The Tryst (Annotated) (Grace Livingston Hill Book) (18 page)

John Treeves looked at him calmly and said in a low reverent tone, “God!” 

The old man looked at him with an expression of frightened awe and shivered. Then he laughed out an unholy cackle. 

“High strikes, young man! High strikes! You seem mighty glib in your acquaintance with God. How did you find that out?” 

“I have His Word for it,” was the quiet answer, and a strange, beautiful light grew in John Treeves's eyes as he looked away to the distant hills, and the Bible verses that had surrounded him all his life from his mother's knee, like bright protecting angels, hovered near and handed him the sword of the spirit. 

“How –what--how's that?” asked the old man, a frightened note in his voice again. 

“As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.” 

“Poppycock!” shouted the old man. “Go and take a walk or a ride. I don't want to talk with such a fool. You’ll come out of that soon enough when you've had a little taste of life. Meantime, keep your high strikes to yourself where all well-ordered young men keep their extravagances and excesses. It isn't good form to gabble like that before folks. You must have some conceit to think your God has time to spend leading you round. Get out of here, I say, and let me rest!” 

John Treeves went out and walked among the pines, his hands clasped behind him, his eyes upon the ground. He wondered if he had said the right thing, wondered how he came to say what he had said. He marveled at the Bible verses that flocked around him continually since he had met the Christ in the lonely trysting place and given himself over bodily to His service. But most of all, he marveled that in his heart he found a strange yearning desire for the poor old rich man lying 80 helpless upon his bed upstairs, cursing and fretting and trying to rule, and fighting against God. The feeling was so strong upon him that when he had climbed to the top of the hill and wandered away from the trail to a lonely spot where the ground was matted under his feet with ground pine and wintergreen and laurel, where the pines grew close and dark about him, he dropped upon the mossy carpet and cried out to God: “Oh, Christ, come to that old man and make him see how much he needs Thee. If there is anything I can do to help him find Thee, show me how.” 

Patty in her room, supposedly resting from the horseback ride, looked down upon the trail and saw John Treeves disappear among the trees, climbing higher, and by and by reappearing farther up. She watched until he came back at dusk, and then she went to Miss Cole and begged to be allowed to stay in her room that evening, pleading a headache which was the honest result of a good cry she had had that afternoon. Miss Cole, studying the sweet sad face with the dark circles under the eyes, gave a grudging consent, and agreed to look after Marjorie herself that evening. Patty went back to her room thankfully and wondered how long she would be able to dodge her old friend, and how it was that Fate had arranged such an unhappy part for her who would have so loved to meet John Treeves and have a good time with him once more. 

John Treeves, duly arrayed in fine garments, provided by a thoughtful and cunning uncle and spread upon his bed by Hespur with an apologetic plea: 

“He doesn't rightly enjoy himself without the clothes be all right, sir, you know. You won't mind an old man's whim, sir,” went down to the dining-room once more with his uncle that night, the cynosure of all eyes. 

During the afternoon that bad old man had not been idle nor had he rested: 

“Hespur, you go get the list of the guests at the house, and look me out a nice girl, especially nice girl, see, Hespur? Nothing like the right kind of girl to make a man forget his idiosyncrasies. We'll try him with a girl." 

And surely it was the irony of fate that made old Calvin Treeves pick on Marjorie Horliss-Cole as a fitting companion of the hour for his nephew. 

“She’ll do, Hespur. We'll manage,” he said, and fell into an uneasy sleep, waking to lead his man a life of it until dinner-time. And so it came about that Marjorie Horliss-Cole, attending upon her aunt at dinner was introduced to young Dunham Treeves and spent a part of the evening talking to him, while a disgusted aunt and an elated uncle snapped epigrams at one another and watched them. And when Miss Sylvia Cole's patience at last gave out, Miss Marjorie was obliged to attend her upstairs. 

Marjorie Horliss-Cole, after having carelessly performed a few trifling services for her aunt, fluttered softly into Patty's room, where Patty, with rapidly beating heart was trying her best to get to sleep and forget: 

“I’ve just slipped in to see how you feel,” said Marjorie, settling down comfortably on the foot of the bed. “Is your head any better? I suppose it was the glare of the sun this morning. I hope you’ll be able to ride again to-morrow. You certainly ought to have been down this evening. I had a dandy time. We met the young paragon, Dunham Treeves. He's simply stunning! Handsome as a picture and awfully fine eyes. I talked to him all the evening till Aunt Sylvia got restless, of course, and had to come away just when we were having the most interesting discussion about whether life is worth while unless one has some real work in the world to do. Really you ought to hear him talk. He's just your style. You'll laugh, of course, my comparing them, but he's like my athletic man, in a way only of course utterly different. I tried my best to get him to go riding with us in the morning, but he said he was leaving to-morrow and must devote himself to his old uncle. Old crab! I can't see how anybody could ever stand him even for his money, but I suppose he argues that it can't be long before he dies anyway, and there's really no other way to make sure of inheriting.” 

“Oh, but he wouldn’t do that!” cried Patty earnestly. “He's not that kind of -- I mean I shouldn't think any man would be kind to an old person” -- she stopped in confusion – “I mean just for money. It would seem so sort of sordid--”  

“Well, they do it,” said the worldly wise Marjorie. Heaps of them. And when you see the old skeleton, all yellow and leathery and with his head shaking like a leaf -- they say he falls into awful rages if anyone crosses him in the least -- why you wouldn't wonder if his relatives weren't caring much about his departure from the world. The world is better off without a man like that anyway. He's a selfish, close, crabbed old creature and never gives anything to any public cause, nor entertains, nor does anything worth while with his money, just keeps it all for show and his own comfort. Well, anyhow, his nephew isn't so bad, and I suppose mother'll be hot foot to get me interested in him. I don't mind playing around with him a little, it will keep mother pacified and she won't be watching whether I write to anyone else or not. Dunham Treeves and I are going up to the top of the mountain to see the sun rise. I got that much out of him anyway. He said he had watched it rise when he was here before, and I made him offer to show me the place. I never saw the sun rise, did you? It's going to be frightful to wake up, but then I can sleep all day after it if I want to. Well, good night. I hope your headache is gone in the morning.” 

Miss Horliss-Cole departed, leaving Patty in a state of mind bordering on tears. She was safe. John Treeves was going to-morrow and she could manage to keep out of his sight that much longer. But somehow she did not feel happy over it. Another girl was going to the top of the mountain with him to watch the miracle of the sunrise. She had watched it once with him and his mother years ago, and every word that had been spoken on that occasion was just as clearly marked in her memory as if it had happened but the day before. This other girl would stand beside him tomorrow and hear him talk, watch his face with the sunlight on it--. But there! It was ridiculous! He was nothing to her but an old friend whom she might never see again. It was not Patty Merrill, anyway, who was here at the same hotel with John Treeves. It was Edith Fisher, a strange girl who had taken a position as Companion to an old lady, and it was "Dunham" Treeves, the nephew of the multimillionaire, Dunham Treeves, who was supposed to be here pursuing his uncle's fortune. That was not her old friend. He would never do that. If he had so degenerated she did not want to know him! And she turned the other way and tried to smother her thoughts in the pillow, but try as she would the night stretched away and sleep came late to her tired heart, leaving dark circles under her eyes, so that Miss Cole quite willingly excused her from going down to lunch next day. 

It was after lunch that John Treeves had the final words with his uncle, which settled the matter of adoption once and for all. 

“I think,” said the uncle suavely, “that you owe me some consideration. I’m willing to have the papers made out to-day. I gave my lawyer orders to come at a moment's notice and he's only waiting my call. I’ll make over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to you at once to live on, and I'll fix up the will so that you will inherit the whole estate. I'd arranged to leave it all to public institutions where they were entirely willing to name them after me. There was the Treeves Art Club -- and a new college out in Idaho, and seven libraries, and three hospitals, besides a lot of art galleries and scholarships and medals. But I've decided to cut them all out in your favor. Now! What I want of you is to put yourself in my hands and I'll make the biggest man in the world out of you. Why, you know there isn't anything in the world -- possessions or power or experience -- that money won't buy for you. Not anything! And I've got the money! I've got enough to put you where you like, and make you what you like -- what I like, if you'll just give yourself up to me awhile. You're mighty good material and have a good start and a good natural ability, but you want teaching, you want travel, you want art and books and society and rubbing up against the great ones. If I'd had it young enough, I could have done it for myself, but I was busy getting the money together for it so long that I got too old for the rest and I suddenly realized that after all I couldn't have it myself, the thing I'd been working for, it had to be for someone else. One lifetime wasn't long enough for getting the money and the power both, so I picked you out. You are my nearest of kin, and the only one who could possibly be me over again. I have to live in you now, and finish what I’ve begun, and you’ve got to yield yourself to me now and let me bring all this to you that I’ve worked for myself. Do you understand?” 

There was a pathetic eagerness in the old voice and the claw-like hands worked in each other restlessly as the little sharp eyes watched their prey and put forth an almost mesmeric power against this strangely baffling but altogether desirable young soul. 

“You know,” he went on hurriedly, as if he had not said enough, “you know there wouldn’t be any limit to it -- no place that you couldn’t occupy. You’d be as great as the greatest king on earth. You could buy the presidency of the United States. There isn’t any ambition you couldn't satisfy or joy you could not drink to the dregs.” 

But the only words that came to the mind of John Treeves were: 

“Then the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” 

“You understand, don't you, that I've got enough to back you anywhere,” the old man went on anxiously again. “There wouldn't be anywhere you wouldn't be received with that behind you, and there's more than anybody knows, too.” There was a look of cunning in his old eyes. “No, not anywhere you wouldn't be received -- yes, and welcomed eagerly.” There was consummate pride now in the tone. 

“Except the Kingdom of Heaven,” said John Treeves slowly, thoughtfully. 

“W'W-w-w-what do you MEAN?” he roared frightenedly. “Whad'ye m-m-m-E -A-N?”  

His hands were shaking and his eyes were starting out from their sockets with mingled anger and awe. 

"I mean, Uncle Calvin, that your money would not buy my way into the kingdom of God, and that is the only kingdom I care anything about just now. I have pledged my life and my loyalty to seek that kingdom first and nothing, nobody can tempt me now to break that pledge. I have dedicated my life to preach the Gospel of Christ wherever and however He wants me to do it. You can see for yourself how utterly foreign to this is the proposition you have made.” 

“Preach! You, my nephew, heir of all this princely fortune! You be a common preacher! NEVER! I won’t allow it! I’ll balk you at every turn! My money shall queer you in any church you try to get! And not a penny of all my fortune shall go to you unless you give up this silly woman's idea! Do you hear that? You shan't have a cent if you keep up this idea of being a whining preacher!” 

John Treeves stood leaning against the mantel, his arms folded, a look of half-amused aloofness upon his face. His voice was quiet as he replied: 

“But, Uncle Calvin, I never had an idea of getting your money. I don't want it!” 

“That’s a LIE!” The old man was breathless. “If that was so, what did you come here for, I'd like to know?” 

“I came to forgive you because you had sinned against my mother and I used to hate you for it.” 

The sound that issued forth from the old leathery lips was as if a container of many curses and hisses had suddenly exploded and fizzled into atoms, and after it was over he lay back upon his pillows panting and exhausted, a wasted shell of what used to be a man. 

“I don't want your forgiveness!” he panted at last. “I want you to take my money and live my life after me the way I would have lived it if I had lasted long enough. I want to be young again in you and spend my money for pleasure and fame and power and all the best things that the world can give and money can buy.” 

Steadily, firmly, kindly the younger voice answered: 

“That could never be, because three days ago I gave myself to God in just the way that you suggest, and I mean to let Christ live His life over again in me as far as I am able. I am afraid that you and Christ could never live together; and if I had your money I should only use it to help other men to find Christ as I have found Him.”