Maris (24 page)

Her father's eyes were full of love as he looked at her, and suddenly it seemed to Maris that her heart was so full she could not help breaking down and crying. And she mustn't! No, she mustn't. They wouldn't understand. They would think she was suffering terribly about putting off her wedding. And that was not true. It suddenly became plain to her that whatever God was going to show her as her duty for the future, she was not suffering now, except a little in her worldly pride, that she was not marrying Tilford Thorpe today. It was all at once just as plain as day to her that she did not love him. That she never had loved him the way a girl ought to love the man she was going to marry.

That might not make any difference with what God would tell her to do in the future. Maybe God would look upon an engagement as too sacred to break, at least at this last minute. But she knew in her heart now that she never should have made it. The thought of marrying Tilford somehow brought a great burden to her.

Oh, if she could go back and do things over again and walk carefully through her days, waiting on the Lord to send her joy in His own good time and not rushing out to seek it!

But she was aware that her father was still speaking to her.

"You know, dear, that just as soon as Mother is really out of danger and Lexie is well enough to be otherwise looked after, we shall want you to go on with your plans. We realize that this must have been a very unhappy thing for Tilford to put up with, and we shall not want you to feel that you must hold up your plans forever--"

Maris could stand it no longer.

"Oh, Father dear! Please don't say those things! I ought to have told you all several days ago, only I was so busy, and I sort of wished I could tell Mother first. But I am not going to be married at all. I gave Tilford back my ring and broke the engagement several days ago. I wanted you to know it, but somehow there didn't seem to be any right time to tell you."

"But,
my dear
!"

The father dropped his knife and fork and looked at her in dismay.

"My dear child! Your mother would not want her illness to have broken up your life and put a great unhappiness upon you."

"You needn't worry about that, Father. I found out I didn't love Tilford the way I ought to if I were going to marry him. I had begun to suspect it before Mother was taken sick, but it took her illness to make it really plain to me. So no one needs to worry about that. I'm not heartbroken or anything. I'm just glad and thankful I'm here and can help, and rejoice that Mother's still here, too. It would have killed me if I had been married and gone off and then found Mother was sick, and Lexie was sick, and I couldn't get to you!"

There was a dawning joy on the father's face, but he looked at Maris uncertainly.

"But, my dear! Isn't that being very unfair to Tilford? Now at this last minute? What will he say to that? Surely he will not give you up so easily!"

Maris lifted her head a little with a proud tilt.

"Tilford has known for several days. He has had the ring for nearly two weeks, and still he hasn't been around here for more than a week. You needn't worry about Tilford. He is angry, of course, but I--somehow I don't think Tilford ever really loved me, either, not the way you and Mother love each other.

"Oh, my dear!" said Mr. Mayberry, and now his face really glowed with joy. "If that is all true, this will be the gladdest house in the universe. You don't know how your mother has worried about you. She felt from the first that Tilford was not the right man for you. But she didn't want to say anything she would have to live down. Oh, my dear! How she will rejoice when she knows it! Oh, I do hope and pray that she may not leave us at least until she knows it."

Suddenly he got up and came around the table, putting his arms gently around his child, and stooping down he kissed her softly on the forehead.

"Our little girl!" he said softly. "Our little girl back again. Our
own
again!"

"Great work!" said Merrick huskily, getting up and following his father around the table. He stooped over and gave Maris a great bear hug and a resounding smack on her cheek, never knowing that he left a big tear beside the kiss. Merrick was a dear. She never knew before that Merrick cared that much.

"And won't you ever get married, sister? Will you stay with us always?" beamed Gwyneth. "But, oh, sister, your
beautiful ring
!"

Suddenly Maris broke down and laughed.

"There are some things better than rings!" she told Gwyneth. "I'd rather be here at home with you all than have all the rings in the universe."

"That isn't the only ring in the world, kid," said Merrick gruffly as he took his cap and prepared to go out to his daily bus route. He alternated, one day early, the next day late. This was his late morning. He wouldn't be home till late in the evening tonight.

Somehow after that talk with her family the doubt and dismay and compunctions of the night before vanished, and Maris was very happy as she got up from the table and kissed her father and brother good-bye. Then she stood in the doorway and watched them go away smiling. Father was going to the office for a few hours. He had been well enough to go every day for the last week.

"Maris," said Gwyneth, looking up after they had vanished around the corner, "what I'm worrying about is my maid of honor dress. Do you think I'll have any use for it? It won't stay in fashion long enough till I grow up big enough to wear a long dress, will it? What shall we do with it?"

"Oh, my dear sister. That's nothing to worry about. There are dozens of things to do. We can hem it up and use it for a party dress. It is very simple."

Gwyneth sighed.

"I wouldn't like it to be wasted," she said. "It's so pretty. It is the prettiest dress I have ever had!"

"Yes, darling. It is pretty, and you'll wear it and have a lot of enjoyment out of it yet, I'm sure! It's simple enough, hemmed up, to wear to church even." Maris patted her sweet young cheek and thrilled to think that these dear people all belonged to her. Her precious family!

Then the nurse came downstairs, and her eyes seemed to be happier than usual.

"Do you know," she said, stepping up to the door and speaking in a jubilant tone, "I believe your mother's pulse is a trifle steadier this morning than it has been at all."

Then all suddenly the morning became brighter than it had seemed to be before, and Maris's heart grew light as she went upstairs to her duties.

A wedding day! What was a wedding day beside a bit of hope like that? Not a wedding day with Tilford Thorpe anyway!

The rest of the day went on glad feet. Maris had feared just a little that Tilford might appear on the scene and be disagreeable again, but now it didn't seem to matter. Her dear family was restored to the old-time fellowship that had been broken up ever since she had got to know Tilford Thorpe, and somehow other things grew small beside the joy of the family understanding. If only Mother were well enough to know it! If Tilford came, let him come. Somehow that trouble, too, would dissolve like others.

So the day passed in tender ministrations.

There were duties for the household that she had long put by till a convenient time; they simply could not wait any longer. There were unexpected interruptions of visitors and telephone messages, and the evening wore on without a chance for Maris to go alone and do some Bible study as she had promised herself that morning to do. There was a game to play with Lexie, who was allowed to sit up longer now. As she sat there beside the little girl's bed with the bedside table between them holding the Chinese checkers board, she could hear the boys' voices over on the Maitland lawn. They were playing ball with Lane! How good he was, caring for those children exactly as if they were his own brothers. Oh, if Tilford had been like that, how different things would have been!

The game presently was finished. The boys' voices had trailed off farther, and she knew they were being sent to bed. Lexie would soon be asleep now, and she would have her promised Bible reading. So she sat down at last quietly in her own room, with her new Bible in her hand.

She heard a cab drive down the street and pause somewhere, but she was on the other side of the house from the street and paid little heed to it. She had given up the thought that Tilford would come. The wedding day was almost over. In a few more hours it would be a thing of the past, a thing that had never been.

The Bible opened to Isaiah, and her eyes suddenly fell upon a verse that Lane had marked. She had not seen it before. Such a strange, arresting verse, as if it were spoken by the Lord straight to her soul, as if it were a kind of promise for her to take with her into her life:

"No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the
L
ord."

She had read so far when the nurse tapped at the door.

"I think there is somebody at the front door," she said, "and I saw Sally go out a few minutes ago. I can't leave your mother just now. Can you go? Your father is asleep."

Maris laid down her Bible and went downstairs, patting her rumpled hair smooth and glancing down at her neat little cotton housedress. Her wedding night and just about the time when she would have been walking down the church aisle to the time of the "Wedding March"!

She went to the door but at first saw no one, though there was a taxi at the curb. Then she discovered a man with a cap drawn low and a rough look about him.

"Are you Maris Mayberry?" he asked in a husky voice that she did not recognize.

"Yes," she answered, her heart beginning to beat excitedly, though she did not know exactly why.

"Well, step out here so your sick folks won't hear. I've got a message from your brother."

Maris with suddenly trembling limbs stepped out.

"Your brother Merrick has been in an accident, and he wants you. Doc MacPherson sent word that you were to come with me quick. He may not live but a few minutes. Hurry!"

The man put out a strong hand and seized her wrist as she hurried to the cab.

"Get right in!" he said roughly, pushing her aside as she suddenly drew back and hesitated. "He might die before you get there, and he wants to see you quick!"

Maris was pushed off her balance and thrown into the backseat of the taxi, and before she could get her balance again, the man had jumped in and slammed the door shut. She tried to speak, to protest, to ask a question, but the throb of the engine covered her voice, and the cab had started on its way. There was a strange acrid smell about, and suddenly a revolting wet cloth was stuffed into her mouth, dripping down her throat in spite of her best efforts not to swallow the liquid. The pungent odor poured over her, filling her nostrils and driving away her senses, till her struggles grew less and less.

"No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper--"
The words floated through her mind like a call as she drifted out of the world she knew.
"No weapon. . . . This is the heritage of the servants of the
L
ord--!"
Oh, God! You are here!

The light went out and she was away into a strange dark world where there was no longer anything she could do.

 

 

The little boys had lost their ball as darkness came down, over in the corner of the Maitland lot where the rhododendrons grew, close by the street. The boys had gone to bed, and Lane Maitland was out in the corner hunting among the rhododendrons for the ball. It was foolish, of course, to look for it when it was getting so dark. Better to wait till morning. But the boys had been distressed lest a neighbor's dog might find it and carry it off, so he had promised to hunt for it at once.

But he couldn't find it, of course. How could a dirty ball show up in the leaves among the rhododendrons? He was just about to go over and get a flashlight from his car, which was still standing in the driveway not far away, when he heard a car stop in front of the Mayberry house. He paused to look out through the shrubbery and see who it was. Could that be Tilford Thorpe? On Maris's wedding night?

Then he saw a man slink out from the car. No, that shabby sedan was not Tilford Thorpe's shining car. And that thickset, slouchy man with a stealthy gait was not Tilford. But who could it be? Perhaps he had the wrong house. Should he go and enlighten him? No, perhaps it was someone to see Sally. He waited a moment and in the silence of the evening heard the buzzer of the bell next door sound softly. If his ears had not been attuned already to everything that went on in that house, he might not have recognized it, it had been muffled so effectively.

The Mayberry front door was standing wide, with only the screen door closed, but the man was not standing in the patch of light on the doorstep; he was in the shadow at the side of the door, where Lane could not see him. He could barely discern an indistinct shadow among the other shadows.

Then he heard someone come to the door. A low muttering from the man. "Maris. . ." He heard that. Too bad the way everybody bothered Maris, making her come down to the door for every little message. Well, perhaps he would run over himself and speak to her after the man was gone. He could just slip through the hedge and catch her before she went upstairs again. There were some verses he wanted to call her attention to. She might like to have them tonight. So he stood still where he was among the shrubbery.

The street was a quiet one. And there was little traffic at this time of night. The air was not stirring much, even the leaves were quiet, and across the space between his standing place and the Mayberry front door the man's words, though guarded, came in detached fragments. Then he saw Maris come out the door and stand in the shadow near the stranger, who edged along nearer to the street, while Maris followed. They were standing more nearly opposite to his position now, and he could hear that low mutter better. He distinctly heard the word
accident
and caught Merrick's name. And was that MacPherson he mentioned? Did the man say "doctor"? Ah! That word was
dying
. His heart missed a beat, and he stood in consternation. Surely, surely he was mistaken.