Читать книгу Beauty for Ashes (Musaicum Romance Classics) - Grace Livingston Hill - Страница 4

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Gloria's mother had her way. It was a foregone conclusion that she would. She had managed the stage scenery and costuming for her two beautiful daughters since their advent into the world, and she was not one to relinquish her rights easily. If she could not stage a wedding, then at least a funeral should have its proper clothes.

Also, it appeared presently that this funeral was to be an affair. Gloria had hoped, had supposed, of course, that whatever ceremonials attended the death of her fiance would at least be private on account of the circumstances. But to her utter dismay, she discovered that the Asher family was going to ignore the circumstances and make a hero out of Stan. Whatever fashionable grief could do to make the last rites of the son and heir to their millions a thing to be remembered and respected, that was to be done. Stanwood Asher's mother meant that her son should not be put away in disgrace. He should lie in state, and his many friends should assemble and mourn properly at his untimely cutting off from the earth!

So Gloria saw that the awful days ahead of her must be lived through, and she set herself to endure. Meekly, like a white-faced robot, she submitted to her mother's ordering. She tried on and stood for fittings whenever she was called. There was one thing, however, that they could not get her to do. She would not take an interest in any of the smart black garments they brought for her approval. She would scarcely look at them. She shuddered when she came into the room where they were, and when they tried to get her to make a choice, she turned away with a sigh and said, "Oh, I don't care! Whatever you say. Just get the simplest thing there is!"

Then her mother would look hopelessly after her and sigh. "If Gloria would only take things as they come and be interested, it wouldn't be half so hard for her!" she said hopelessly to the observant fitter. "If we didn't have these practical interests of life like pretty clothes and social duties, how could we live through trying disappointments?"

The woman looked at her with wondering eyes. Pretty clothes and social duties played very little part in the life of the fitter.

So Glory continued through those endless days with that sweet, hopeless look in her eyes and utter indifference for the things of life.

Sometimes her father would give her a long, understanding glance, and that helped. She had had very little time with him alone; always someone else was by. Just a low spoken word when he came: "Child, this is going to be hard! Keep steady! You're a brave girl!" Just that and a tender kiss. There never had to be many words between them. They understood each other better than the rest of the family. It seemed to Gloria that her father was the wisest man living.

No one but her father knew how awful it was for Gloria to go and stand beside that dead form of the fiance who had been killed with another girl. It was expected of her of course. She had to go. She wasn't sure but she expected it of herself, but she shrank inexpressibly from looking on his face. What she felt was not merely a natural shrinking from death, it was the agony of looking upon a face that had been her fiance’s and knowing that he had never been hers.

Everybody said how wonderful he looked, as if he might open his eyes and call out some cheerful witticism. As if the merriment that had been on his lips when he was suddenly called away lingered, ready for expression as soon as he should awake.

But to Gloria it did not seem that way. It was as if a house that had been her welcome abiding place had suddenly closed its doors against her very existence. That face that all her life had been so familiar, so dear, was like a stranger's. The spirit she had thought she loved had fled. Had it ever been what she thought it?

Characteristics she had never seen before stood out on the features. Those closed lips had a selfish, spoiled look now that they could no longer curve and turn with a pleasant expression.

She closed her eyes and turned away. They thought she was trying to keep back the tears. Her father hoped she would weep. He felt it would relieve the strain. But Gloria had turned away to shut out sights she did not want to see. She had hoped that somehow the sight of Stanwood dead would dispel this awful feeling she had about the way he had died. But instead of that it brought out lacks she had never noticed in his laughter-crowded lifetime.

Gloria was glad that she did not have to sit facing that casket during that long, awful service, more thankful than she would have cared to tell anybody that she could hide away upstairs in a darkened room with the family, before the world thronged into the palatial residence to do honor to the son of the house. As she went upstairs, her bright hair shrouded in a heavy veil, she caught glimpses of her young friends huddled in frightened groups, with eyes cast down and gloomy countenances. It was all too evident that they did not want to come here, did not want to be reminded that death was inevitable, did not want to be drawn into this tragedy, yet knew that for very decency they must.

It was like the tolling of a bell for a lost soul when the solemn words of the burial service began. Gloria shivered, and Vanna sobbed silently in her corner. Mrs. Asher, swathed in deep black, moaned audibly beside her tortured husband, while Nancy sat like a grim specter, her handkerchief to her eyes.

"Man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble," began the preacher in a solemn and monotonous voice. "He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down, he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more."

Gloria listened to the desolating statements and shuddered in her soul. How horrible was life! Why did anybody want to live? Stan was gone! In a few hours, this place where he had been the life of everything would know him no more! Gloria heard his mother moan and cry out, "Oh, my baby boy!" and there came to her a sudden desire to scream and cry out, too, in protest. Oh, why did they have such terrible things as funerals? Why put the tortured relatives to any more pain than they had to suffer already? She felt if this thing went on very long she would go stark crazy.

But the monotonous, cultured voice of the minister went steadily on through what seemed an endless multiplication of words, statements of facts that they all knew. Death was inevitable of course, but what could one do about it? Why all this harrowing language?

Gloria tried to listen, to catch the reason for all these words. Presumably they were a ritual of the church. She did not know even vaguely that any of them were taken from the Bible. It would not have made any difference to her if she had. There was no hope in the words that were chosen. What hope was there for one in her position? None! All her days she must go with blight on her life. How she was going to do it, she knew not. She had not thought one hour beyond this funeral service. Since ever she had heard the awful news she had lived from hour to hour to endure the things that had to be endured until all that she owed to the family of her fiance should be fulfilled. After that chaos! A blank! She did not think of it now except to hope for oblivion in sleep. After that–well that would have to be dealt with when she came to it.

The monotonous reading ceased at last, followed by a prayer by a retired pastor of the church with which the Ashers were associated. A trembling voice, cultured sentences, becoming more and more personal. Gloria heard herself prayed for as the mourning bride. She grew cold and hot behind her thick veil and trembled again, wondering if this terrible ordeal were not almost over.

But after the prayer, the first speaker took up a refrain beginning: "Forasmuch as it hath pleased almighty God to take out of this world our departed brother–" and Gloria wondered if it had pleased God to do a thing like that, and do it in that way? Had Stan's actions nothing to do with his departure? Had the assassin nothing to do with it? The girl? Was God like that? Was there a God? What made anybody think there was a God in a world like this full of horror?

When she came back from her thoughts to the voice again, she beheld a word picture of the young man, a picture that showed him forth almost as a hero! She listened in amazement. Beginning with incidents of his childhood showing forth his kindly temperament and desire to please, the speaker worked his way up through the years, showing what a charming character the young man had possessed, how he had grown in beauty and manly virtues; he told of his merry ways, his popularity, his wonderful prospects in a worldly way. When the discourse was finished, Stanwood Asher lived before them as an innocent hero. All else was ignored.

At last the discourse was ended, and a well-paid quartet of well-trained male voices sang:

"Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me"

They chanted it exquisitely till it almost seemed there had been a call for Stan, and he had answered it merrily with a cocktail in his hand as he had answered most calls these last few years.

The interment was supposed to be private, and Gloria was glad of that, but it was surprising how many people got in on it for one reason or another. There were cameras ready wherever they went, cameras even, not far from the grave.

By reason of her relation to the deceased, Gloria with her father beside her had to stand close to that flower-lined opening into which the casket was lowered, had to watch it slowly go down among the lilies and roses.

Everything about the grave was as lovely as money could make it. There were none of the horrors of an old-fashioned burial. Even the earth that was presently to cover all that was left of her bridegroom was smothered in a bank of flowers. There was no hint or suggestion of darkness and the tomb. And yet as Gloria stood beside that grave, she felt as if somehow her own soul was being drawn down into its flowery darkness, to be buried with the man who had so lightly gone from her a few days before, never to return alive.

Her father steadied her to the car when at last everything was over and they turned away home. Gloria felt that if it had lasted one minute longer, she could not have gone on. But it was not over yet. Mrs. Asher went weeping aloud from the grave, crying out to go back for one more last look, and there was quite a scene at the car. Mrs. Sutherland went to comfort her and came bustling back hurriedly to their own car.

"She wants you to go home with them, Gloria! She says she has got to have a talk with you."

"No!" said Gloria's father. "She is not able! Can't you see she has borne all she can?"

"But I promised that she would come and stay the night with them. It seems only right since she was his"

"Get in, Adelaide!" said Gloria's father, speaking sternly. "We'll drive over there and speak to her at the house a minute, but that is all. There, they are waiting for our car to start!"

Gloria's mother got in. "But I promised," she said firmly.

"I myself will explain!" said the father, and Gloria gave him a grateful look and leaned wearily back in the car.

When Gloria reached home, she went up and took off her black dress, putting on a plain old frock of white silk with touches of yellow in the trimming. It was a dress she had often played golf in. Then she sat down at her window and looked out at the sunset light on the lawn, touching the forsythia and the tulips with gold and flaming beauty. She laid her tired head down on her hands on the windowsill and wondered how things could go on just the same in spite of pain and shame and sorrow. It was a lovely world, yet she could find no joy in it. She almost envied the unhurt youth of her brother who came to kiss her good-bye before he started back to school.

But when she went downstairs to dinner, where she knew her presence would be required or a fuss would be made about her not eating enough, her mother lifted horrified eyebrows at her garments.

"Why, Gloria! How unseemly! This first night of all times! Suppose somebody should come in! And what will the servants think? Run right back dear, and get on your black dress!"

Gloria looked wearily protesting at her mother's words, and once more her father interfered. "She looks much better in that," he said. "Let her be! She has suffered enough for one day."

"There you go again, Charles," said his wife haughtily, "trying to decide a question you don't in the least understand!"

"That's all right, Adelaide," said the father gravely, "perhaps you don't understand just how little strength this child has left after the ordeal of the day."

"And why wouldn't I understand my child as well as you, I would like to know?" said his wife. "I, her mother! You're absurd. You always were sentimental, and you always encouraged her in such ideas. I'd like to know what terrible ordeal there was to-day? It was just a perfect funeral from start to finish. Not a detail went wrong. The flowers were marvelous. Did you see those white orchids? Weren't they the most exquisite things? And not a hitch or mistake anywhere. Not an unsightly moment. Everything just moved on oiled wheels! And Stanwood looked so perfectly natural, just as if he were going to laugh right out at us all! I'm sure I thought it was a lovely funeral!"

"You would!" said Vanna under her breath.

"What did you say, Vanna? I do wish you would stop that habit of talking in such a low tone that no one can hear you. It's very rude indeed!" said her mother.

"Excuse me, Mother!" said Vanna, dropping her eyes to hide her indignation. She knew that Gloria was being tortured.

"Couldn't we just forget it for a while, Adelaide?" said her husband with a sigh. "We don't all feel that way about it. We're tired out. It's been a hard strain, and we want to eat our dinner now."

"Well, really, am I hindering you from eating your dinner? I'm sorry. But it strikes me that it isn't something we want to forget right away. There's a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that the best people were there, and that there is nothing to regret in the service. I'm sure it must be a great satisfaction to Stanwood's parents to know how their friends honored him. I never saw such quantities of flowers at any funeral anywhere. It seems to me that the time to talk it over is now while it is fresh in our minds, and that reminds me, Charles, did you see the Breckenridges anywhere? I looked all over for them when we came out but couldn't seem to find them. They sent such a perfectly lovely wedding gift, that old English sterling platter, you know, that I was sure they'd be at the funeral. It seems strange if they weren't."

But Mrs. Sutherland had her meditations to herself, for the family ate in silence for the most part, and Gloria, after a very few bites, excused herself and went up to her room, wondering if life was ever going to be bearable again.

But even her mother was startled the next morning at her white face with the great dark circles under her eyes.

"We've certainly got to get out of this town right away as soon as we can manage it," she announced when the breakfast was well under way and the servants had withdrawn for the time. "I've been thinking. We'd better go to Europe. There's nothing like Europe for diverting the mind and getting away from curious people, and of course it's going to be awfully hard on Gloria being in mourning and not being able to go out at all. Charles, couldn't you get away, for a few weeks anyway, right off? You could at least take us over and get us settled in some nice, pleasant central place where we could take little trips off here and there, and then you could come back if you had to for a while. I thought we'd be able to get off by next week if you could. Of course there'll be a few more clothes to buy since we must all go into black at least for a while."

Gloria looked up most unexpectedly and spoke. She had done very little speaking for the last few days. "I'm not going into mourning, Mother," she said, "and I'm not going to Europe! The rest of you can go if you want to, but I'm not going!"

"Why, Gloria, what on earth do you mean? Of course you'll have to go into mourning! And why should you say you won't go? You don't realize what you'll be up against if you try to stay here. Everybody in the town will be watching you and pitying you, and you can't turn around but it will be in the paper. You've got to let this thing die down and be forgotten before you can comfortably live here."

"It doesn't matter!" said Gloria indifferently. "I'm not going to Europe!"

"But don't you realize what you will be doing to your sister if you insist on staying here? Of course we couldn't think of going off and leaving you behind as you suggest. How would that look? And poor Vanna would be as much tied down as you would. She would be under the shadow of your sorrow, don't you see?"

"Why couldn't you and Vanna go to the seashore as you had intended?" said Gloria, giving her mother a pleading look.

"And you stay here? What would people think of us for leaving you all alone?"

"I could go somewhere but not to any places like that!" said the girl determinedly.

Then her father spoke. "Where would you like to go, child?"

Gloria lifted sorrowful eyes to his face. "I–hadn't thought!" she said listlessly.

"Hm! I guess you hadn't!" sniffed her mother. "That's just it! You hadn't thought! You're not used to thinking for yourself. I've always done it for you, and you're not fit to begin planning for yourself now, I'm sure, not in this crisis."

"Wait a minute, Mother," said her husband interrupting. "Daughter, tell me, what was your idea? What do you think you would like?"

Gloria looked out the long french window down the terrace to the banks of blue and purple and rose and white hyacinths. Then her eyes brightened wistfully. "I'd like it if you and I could get in the car together and go somewhere riding for a while, away somewhere in a quiet place where most people don't go. I'd like to go where there's quiet–and woods and no crowds or social duties."

"We'll do it!" said her father earnestly. "When can you be ready to start?"

"Charles!" said his wife reprovingly. "Why will you encourage her in her crazy ideas? You know she's not fit to decide now."

But Gloria's eyes were on her father. "Oh, to-day!" she said eagerly. "I could get ready in an hour or so!"

"Gloria!" said her mother. "You couldn't possibly go anywhere to-day. You haven't but two black dresses, and your things are not in order for a journey."

"I don't need many things, and I don't want any more new ones!" said the girl. "I've been doing nothing for the last year but buying clothes and trying them on and having them fitted, and this is one thing I don't have to dress for. I'm only going to take along simple old things that I know I'll be comfortable in, and I'm not going to take a single black dress along! It won't take long to pack!"

"Run along then and pack, Glory!" said her father. "I'll phone down to the office and make arrangements to leave. We'll start off somewhere around noon. Get the cook to put up some sandwiches for us, and we'll eat them by the roadside."

"Charles! How plebeian!" exclaimed his wife. "Have you forgotten that every newspaper in this region will have Gloria's picture in it? Yes, and yours too if one could judge from the way the cameras were crowded nearby yesterday. People will recognize you wherever you go, and what would they think to see you eating sandwiches by the roadside? A picnic right after a funeral!"

"Nobody is going to recognize us where we're going, Adelaide. Run along, child, and get ready as soon as you can! Vanna, can you take care of your mother for a while?" There was eagerness in his eyes and voice. His wife looked at him as if he were insane.

"Charles! You simply can't do a thing like that to us all! It is preposterous. Why, you're crazy! Gloria owes a debt to her fellow townspeople! A social debt."

"I don't see for what!" said her husband, drinking the last swallow of his coffee and beginning to fold his napkin.

"Why, all those wedding presents for one thing. They'll have to be sent back, of course, and she'll have to be here to attend to them and write notes and everything."

"Yes? Well, that's all the more reason why I mean to get her away right off this morning. That child is not going through any more harrowing scenes for a while. She'll have a nervous breakdown before another week if she does. Do you know she hasn't cried a tear yet? Do you know that's a dangerous state to be in?"

"Oh, I don't think so," said the mother complacently. "It's just that Gloria is a very self-controlled girl. I brought her up not to cry over things!"

But Gloria was up in her room working fast. She did not even wait for a maid to help her. She was getting out her overnight bag and suitcase, flinging in a few necessities, toiletries, accessories, plain sports clothes, rooting out old favorites that she had not been wearing lately since her engagement was announced because her mother had said she was too much in the public eye to go around in clothes that were out-of-date. She didn't put in a single black dress. White and yellow and brown, a couple of knit dresses for cool days, a coat, and a plain little hat.

When her mother, having lost her argument with her husband and having given her orders for the day to the cook and her social secretary, finally hurried upstairs to deal with her recalcitrant daughter, she found Gloria cloaked and hatted and gloved, sitting by her window with her two bags on the floor at her feet, watching for her father's car to come around.

"Gloria, you're hurting me very much by your strange actions," began her mother, sitting down and surveying the rebel.

"I'm sorry, Mother, but I have to get away right off. I have to get away from people!"

"You're a strange child! One would suppose you would want to be with your own mother and sister! Now, while you're in trouble, one would suppose you would confide in your own mother!"

Gloria turned despairing eyes on her parent. "Mother, you just don't understand!" she said desperately. "I've got to get somewhere away from everything. I'll come back sometime when I get my bearings, but I won't go to Europe nor into society. I've got to get away from those things and find out what it all means!"

"What do you mean, ‘what it all means'?"

"I don't know what I mean, but I've got to. I've stood this horror as long as I can. It's been terrible!"

"Gloria, do you think Stan would like you to do a strange thing like this? Wouldn't he expect you to stay here for a few days at least and help comfort his mother and keep up appearances?"

Gloria's eyes narrowed. "Mother, Stan isn't to be considered anymore! That's over!"

"Why, Gloria, what a terrible thing to say. When you just adored Stan and wanted to do everything you could to please him! Why look how hard you worked on your father to get him to build a bar in your new house just because Stan wanted one."

Gloria's face hardened. "Yes, and now I wish I hadn't," she said half fiercely. "If Stan hadn't been so fond of drinking, he might not be dead to-day!"

"Glory! What a shocking thing to say! Stan never drank to excess. I always felt he was very abstemious. And surely you want to comport yourself as he would want you to do!"

"No," said Gloria, "I don't! I don't think he has any right over my actions now. I think he forfeited his right by going up to New York and taking that dancing girl out to dinner the very week before we were to be married! He has made me feel that nothing he ever said to me was really mine anymore."

"Why, you silly child! What a perfectly extravagant idea! You poor child, you take after your father! He's always getting such ridiculous notions in his head! But Gloria dear, you mustn't make so much of that incident. Even if it were all true what the papers said, which of course it isn't, why, that isn't a great thing. Most men have been a little wild before they settle down to get married and had little affairs with girls that they wouldn't have married, for a fortune."

"Mother! You don't mean that! You know Father never was a man like that!"

"Well, no," said the mother with a half-contemptuous smile. "Your father of course is an exception. He always had a puritanical conscience, and his bringing up was purely Victorian of course."

Gloria lifted her chin a bit haughtily. "Well, if you don't mind, Mother, I think I'll be Victorian after this like Dad! You know it makes a difference when it really happens to you, Mother! You've always had a wonderful husband and lived a sheltered life, Mother, and you don't understand, I–Mother, I know! It's happened to me, and it makes all the difference in the world!"

Then Gloria heard her father's voice calling from the hall to know if she was ready, and she jumped up and flung her arms around her bewildered, indignant mother's neck.

"Dear Mother!" she said, kissing her fervently. "I'm dreadfully sorry to hurt you, but I really have to go now and find out how to stand things. You don't understand, but I love you!"

"But what shall I tell Stan's mother?" asked the still-indignant mother.

"Tell her I was about to get sick and Dad had to take me away for a few days. Good-bye, Mother!" And with a little wave of her hand and a faint attempt at a smile, she, without waiting for a servant, seized her two bags and was gone down the stairs and out the door.

Down near the gateway, Vanna stepped out of the shrubbery, her face swollen with crying. She stopped them long enough to kiss her sister.

"I understand, Glory darling!" she whispered.

Then they were gone, down the highway, out into a world that the father used to know and hadn't seen for a long, long time.