Ariel Custer (10 page)

Jud’s face softened. “Well, how can I help it, little girl? I can’t bear to see you in a rotten hole like that and think a God who loves you lets things like that happen to you. I’m in a rotten hole myself. If your God would help us out of this and put us in a plain, simple path where things were decent—I wouldn’t ask much—why, perhaps I would trust Him. I’d like to, for your sake, because you want it, and because it seems to give you so much comfort. God knows I need comfort myself. But how can I trust Him when things are all wrong this way? How can I believe He cares? What did He make us for if it was only to suffer?”

“Well, I don’t know that I can answer all those questions,” said Ariel earnestly, “but I know that you can’t make conditions with God. You’ve got to trust Him through hard things before you get the assurance of His love. Oh, Jud, I wish you’d just take Him right now and trust Him for all you’re worth…. Won’t you?”

They were sitting on a great rock by the edge of a little stream that wandered down from the wooded hillside. Across the fields a young moon was rising, and the sky was luminous with the fading of the just departed sunset. She lifted the blue of her eyes to his earnest, anxious glance, and their young, troubled lives seemed to stop and stand still in sudden revelation of one another.

Suddenly, out of the silence Jud spoke: “I
will
, Ariel. If you say that’s right, and you want me to, I will, so far as I know how, trust Him. I’ll try it and see what comes.”

“Do you mean you will stick by Him whatever comes?”

“Do you mean I’m to stick even if I can’t believe?”

“I mean you’re to
believe
even if you can’t
understand
,” said Ariel earnestly.

He gave her another long look.

“Well, then,” he said at length, solemnly, “so far as in me lies, I
will
!”

Their hands had stolen together in a solemn clasp, and neither of them seemed to notice it. There was nothing in it of the familiarity to which Ariel had been objecting earlier in the evening, and yet it was the sweetest possible familiarity.

“Then,” said Ariel after a moment of silent joy, “I’m
glad
! That’s the greatest thing that could come! If you’ll keep that vow, nothing else can really hurt.”

“Do you care so much?”

“Yes, I care—so much!” said the girl with a deep ring to her voice. “It’s the only thing in the world you know that
really
matters
forever.
“

His hand held hers closely, reverently. He was very still watching her face in the twilight. Wondering at the great joy within him. Wondering just what effect this vow he had made was to have on his whole life. Wondering if it really meant all that it seemed now that he had made it.

Ariel’s voice broke the silence softly: “Won’t you tell me what was troubling you?”

He was still again for some time. “I oughtn’t to—” he said wearily. “But I want to,” he added, as if he could not resist the temptation.

“Why oughtn’t you to?” she asked gently.

“Because it might make you feel—badly! It might spoil—our friendship.”

“Well,” said Ariel, “I’d rather feel badly if I can sympathize with you or help any. And as for our friendship, I don’t feel anything can spoil that. There are things that might put us apart, of course, but that couldn’t spoil a friendship that is founded on God.”

“You are wonderful!” said Jud reverently.

“Then you will tell me what is troubling you?”

“Yes, I will tell you. It is that I love you, and I want to take care of you, to take you away from that beast of a man you are working for, and put you where no one can trouble you anymore; and I don’t see any way to do it, not yet.”

“Oh,” said Ariel, startled, her cheeks growing warm in the darkness and her hands suddenly becoming conscious of their enfolding. “Oh, but that is—very wonderful—I did not think—I did not know it would be anything like that!”

I
t was about a week after their walk upon the hillside that Jud came upon the bungalow.

The train had been unusually long and crowded that night and stopped far down the track so that when Jud got off, he found himself a block nearer his boarding place if he went across the fields and took a side street where a new building operation was in progress, than if he went up to the station as usual. The little stone bungalow was all finished and attracted him at once. With all his hurry he had to stop and glance in. The sight filled him with a great longing, and he took Ariel to see it that night.

It was a little wonder in the way of a small home. To begin with, there were two large hemlock trees in one corner of the lot that gave it a look of having been there some time, and being able to stay and give comfort, a sort of finished, homey look.

The living room was big and roomy with a fireplace of stone and soft creamy walls of rough plaster. It had windows on three sides, the front one a great glazed arch, and built-in seats and bookcases that made it seem almost furnished already. The dining room and kitchen had window charms of their own with many little tricks of convenience hidden away in unexpected spaces and crannies, china closets and ironing board, and tiny refrigerator room. And there were two bedrooms and a bath. Outside, the wide, tiled terrace was partly covered by an overhang supported by stone arches. It seemed a dream dropped down from heaven to those two poor young wayfarers, and they stood with close-clasped hands and gazed at it awhile before they even dared to venture in.

They knew it for their hearts’ desire even before they had gone together from room to room discovering its charms and delights, hunting out its secret contrivances for comfort and convenience. And then, as evening dropped down and the shadows crept within the empty rooms and found them standing in front of the great stone fireplace, Ariel turned with a sound almost like a sob and dropped her face against Jud’s rough coat sleeve. “Oh, Jud, doesn’t it seem just like heaven?” she said, and within Jud’s heart was born the great unconquerable desire to get it for her.

They sat down in the darkened room on the seat by the fireplace and talked it over—all their slender resources.

“I have some furniture,” said Ariel, “a lovely old table and chest, and some chairs. There’s a great big mahogany bed that was my mother’s, and two chests of drawers, some mirrors, and a big old clock. They’re down in Virginia, but it would cost a lot to get them up here.”

“We could manage that,” said Jud thoughtfully, “if we only had the house to put them in. I know a fellow with a truck. We might manage to go down after them. Perhaps we could take that on our wedding trip.”

“Oh,” said Ariel, “but do you suppose Mr. Martin would let me off for a wedding trip?”

“Mr. Martin be hanged!” said Jud fiercely. “Do you suppose I’m going to let my wife work for any Mr. Martin? Ariel, I just must get another job. I’m sure there are jobs somewhere that pay better than mine. Perhaps there is someone somewhere that would buy this house and rent it to us, let us pay a big rent and let it go on buying it. Perhaps I could borrow! Say, Ariel, that’s an idea! There is such a thing as a Building Association. We ought to be able to buy a house without paying much down.”

“But we haven’t anything to pay down,” laughed Ariel, almost on the verge of tears, she wanted the dear little house so much.

“There must be a way,” said Jud. “There must! I wonder—if only my mother could be made to see things right—!”

But he wouldn’t say any more about his thought that night. He suggested that they go out and walk, and Ariel, wise for her age, complied.

As they walked away from the street she looked back and said, “See, Jud, doesn’t it look sweet in the moonlight! If we can’t have that one maybe we’ll have one like it someday. Let’s begin to save right away. I’ve thought of something I can do without—already!”

“There’s to be no doing without for you, Ariel; you’ve had enough of that already.”

“Oh, but it wouldn’t be doing without. It would be doing for the house instead of something else.”

“You wait, Ariel. I’ve got an idea!” said Jud. “But first, we’ve got to find out the price of the house. It may be way up in the clouds. Those unusual things usually are, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” sighed Ariel. “But maybe we can get something big to do. I’m sure if I lived in a house like that, I could work twice as hard.”

“You’re not going to work when I get the say so,” growled Jud joyously.

Ariel’s laugh rang out at that: “What would you have, Jud, a sluggard for a wife?

chanted Ariel mockingly.

“Well, you may have to wash a few dishes for a little while till I get the house paid for, but you jolly well won’t write letters for that old swine of a Martin, when I get you, understand that!”

Ariel sighed. “Then we will have to wait for years and years,” she complained sweetly, “if you don’t let me help buy the house.”

They spent an hour and a half arguing the matter and finally compromised on finding her another position with a woman writer somewhere who was to be providentially provided for their need; and they parted for the night and went happily to their rest to dream of the little stone bungalow.

A week later there was a national holiday, and as Mr. Martin was away on a business trip, not even he could require Ariel’s presence in the office all day, so they planned for a long-talked-of holiday.

The night before, Jud came down to the Smalleys’ for a few minutes to tell her he had seen the owner of the bungalow at last. He had been away in Chicago and just got back the night before.

The bungalow proved to be remarkably low, and two thousand was all that was required down.

“Two thousand dollars!” said Ariel, aghast. “Why, it might as well be two million as far as we are concerned!” Her whole slender figure drooped pitifully. Dreams of the pretty little home vanished. Then suddenly she sat up brightly. “Never mind, Jud. We mustn’t be grumpy. There are other houses in the world, and you can’t tell what good thing our Father has in store for us. Remember, our lives are His planning, not our own. It doesn’t seem as if there could be anything else better than this little house in the whole wide world, but there must be, and we’ll trust and not be afraid, won’t we?”

Jud’s arm stole around her adoringly. “It’s easier to trust for myself than for you,” he said tenderly, “but I’m doing my best at both. But listen, dear, I’ve just a little glimmer of hope that all isn’t hopeless yet—”

She caught her breath and waited.

“You know I told you I had some money that would be mine in four years—”

“Yes?”

“It’s five thousand dollars.”

“But how will that help any now, Jud? Do you mean we’ll have to wait four years?”

“I’ve been hoping I might be able to borrow on the strength of it. I don’t know whether it can be done, or whether maybe Mother will prevent it if she has to know, but I think it’s worth trying out. There’s an old friend of my father’s living in Mercer, old Judge Bonner. He would know if anybody would all about my father’s will and what hope there is if any of my being able to get hold of the money sooner. It may be that he would be able to persuade Mother. I haven’t seen him since I was a boy, and I don’t know just how things stand. I never bothered about it before—”

Jud had not told Ariel of his mother’s bitterness against her. He had vaguely stated that she had a girl she wanted him to go with and it had created an estrangement between them for the time being; but he had not told her that the opposition extended to herself more than in general, neither did she know all the details of the strange will. In fact, she had thought little about the matter save to regret that Jud’s mother was making him trouble, for she was so happy in her friendship with him that she needed no one else to make her happiness complete. She had not questioned Jud; and it was also true that Jud had been so engrossed with the wonder of her love that he had not given much care to anything else. It was not from intention that he was keeping the ugly side of his life from her knowledge, although his natural wish would of course have been to protect his mother from being judged any more harshly than was necessary. After all, she was his mother, and perhaps she would yet see the light; though he felt sure that nothing short of a miracle would bring her to that. Jud was also sensitive that his own mother should show no more motherly love toward him. He could not bear to have the girl he loved know how hard she had been to him; how she had used her power with his sick father at the last, to put him, her son, in her power until he was beyond the likelihood of marrying to displease her. It all seemed so sordid and ugly, so far from the things this girl would expect of a mother. He had been hoping against hope that something would turn up that would make it unnecessary for Ariel to know the worst. If his mother could only see her, know her in circumstances that would make her see. He even yet after all these years had hope that there was that in her mother heart that would be reached by the right appeal. He could not get away from that gentle voice of his father saying, “She’s all the mother you’ve got, Jud, all the mother you’ve got.”

So they laid their heavenly sweet plans and watched the clouds every night and morning to see what the weather would be, and arranged to go anyway rain or shine, because they could at least go to Mercer together even if it poured, and Ariel could wait in the post office or grocery store while Jud went on his errand to Judge Bonner. Of course, if it was pleasant they would have their wonderful day together, and it was to be down by the old Copple’s Creek, where Jud used to play as a boy. He was going to show her the old swimming hole, and the rocks, and the rapids, and the place where the yellow asters grew thick like a blaze of sun, and the strip of chestnut woods where he gathered chestnuts, and the turn of the stream where the willow stood and the bullfrogs sang “Ca-chug!” right under the canoe, and the green, quiet shade where the hemlocks dipped and lifted their feathery boughs in lacy canopy over mossy banks broidered out with little red berry vines and bits of baby cones.

All this and more Jud told her of the spot he used to love as a boy, and the night before, she could hardly sleep thinking of the day she was to have. Not since the old dear days down in Virginia with her father and mother and grandmother had she been so happy anticipating an outing. Her happy soul lay wakeful in her hard little bed and looked into the day that was before her.

And Jud, he too lay waking, planning what he would say and just how he would approach the question of the will and his money with the old judge. For the joy of his outing depended on how well he succeeded first in his mission.