In the Way (24 page)

             
Mrs. Clifton's checks were red and her eyes were bright. There were signs of recent tears on her face which her son did not see. She had been worrying about her daughter and crying for her departed husband all day long.

             
“Mother, you forget yourself. I shall have to remind you that you do not know all about my duties or you would not speak so. It would he utterly impossible for me to go tonight unless it were a matter of life and death. But you need not get so excited. I have sent for Louise. What does she say is the reason for her sudden desire to come home?”

             
Mrs. Clifton ignored the question.

             
“Sent for her!” she fairly screamed. “Do you expect Louise to travel alone? Oh, if your father could see you now and know!” and she ended with a groan. Her son put his hand upon her shoulder and tried to quiet her.

             
“No, mother dear; listen. I have sent a suitable escort for her. Do not worry like this. Please order some supper, for I have but a few minutes before! must be at the hall.”

             
Mrs. Clifton straightened up.

             
“Whom have you sent for your sister? I wish to know at once.” “Mother, I have sent a suitable, safe person.” “Tell me at once who the person is. When you get so far as to turn your family duties over to the hands of strangers I wish to be consulted.”

             
“Mother, I have sent a person whom I would trust with the most precious possession I have in the world. I have sent David Benedict. He offered to go when he saw my perplexity.” The minister stopped. Somehow he felt as he had when he had done a naughty thing as a little boy and stood before his mother to account for his conduct. This sending of a young man for his sister seemed suddenly to appear before him as a heinous offense.

             
Mrs. Clifton's consternation silenced her for a moment. “David Benedict, indeed! Well, thank fortune, she is well enough trained to refuse to come with him! The impertinence of his suggesting such a thing! Well, it appears that I shall have to go after my child myself" Whereupon she swept into her room and closed the door to dissolve in tears of bewilderment and grief, while her puzzled, worried son recovered from his shock and rummaged wildly through his papers for some suitable notes—his intended address being gone beyond recovery—and finally rushed supperless and addressless to the meeting to search his mind in vain for any trace of what he had so carefully prepared. He wondered vaguely in the meantime why it had been so dreadful to send a good Christian young man to escort his sister home. There was just one little ray of comfort in the whole troubled evening, and that was that he had promised to let Ruth Benedict know what had become of her brother, and he knew that her smile or some words of hers would pour oil into his wounds and make him glad. He had known this certainly for some time now, and it gave him deep joy. But he felt very uncertain whether she even quite approved of him yet. He dared not hope it. Once he found a little scrap of a poem which seemed as if it were written to give him help. He cut it out and pasted it in the fly leaf of his memoranda book:

              God's plans for thee are graciously unfolding,

             
              And leaf by leaf they blossom perfectly.

             
As yon fair rose, from its soft enfolding,

             
              In marvelous beauty opens fragrantly.

             
Oh, wait in patience for thy dear Lord's coming,

             
              For sure deliverance he'll bring to thee;

             
Then, how thou shalt rejoice at the fair dawning

             
              Of what sweet morn which ends thy long captivity. 

IT was rather early in the morning for
New York high life when David Benedict presented himself at the house where Louise Clifton was staying and asked to see her at once. He had done a good deal of sightseeing. He had purchased a dress-suit case like the one he had seen on the way, for it had struck as a very useful article. He had stowed it with various gifts for Ruth and Joseph and a few articles for himself, which it had occurred to him would be good things to have, and which he had not hitherto considered necessaries. The young man on the train had made a difference in David Benedict's ideas of cultured life and refinement. He had left his old overcoat at a coffee and mission house, where he had stepped in for a few minutes to join in the singing and rejoice in the number of reformed men who were testifying to the power of Jesus to save, and he had bought a new one, the counterpart as nearly as he could find it, of the one his admiration of the night before had worn. The new overcoat had necessitated a new hat also, and he had added gloves. Altogether, had he but known it, he looked a great deal better than the young man he had so admired, for David was a handsome man, with a rugged, unconscious, homely beauty that had much sterling character behind it.

             
Louise and Fannie Gleason were attired in becoming wrappers, sipping chocolate and eating delicately toasted bread. Each had a book beside her, and they were having a delightfully late breakfast in their room, having just arisen, and not having anything particular in view for the morning's occupation. Louise's long golden hair was hanging down her back over her rich creamy cashmere wrapper. She liked occasionally to be lazy and pretend that she was a damsel of an Oriental court, who lolled and lived in defiance of the stern laws of work-a-day life. Besides, she meant to try a new way of arranging her hair soon, and she wished to take plenty of time to it.

             
The servant brought her a telegram which proved to be from her brother. Louise tossed it on the table, and felt a little disappointed now that she knew she was actually to return to the stupid little town. She had not thought her mother would be so summary. She had hoped she would come on and make a visit or go somewhere else with her. Besides, there was a delightful invitation for next week, which had arrived just after she mailed her last letter to her mother. She did not want to go home nearly so much as she had done two days before. She told Fannie about it, and they talked it over and decided to keep Robert over the next week if possible. Fannie was only too eager for an interesting young man to add to their pleasant circle. He needed a change and rest. All young ministers were worked to death; that was a matter of course. Louise was not so certain that she could keep him; but she decided she would at least let him return alone if he would not wait a few days, and then, while they were talking, the servant came again announcing a young man who did not give his name, but had said,

             
“Please tell Miss Clifton I have come for her.”

             
“It's Robert, of course,” said Louise, getting up annoyed, “and he will be in a hurry, of course, and here I am in this rig. I can't go in this way, and my hair all down too. He'll just have to wait till I'm dressed. I shall not have an easy task, Fannie, I assure you, for Rob is awfully set in his way and as devoted to his seven-by-nine church as a mother to her child. I wish I was ready, for by the time I get down he will be so worked up over having to wait that I sha'n't have nearly so easy a task.”

             
“What do you wait to dress for? Go along, now, and I'll fix it all up. Maggie, tell the gentleman to go to the morning sitting room and his sister will come at once. There, go along. There isn't a soul about now. Mamma went to her executive meeting half an hour ago, and nobody will see you but the servants. You look as sweet as a picture. My! I only wish I had such hair.”

             
The morning sitting room was on the second floor, and was furnished all in soft, dull yellows and browns with luxurious couches and deep easy-chairs and pillows. David was ushered into it, and not many minutes later he heard a soft step on carpeted stairs, and Louise stood in the doorway, coming to meet him with a smile of welcome on her face intended for her brother. She paused in the center of the room, taken aback by the presence of a stranger. She stood just where a patch of morning sunshine caught her hair and made a glory of it, and the soft tones of golden brown and yellow in the draperies of a door and couch behind her made a fitting background for the creamy folds of her morning gown, which was all soft and white, with a touch of lace, filmy and rich, at throat and wrists, and a clasp of gold filigree at her waist. Louise dearly loved the artistic in her toilets, and it was perhaps for this reason that she had fallen so quickly in love with Ruth, for she felt they had an artistic bond in common.

             
David had risen when he heard her step, and now he stood spellbound gazing upon her. He had never seen any one so lovely. She looked like some bright celestial spirit as she stood there with her halo of golden hair. He could not speak, he could only gaze, and his earnest, truth-telling face must have almost frightened the girl with its intensity of admiration if she had not been bewildered by his unexpected appearance. She stood dazed a moment, fully realizing her position and her costume, and unable to collect her faculties sufficiently to know what to do. But the quietness and deep reverence of David's gaze suddenly brought her to herself, and she turned and fled. Had he been almost any other young man of her acquaintance, Louise would have blushed and laughed, and though she would have been embarrassed, she would have quickly twisted up the flowing hair which gave her so much trouble and sat down with a comical explanation; but being David, she fled. She did not know why she felt so about this young man, but she did. She flew up the stairs to her room, only pausing to give a passing servant a stiff message for the waiting gentleman in the morning room that she would be down by and by, and then locking her door she made a more leisurely and careful toilet than even she was accustomed to do. The young man might wait now as long as he chose. When next he saw her she would be as dignified and distant as it was possible for apparel to make her. She even meditated putting on a hat, but decided that that would be absurd. Her checks grew redder and redder as she progressed with her toilet. She was beginning to grow indignant with David for having gotten her into such a ridiculous plight. She would not be reasonable and see that it was all her own fault. She was thankful that Fannie had gone into her mother's room and was not there to witness her excitement.

             
And David, his vision vanished, stood staring at the spot where she had stood, almost blinded with the sight. When the servant entered the room with the message, he bowed quietly and sat down; but when he was alone he looked again at the place where she had stood, and said in a reverent tone and with an almost holy light upon his face, “I love her,” and then putting up his hand as if to cover his eyes, he added in an audible voice, as if he were registering a vow, “But it shall not make any difference.”

             
Then he sat back and leaned his head against the soft upholstery and looked like a man who had been privileged above many. There was a rapt look upon his face. You would have believed it if you had been told that he was praying. And the time did not seem long to him before Louise returned. He understood it all. He did not need her dignified explanation and apology. He greeted her with a gentle, deferential tone, and he forestalled all she had to say by apologizing for causing her any trouble. Then he told her simply that he had come for her, and asked when she could be ready.

             
“But where is my brother?” asked the astonished young woman. “He was to come for me.”

             
“He could not come, Miss Clifton; there was a meeting and a funeral, and he feared you would not like to wait until next week, so he sent me. I am sorry you are not to have a more desirable companion, but I will do my best.”

             
“Well, I'm sorry if you have been to any trouble,” began Louise, determining at once not to go home in David Benedict's company under the present circumstances. “But I had decided not to return until next week or the week after. I shall write my mother so at once. I hope you did not make a special trip on my account. I supposed you were here on business. My brother will doubtless be able to come for me soon, or—I could go alone. It is not a difficult journey.” Louise realized that she was being almost rude by the way she was talking to her visitor, but she stumbled ahead blindly, making it worse with every sentence.

             
With just a shadow on his quiet face and a note of something different in his voice, did David express the sudden pain she gave him by her words, as he said, “Have you then not forgiven me yet?” Then his tone changed to the old masterful one, and Louise was at once reminded of her compulsory sleigh-ride on Thanksgiving night. “Miss Clifton, I have no right, of course, to insist; but I have been charged to bring you home, and wish you would come. Indeed, I think it would be better. Your mother is expecting you and I should not like to return without you.”

             
In spite of herself Louise had to give in, for she was ashamed of herself. She talked haughtily a few moments more, but she knew in her heart from that first masterful sentence he had spoken that she would consent to go.

             
Fannie, in her room again, was growing impatient to know the result of the conference. She had made a hasty toilet after Louise left and sat waiting for her return.

             
“You don't mean to say you're really going, and going to-day! Why, Lou! You can't possibly get ready; the train leaves in two hours. And who is he? Is he a special friend of the family? Maggie says he's awfully handsome. Is he fond of you? My, I envy you! You'll have a grand time on the way—a whole young man to yourself for so many hours! I predict all sorts of interesting episodes. He must be awfully nice or your mother would never let you go alone with him. She is so particular about chaperons and such things. Do take me down, Lou, and introduce me, quick. I won't be left out altogether.”

             
So Fannie rattled on, while Louise opened bureau drawers and without seeming to care or know what she did, unceremoniously dumped their contents into her trunk. Having made up her mind to go, Louise seemed to be in a fever of impatience to get ready lest they might miss the train. And all the time she kept wondering to herself why it was she did as David told her.

             
Fannie was taken down and introduced, and came back to help her friend with the last little preparations, going into raptures over David.

             
“Why Lou, he's just magnificent! I think you are the slyest girl I ever saw; you never once mentioned his name all the time you were here. Oh, I know there's a good deal more to this than you will admit. Wasn't he at home when you left? I can't think what made you come away. Had you been quarreling? I just believe you had; and I'll tell you, Louie dear, it doesn't do to quarrel with men that have such firm chins, for they always get the better of one. Tell mc the truth, Lou, did you get clear into the room so that he saw you with your hair down before you discovered it wasn't your brother? Oh, I just know you did by your face; and I would have given anything to have seen his face when he first looked at you. You were a perfect angel in that white and gold gown.”

             
Louise was very much annoyed by this talk. It seemed as if all sorts of sacred things were being tumbled about and torn open by Fannie's curious tongue. She got away from her at last, though she had to spend a very tiresome hour with her while David went away for his lunch and to order a carriage. He had watched that morning as the young man of the sleeper ordered a carriage and put his sister in and then sat down beside her. David made up his mind that he would do likewise with the lady of his care.               Fannie went with them to the station and chattered with David all the way, and he was grave and pleasant and respectful. He was wondering what Louise found in her to like. But she was Louise's friend and he treated her accordingly.

             
It was a relief when at last the train moved out from the station. David had secured two chairs in the parlor car. As there was no sleeper on the day train he discovered that the chair car took its place. He seated Louise and waited upon her in all the ways he had seen that other young man use, and then he set himself for an hour to be as agreeable as it was in him to be. He had read much and could talk well. He was not all gravity, as Louise discovered. He could make witty remarks and tell bright stories; and while he knew nothing at all about the “small talk” which was common parlance with most of her young men acquaintances, he succeeded in making her forget herself and her unusual position. Then he bought one or two of the latest and best magazines, and with a delicacy born of innate refinement decided that he would not bore her with too much of his company, so murmuring some excuse of hunting up the porter and giving orders for supper at the best point he went away. He really seated himself in the common car for an hour and closed his eyes and prayed.

             
When he returned to the parlor car he found that the young lady had finished looking at the papers and was gazing out of the window looking tired and somewhat cross. She looked up as he sat down beside her, and asked: