His new prac
tice took every atom of time the day contained and sometimes much of the night. To fill the absence of a man so great required unceasing labor and energy. His life carried him into many homes where there were distress and sorrow in one form or another. Constantly he was appealed to, to do the impossible. He sometimes longed for the power of some of the old disciples to work miracles, till he remembered that He who was managing all the affairs of the world knew and loved each one of these sufferers more than he possibly could, and was working his best in each life. But all that was in
his power to do to help he cer
tainly did. He was indefatigable day and night. Neither did he slight the poor and lowly. He kept up well the reputation Doctor Atlee had always had of being no respecter of persons in his work of healing. His coming brought many a ray of sunshine into darkened homes.

But with all this hurry and burden of other lives upon him he did not forget to pray. He kept up his college habit of praying for certain individuals; but among them all there was one name which he never forgot, which stood at the head of his list, and for which he prayed with all the earnestness his earnest soul could feel, and that name was Evelyn Rutherford. Just what his feeling toward her was he had not asked himself. It was enough that he wanted her to belong to Christ, wanted it with his whole soul. He would put his energy into that thought. He had no
time
for any other. What did it matter? God would work out any plan in his life he chose, if he but waited and did his duty, whether of sorrow or of joy. If either were meant for him he hoped he would be given the right spirit in which to meet it.

He heard from home that Miss Rutherford had left them suddenly to attend upon her brother in Philadelphia. He was disappointed that she should have gone from there so soon. He had hoped much from her contact with Allison, both for herself and for his sister. Allison was too quiet and shy, and needed contact with a girl who was used to mingling with the world. Allison was consecrated, and must make an impression upon one who knew not Jesus Christ. He wondered why it had been planned to separate these two who had been so wonderfully, almost miraculously, brought together. Then he wondered if we should have all our wonders explained when we got on the other side, and he left the matter there.

He called at the Rutherford house one day to inquire how his old friend was getting on, for he thought they would have word, but he found the house closed and not a servant about. His card was among many others which Evelyn found as soon as she returned. It was crumpled and dusty, and she knew it must have lain under the door some time.

It was well on into December before the
Rutherfords
finally
re
turned to their home on Sixty-fourth Street The broken bone had not behaved well, and Evelyn's work had been much more trying than she had anticipated. Nevertheless, it was with a certain satisfaction that she reviewed the weeks she had spent
in
Philadelphia. They had not been altogether unpleasant. She had discovered that reading aloud was a very pleasant way of enjoying a book and getting a great deal more out of it than one could possibly get alone. She had discovered that there were lots of books in the world that she had never read which were vastly more interesting to her than the class of society novels she had been accustomed to devour. Of course she had a mind above these other books or this would not have been the case. She had discovered—and this was a very important revelation—that her brother was good company. Each had developed an unsuspected affection for the other, and the time had passed much more rapidly than either had hoped. It was therefore with a loving solicitude that she saw him hobble into the house on his crutch, and hastened to prepare a couch for him and make him comfortable on their return to New
York. He would come before he was at all strong enough.

The father, coming upon them unexpectedly the day before they had thought he could arrive, was pleased to see Evelyn bending over her brother to settle the pillows comfortably. Something
in
her attitude reminded him of her mother as a girl, and he stopped an instant on the threshold to look before he spoke.
He was gratified beyond expres
sion to have his daughter put her arms about his neck and kiss him as if she were really glad he was come home once more. He could not remember so spontaneous a greeting since the days when she was a tiny child. He was not a father whose way was to show affection, but he had a well of it hidden in his heart, and though his blunt, plain-spoken words were often against him, he loved these two children of his deeply.

He cherished that kiss in his he
art, though his only outward re
sponse beyond a smile was:

"We made faster time over than we expected, and got in an hour ago. I came right up from the steamer."

Evelyn was so satisfied with her experiment
in
Philadelphia that she set about establishing a new order of things in New York. She took the management of the servants more into
her own hands, and finally dis
missed entirely the housekeeper, who had been with them for several yea
rs, and had grown fat and lazy in
her position and lax in her duties. She wrote to Allison for the recipes of one or two things she had eaten at their house and knew her father would enjoy, and once she essayed to go into the kitchen and attempt some waffles herself. Sorry looking affairs they were, and worse tasting; and a much bedraggled young woman it was, with burned fingers and aching back, who finally, with the aid of a trusted maid—it was the cook's afternoon out—carefully removed all signs of her experiment, resolving the while mentally to conquer waffles someday if it took a year to learn.

But her attempts were not a
ll
in the c
ulinary line. She turned her at
tention to the library, and made it as attractive as her skill could; and then she would coax her father
in
to sit with her
sometimes
when he came home weary with his business, a
nd ask him questions about poli
tics and things in which she knew he was interested and for which she
had pruned herself by reading the morning papers. He was surprised and pleased with this attention, and would sometimes come into the music room when she was playing and lie down on the couch to listen, staying an hour or two if she played so long.

She marveled to herself that little things that could be so easily done could have such an effect on the home life. They seemed to be more of a family now than they had ever been, though she felt that there was something lacking, and that something she knew from the
Hillcroft
picture she had looked upon, was a mother. However, she was doing the best she could, and she plumed herself mightily upon her success, insomuch that she felt she was now quite able to compete with Allison in goodness.

And then one day on coming home from a round of much-neglected calls, she found Doctor Grey's card again, and suddenly remembered her promise. Yes, she had kept it, but for some reason her conscience did not entirely approve of her. She had said the words over every night
, but she had been so engaged in
working out salvation that she had forgotten that she was to ask it wit
h her whole heart and try to de
sire it. The words had become so familiar that for the moment she could not tell their import. That is th
e way we do with things most sa
cred when we are otherwise occupied. It is the devil's one weapon against vows and promises and mighty words of warning or invitation. We hear the Bible till we let its meaning slip by us on oiled wheels of familiarity. We forget the relationships we bear to one another and their sweet and wonderful meanings by the very intimacy that the tie brings with it. And so Evelyn Rutherford suddenly realized that she had forgotten that she was to ask to be made willing "to be good," as she phrased it, in the very act of trying t
o get to herself that righteous
ness another way.
Not that she reasoned it out in
this way. Oh, no; she was too little familiar with such thoughts to reason. She simply was ill at ease again, and when she knelt that night to say the prayer the words would not come so easily, and the angel had to stand quite near to listen that he might carry up the incense of that feeble little orison to the throne.

The next morning was Sunday and
she arose very early and under
went not a little inconvenience that
she might attend the church ser
vice. It seemed to her that this might ease her restless spirit. As she did not belong to any church in particular and the family went where they chose when it pleased them to go at all, she idly chose a church where the pastor had lately become noted for his unusual sermons and where she knew the music was fine. Not fee
ling in the mood for meeting ac
quaintances she took a seat in the gallery, where she could look down upon the audience and where she was comparatively hidden. The opening music over, she settled back in her seat half-repenting that she had come, and began to search out one and another whom she knew in the audience. She wondered what they came to church for, and why Miss Spalding wore such hideous hats and did her hair in such a wretched fashion, and forgot entirely to note the text or the opening words of the sermon, which were usually exceedingly fine. So the papers said,
about the preaching of the eminent young divine. Then suddenly the whole scene was changed for her.

The vestibule door swung silently on its hinges and someone stepped noiselessly into a seat just below the curve of the gallery and took a seat where she could see him, and behold, it was Dr. Grey!

His reverent attitude at once brought it sharply to her mind that this church was a sacred place; the worshiper below felt it to be such. She saw from the instant rapt attention he
gave to the minister that he in
tended to make the most of the service. And now, behold, she heard the sermon herself, and heard it as through the ears of the quiet
lis
tener seated below her. The thoughts of the preacher were reflected in unmistakable lines on the speaking face, and all the way through to the end Evelyn felt as if she were being preached at, and by one who cared for her salvation. By the droop of Dr. Grey's head in prayer she recognized that the sermon had passed into petition and then she felt herself prayed for. Suddenly she was seized with a longing to hear him pray for her. Had he kept it up yet? H
e had said he would, and she be
lieved he was a man who always remembered such things. What did he say when he called her name before the throne? What name did he speak? How ran the words?

The closing hymn was announced and she suddenly recollected in
confusion that she had not bowed her head nor even closed her eyes during prayer. She was glad that few could see her where she sat. Then she began to dread the close of service and to half fear, half long, to meet and talk with Dr. Grey. Would he ask her if she had kept her promise? Would he say anything about that dreadful sermon that seemed to have cut straight into her life and showed how barren it was? Then the question was settled in an unexpected way. The man downstairs seemed suddenly to become aware of the outside world once more. He took out his watch and with a hurried motion put on his overcoat and slipped out of the church. Ah yes, he was a busy man. He had work in the world to attend to, something worthwhile. In a gleam of revelation she saw how useless her life thus far had been and went home more miserable than she had been for a long time.

Mr. Worthington dropped in that
afternoon. She had not been cor
dial to him of late, but she hailed him as a respite from herself and for an hour was as gay and reckless as she ever had been before she went to
Hillcroft
. She laughed and chatted and used her fine eyes to good effect. Then suddenly her father and brother entered from the street, and the glance that each cast into the room as they passed by without coming in, reminded Evelyn of what th
ey thought of her visitor. A vi
sion of a fine, serious face in reverent, attentive attitude in the tinted shadows of the dimly lighted sanctuary came between her and the reckless face of the man with whom she was talking. All her brilliancy left her, and she declined coldly an inv
itation to an unusually fine mu
sical performance and took the violets he had brought her, from her belt where she had fastened them, throwing them carelessly on the table. She seemed out of harmony with him all at once and shuddered at a joke he ventured to perpetrate. What would Dr. Grey say could he see her in such
company? She mentally reviewed the conversation of the afternoon. It did not bear even her own scrutiny. She was ashamed and began to plan how she might rid herself of him. It was not an easy task seeing she had so far lowered herself as to encourage his attention. Was it true, as her brother had said, that she was a flirt? She would not have liked him to see her this afternoon.

Mr. Worthington was too keen not t
o feel the depression of the at
mosphere and soon took himself away wondering what had come over Miss Rutherford so suddenly. He was as near to being in love as he had ever be
en in his life, and he was in
great need of some girl's money if he would save the reputation un
der which he had been masquerad
ing. Perhaps he had better be a little more guarded
in
his speech, though she had seemed at one time to be dashing enough and not afraid of anything. Well, there was no accounting for women. But this one was worth cultivating a little further and going slow for, if that was what she wanted. She appeared to welcome him heartily enough till her father and brother arrived. Probably that was the matter, they had taken a dislike. He had always considered her brother entirely too nice about some things. However he could pose as a moral hero if need be. And he whistled
an air
from the opera as he went his way toward Jane
Bashford's
, where he was sure to find five o'clock tea and a welcome.