Читать книгу April Gold (Musaicum Romance Classics) - Grace Livingston Hill - Страница 3

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The house was low and white and rambling with lemon-colored blinds and a moss-green roof. There were frills of daffodils all down the garden walks and around the edges of the white picket fence and a mist of golden forsythia in a semicircle at the back.

But the story began way back the summer before.

Rilla was just out of high school and planning to go to college the following fall. Thurl had been in college two years. Mr. and Mrs. Reed felt it would be good for Marilla to have one year at home with her mother before she went away to school, she was still so young. The Reeds had old-fashioned ideas and loved to have their children around them. Thurlow came home every weekend. His college was only a matter of fifty miles away and he could make it on his bicycle in a short time.

The Reeds were comfortably situated. They owned their own home and had saved a tidy little sum every year. They had begun when their babies were in their cradles to save up for their education. They were trying to take life as easily as they could, not rushing into great expense, but looking ahead and providing for the necessities that were likely to come.

The summer was hot and Father Reed had not been up to his usual robust strength. He came home from the office earlier than usual some days and complained of headaches. It seemed a strange thing for Father not to be in the best of health, for the family to have to keep quiet on his account and consider how to save his strength. He had always been the cheerful, strong, breezy head of the family.

Then one day he was brought home unconscious. He roused only to give them a farewell smile and was gone.

They were dazed at first. They couldn’t believe it was true that Father was gone. It didn’t seem possible to go on without him.

Thurlow suggested that perhaps he ought to give up college and find a job, but his mother said no, the money was in the bank for that purpose and his father would not like him to change his plans. He and his sister must have their education. The mother was strong and sweet about it, though she looked so frail and appealing when she said it that it sent a pang through both the children’s hearts. They resolved to get through their education as swiftly and thoroughly as was possible and get ready to take care of Mother. Of course there was money enough saved up to keep her in comfort while they were studying. Then they would both get good positions and keep Mother just as she had always been kept, in simple, pleasant comfort in her own quiet home.

But again the unexpected stepped in.

Early in the fall, the bank where the savings had been confidently put in trust closed its doors. Things were said to be in bad shape. One of the officials was missing, as also were stocks and bonds and much money. It was appalling. Another official committed suicide, and a cloud of gloom spread over the town. Overnight the whole situation changed for the Reeds. The taxes were coming due, and the money in the bank on which they had confidently relied to pay them with was not. Following hard on the heels of that was the discovery that Mr. Reed, a few months before his death, had mortgaged his house in order to get some money to loan to a fellow workman in the office to save the roof being sold from over his head. It appeared that this had been done through a building and loan association that had now gone into the hands of a receiver, and that the mortgage included a personal note Mr. Reed had signed, binding him to pay double the amount of the mortgage in default of payment at the stated times. The mortgage itself had not been unreasonably large, not to the full value of the house, but when it was doubled it became an amount of alarming proportions.

With Mr. Reed’s good salary and his comfortable savings account, there had seemed no risk in this, but with the bank closed indefinitely and nothing to pay the fall installment with, things looked pretty bleak for the Reeds. They knew nothing of business, any of them. Mr. Reed had protected them from care and worry. But when they had concluded their interview with the wily lawyer in charge of the building and loan affairs, they were wiser, and sadder, too. Thurlow Reed stood by the window, staring out at a world that had suddenly gone blank and implacable, appalled at what lay before him, seeing no way around it.

It was very still in the big, old-fashioned parlor after the lawyer had gone. Rilla sat staring at her brother’s back and trying to visualize the future, aghast at the cloud of trouble that seemed to have settled over them.

The mother sat there quietly with her hands in her lap and slow tears stealing down her soft cheeks. Then suddenly she spoke, as if she were thinking aloud. “Your father was always almost too softhearted,” she said, as if admitting a truth grudgingly. “He was always too easy, I suppose, but”she hesitated and then brought out her final words with a kind of exultant note in her voice“but I’m glad he was that way! I’d rather have him that way than the otherhard and stingy and close, like some men.”

“Oh! So would I!” exclaimed Rilla with a sound of relief in her voice. “I’m glad Father was that way. I don’t mind being poor when it’s for a reason like that. I’m glad Father helped that man. Even if he did lose his house after all, I’m glad I had a father like that.”

“Here, too!” said Thurlow, whirling away from the window and giving his sister a radiant smile. “We’ll make out somehow. Don’t worry! The only thing that troubles me is that Mother will have to give up her home that Father planned for her.”

“Don’t worry about me!” said the mother with a deep breath and a brave smile shining through her tears. “I’m glad, too! Only Father would have been so troubled to have had this happen to us. But of course there didn’t seem to be a bit of risk at the time, he was doing so well, and the money was in the bank. So he wasn’t even to blame in his judgment. And we’ll just hold up our heads and smile. It isn’t going to be forever, of course, that we have to stay here on this earth, and while this lasts, we’ll take it smiling. We’re going home forever sometime and be in the Father’s house. What’s a little deprivation by the way? And think how I’m blessed in my children. Thank the Lord that He’s given me such children!”

They bent over her and kissed her tears away then lifted her to her feet.

“Come, Mother, let’s go and get supper, all of us together, and forget our troubles. There’ll be a way somehow, and you’re the best little sport of a mother a fellow ever had!” said Thurlow.

The days that followed were full of discoveries. Someone wanted to buy the Reed place and make an apartment house of it. They wanted to get it cheap. Thurlow found that the purchaser was in league with the lawyer who was settling up the estate. The pressure was very strong to insist on the full amount of the personal bond, as the date had gone by without the interest being paid, and technically they could call it a default.

The wily one from the defunct building association made several calls to the home of the bewildered, defenseless family, tightening the meshes of his net each visit. He quoted law at them, and in their inexperience they did not know that some of the laws he quoted did not apply to their case. He pointed out to them that he could hold them to that personal bond for double the amount of the mortgage, and that he could make it impossible for them ever to hold any property, even an automobile or a piano or any valuable furniture, until the full amount was paid. But he intimated that there were ways of compromise. If they were willing to deed over their property to the association, there would be a way of setting them free from this bond.

Thurlow watched the sly eyes of the man as he talked. He felt the man was dishonest. Yet they could not afford to go to another lawyer. There was only one friend in the town who would have helped, and he was out of the question for pride’s sake. And anyway, he was just about to take his family for a trip around the world, and this was no time to apply for help or advice. He was sailing in three days.

Guerdon Sherwood had been their father’s friend since school days. He had always kept his friendship for his boyhood comrade even though he himself had grown rich and influential. He would have done something, the Reeds knew, if the matter had come to his attention. It would be nothing to him to hand over the money that would clear the whole trouble up, and he would probably offer it if he knew.

Yet because they knew this, knew him to be loyal and true to his friend of childhood days, the Reeds would not go to him, would not breathe their trouble to him. They had all agreed on this at once, even that first moment after the fish-eyed lawyer had left them.

“We will not say anything of this to Mr. Sherwood,” said the widow firmly, looking toward her son as if she half feared he would have some intention of doing just that thing.

But Thurlow had instantly seconded her.

“Of course not, Mother! That couldn’t even be a last resort!” said Thurlow decidedly.

“Certainly not!” said Rilla with a proud little lift of her chin.

The mother looked at her two children with misery in her eyes. That would be another thing that was going to make it hard. Thurl had been very friendly with Barbara Sherwood. As children they had been in the same school together, and they had shared some of the same classes in high school. During their senior year they had been inseparable. Rilla had grown fairly close with Betty Sherwood and Chandler, her brother. College had, of course, separated Barbara and Thurlow to a degree, though they had corresponded often, and during vacation the friendliness had been renewed, Thurlow often going down to the shore for the weekend while the Sherwoods occupied their summer cottage. Of course there had been nothing like an engagement or understanding between them, for they were both still in college and many miles were between them, but Thurlow’s mother had watched the growing look of responsibility and gravity in the eyes of her boy, and she wondered now how things were going to be. Would all these radical changes in their lives bring about a sorrow for her son to carry? She looked at him anxiously.

Rilla’s eyes were on her brother, too, and presently in her direct way she asked the question that they all had in their hearts.

“Are you going to New York to see them sail, Thurl?”

She watched the desolation spread suddenly over his grave face and was sorry she had asked him. She had only meant to remind him that he had that question to face, but she might have known he would have thought of it even before she did.

He was still a moment before he answered. Then he said gravely, “Probably not.” It was as if he had considered every phase of the matter before he spoke.

“There wouldn’t be any reason why you couldn’t,” said his mother quickly in her comforting voice. “You know they wouldn’t know anything about the change in our circumstances. Your father never told anybody what his banking place was. They wouldn’t have heard. And it hasn’t got out yet that we are losing our house. I don’t see why you shouldn’t go and have a pleasant good-bye, just as you would have done if all this hadn’t happened.”

“It will cost something, Mother,” he said quietly.

“No it won’t, Thurl,” said Rilla eagerly. “Betty said some of the young folk were going to ride down in a second car, and they’ll ask you, of course.”

“Perhaps.”

“And anyway, I think you should go. She won’t understand it. You’ve been one of her best friends. And anyway, we won’t actually starve any sooner on the little it would take to get you down there and buy flowers and candy or anything you want go give her. I think you ought to go! We’ve got to be good sports and smile.”

“I’ll see,” said Thurlow, considering his sister’s suggestion with a kindling gleam of appreciation in his eyes.

But the young man drew a long, deep breath not wholly of relief as he said it. The heavy burden was not lifted just because his family had been good sports, though he greatly appreciated their attitude. And perhaps they were right. Perhaps he ought to go just as he had planned. But it would not be the lighthearted, happy affair he had expected. His own attitude toward the girl he had been secretly calling his would have to be different. He was a penniless youth now, with a family to support and heavy responsibilities. Life had changed its whole plan for him, and he must look facts in the face.

The next few days were very trying ones for Thurlow.

He went to New York to see Barbara Sherwood off, just as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Although that very morning had come the ultimatum giving ten days of grace before the demand must be paid in its entirety, or the building association, through its representative, would file a claim for the full amount demanded in the bond.

“He might as well have demanded it today!” said the sorrowful mother despairingly. “We can’t pay it any better in ten days than we can now.” She wiped away the slow tears that coursed down her face.

“No, Mother,” said the son who suddenly seemed to have grown old and serious, “ten days is ten days. You can’t tell what might happen in ten days. You know I ought not really to be wasting this one day to go to New York. But I mean to make every hour of the other nine days count for something. I don’t mean to let that dirty thief get away with stealing if I can help it. For that’s what it is. It’s nothing short of robbery. He knows we’re in a hole because the bank is closed, and he’s taking advantage of it. I mean to leave no stone unturned. This having an injunction looming on the horizon every time we want to own a thing, even a little old second-hand flivver, is more than I want hung around my neck the rest of my life. Believe me, I mean to give the old geezer a run for his money, anyway.”

“I don’t see what you can do!” said the mother hopelessly.

“I’ll do plenty!” said the son briskly, although he hadn’t an idea in his head of anything that he could do. But he meant to do it just the same.

He did not go in the other car as Rilla had suggested he might be asked to do. The invitation had come, but he had declined on the plea of not having time for so leisurely a trip. The truth was that he could not bear the cheerful throng of his old friends and their pleasant raillery; besides, he would not have a chance to talk to Barbara alone, and he somehow shrank from seeing her handing out her favors and smiles alike to all the boys. It hadn’t mattered so much when he was able to take her away from the rest whenever he tried, knowing that she enjoyed his companionship, looking forward to a day when they might really belong to one another. But now all that was off, and perhaps the less he saw of Barbara before she left the better. It was bound to be a wrench, and he would take it as bravely and as swiftly as possible.

So it was with grave, inscrutable eyes that he presented himself on the ship a half hour before sailing time and brought his gift with him, an exquisitely mounted and fitted handbag of a unique design, simple but costly. He was glad that he had bought it a week before the bank failedbought it with a joyous heart, delighting that he knew her tastes. That at least would be perfect, his final gift to her. For it wasn’t at all likely that he would be able ever again to give her gifts like that. Also, it was something that would remind her constantly of him while she was travelingthat is, if she chose to carry it instead of any others she might have. Perhaps that wasn’t so good, now that things had turned out as they had. Perhaps it wasn’t good to remind her of himself, since nothing was ever likely to come of it further. Yet it might for a time provide a protection for her against someone less worthy than the memory of himself. Not that he counted himself worthy, only in the quality of his admiration for her. As yet he had not begun to call it by any tenderer name than admiration, though he knew in his heart it went deeper than that if he only had the right.

So he carried his gift to the ship, intriguingly but simply wrapped, preserving its exquisite atmosphere even to the quality of its wrapping.

At the last minute he had weakened and grown extravagant, purchasing besides a wealth of the handsomest long-stemmed roses, yellow with hearts of gold lit with a ruby light, the kind of roses that went with her red-gold hair, her amber-lighted brown eyes, and the warm brown outfits she so loved to wear.

He had sent the roses to her cabin with his card and a book he wanted her to readjust a little, inexpensive book, but one that held great thoughts. He had slipped it under the great green bow of rich satin ribbon with which the luxurious flowers were tied. But the beautiful handbag he carried with him and put into her hands himself, that last five minutes when he drew her away from the rest and made her walk the deck with him away from the crowd. Then, standing with her alone, he found he had nothing to say but commonplaces!

“What’s the matter with you, Thurl? You look so grown up and faraway,” challenged Barbara cheerfully. Her eyes were starry, and her face was lit with excitement of the day, her first trip abroad.

“I’m fairly old,” he said gravely and tried to smile, but there was something in his eyes that told the girl there was more to his words than he cared to explain or she cared to recognize.

“I wish you were going along!” she said fervently, and showed the dimple in her left cheek that made her smile so alluring. She had said the same to half a dozen other boys, and Thurlow knew it, yet his eyes flashed back an echo to her wish, even while he recognized that there was nothing really personal in her wish. Or was there? He could not be sure, and this was no time to find out. Perhaps there would never be a time to find out, now, anymore. It was too late!

No, he couldn’t even say that. For honorably he had no right to find out more than eyes can flash in glances and soft inflections of voices can tell. No, they were not through college yet. At least! Stab! His thoughts brought him back to the stern facts of his life. There would never be any more college for him. More for her perhaps but none for him. That in itself was a barrier between them. If it had been the other way around, it wouldn’t have mattered in the least, for a woman felt no shame if she had not completed her education before she married, but a man was somehow disqualified if he had not as good an education as his girl. Married! What was he thinking about? How could he ever get married? And he was only a kid anyway, not half ready for life as he had been brought up to envision it. Yet here he was, by reason of this sudden financial cataclysm, standing as it were on one side of a great rift in the rock that rooted them and seeing it widen and widen into a yawning chasm with an invading sea to separate them.

He stood there speechless, looking at her pretty hands as they fingered his gift lightly, caressing it with one hand that flashed with jewels her father had bought her, exclaiming over its beauties, saying that she would carry it always and that it was the loveliest bag she had ever seen, and lifting lovely glances to his grave face. He watched the lights play in and out among the waves of her glorious red-gold hair, and suddenly his heart seemed likely to burst. He wished he were a child and could put his face down in his hands and cry.

And then into the midst of it came the awful warning: “All ashore that are going ashore!”

For an instant the two young things looked aghast, questioning, into one another’s eyes. Then the girl rallied first.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Thurl! It isn’t forever! I’m coming back, you know!” She said it lightly, cheerfully, and then she reached up her hands and drew his face down and kissed him lightly on the lips, still laughing.

“Now go quick,” she laughed, “unless you’ll go along, you know!” she added mischievously and pushed him from her toward the gangway.

Thurlow went forward with the surging multitude that was staying on land. He walked as in a daze, his heart dumb with sorrow. The touch of Barbara’s lips had been light as a butterfly’s wing, just brushing his. The thrill of that kiss remained, and yet he was conscious at once that there was a quality of aloofness about it. It was just a casual good-bye kiss, with nothing to distinguish it from the farewell she had given the rest of her friends who had come down to see her off. Perhaps her own girlishness had demanded that it should be so, he told himself as he stepped from the gangplank to the dock, trying to defend her even as he felt the pain of his conviction. Yet there was to him about that kiss something so final, in spite of the merry words she had spoken about her return, that his heart could not accept any hope. She did not know how she would find him when she came back. She did not know that he would be no longer in her pleasant circle of friends, that he might even be gone from the hometown. But there had been no room in her light planning of the future for any such possibility. She had said the words so lightly, as if all things would go right on just as they had been when she was at home, and she would come home to find them as ever on her return. As if there was plenty of time to settle great questions and eternal friendships. As if it didn’t matter any more to her than that. She was off for a good time, and of course he would be just as devoted when she returned, and shewell, she was not even showing any special tenderness for him, her oldest, most intimate friend. Just that light acceptance of his devotion as a matter of course.

He did not resent it, but it hurt. Somehow as he stepped back in the crowd where he could get a good view of her as she stood smiling on that upper deck where he had left her, it hurt inexpressibly that she had not sensed that he was passing through seas of trouble and had not given him at least a look, a tenderer smile than just what she was handing out to every one of her friends.

There would perhaps come times later when he could reason this out more clearly and see that she was excited and did not realize what she was saying or doing; when he could feel that perhaps beneath all her joviality she was feeling the separation from him even as much as he did himself. Oh, he knew he would try to make himself think that in the lonely days ahead of him. But just now the hurt was too deep and keen for any alleviation.

He found himself a position at the back of the home crowd who were all standing together in a bunch, the fellows with their arms across one another’s shoulders, calling out unheard last messages, throwing now and again a snarl of bright paper ribbons to strike the deck rail before her and unfold in fluttering tribute down the side of the ship, chanting some giddy doggerel of a song familiar to the crowd.

Thurlow stood behind them, grave, sad, his eyes on the girl’s bright face, and could not be sure that any of her signals or smiles were for him.

She held his gift in her hands, and once she held it up and wafted with her fingertips a kiss toward the land as if she might be saying another thanks for just him alone, but then he saw that the kiss went wide with her lovely gesture, and all the others were flinging back merry kisses. The air was full of them. He turned from it all half sickened, closed his eyes, and drew a deep breath. For an instant, he felt as if the earth was reeling under his feet. Then quickly he opened his eyes, looking steadily toward that ship again as a siren sent up its terrifying farewell. Fool that he was! He must not take this to heart so. He was here to see this thing through, and he was a man!

He managed a grave smile and a wave of the hand at the last as the ship moved out from shore. Then he stood with lifted hat and watched her lovely figure standing there, moving away from him, out, out! What a terrible thing a ship’s sailing was! The sea separating people who had been a part of one another’s lives for long, happy years!

He turned away while her face was still visible as she stood there smiling back to shore and waving joyfully. Somehow he could not bear to see it fade to nothing. He had a feeling that she did not see him, was not differentiating between himself and the others, so that it would not matter to her. He would go with that bright vision of her face stamped upon his memory. And if he never had anything else, he would still have that memory. Not just a wide sea with a vanishing ship in the distance.

He elbowed his way through the crowd, and nobody noticed his going unless it was the girl on the ship. There was great bitterness in his heart. He told himself he was sorry he had come. Yet he knew he would not have done otherwise.

Once he thought he heard his name shouted by one of the fellows, but he did not turn his head. He did not want to see that ship afar with a great ocean between.

He had an errand to do for his mother, but he hastened with it and caught an early train back home. He tried to read a paper on the way, but the letters blurred before his eyes, and finally he gave up all pretense and sat there sternly lecturing himself, trying to get a bearable attitude of mind before he got home and his mother read his face and suffered with him. His mother was like that. She always knew when he was suffering.

He told himself it was a good thing Barbara had gone before she knew anything about his troubles. At least he would not have that mortification to worry about. She had gone respecting him, maybe caring more for him than she was willing to let him see, and that was just as it should be. Time would turn her heart to other interests, and she would perhaps never have to know how his circumstances had put him into a place in life where he could never hope to have the assurance to try to win her. And he wanted her not to be hurt as he was being hurt. She would not have to know or understand the attitude he would feel obliged to take toward her, for his pride’s sake. Because he loved her, he hopedyes, he told himself he really hopedthat she never cared, would never have to feel what he was feeling now. Well, he ought to be glad that her kiss had been light and there was nothing for either of them to regret in it! He ought to be glad that he could remember her happy, carefree face! Perhaps some day he would come to the place where he could be glad about it, but now there was only an ache in his heart. An ache that seemed unbearable when he thought of it as something he might have to carry all his life.

It was late when he reached home. The train was late. There had been a freight accident ahead of the New York train, which delayed them, and he missed one train out to their suburb on the edge of the city, but he saw by the light downstairs that his mother had waited up for him. Mother always would. So as he neared the house, he adjusted a monotonous whistle on his lips and went in trying to simulate cheerful indifference.

But his mother saw through it. She came over and kissed him and looked deep into his eyes, and though he tried to smile naturally and evade her glance, he knew she was not deceived.

“Yes, they got off on time,” he answered readily, too readily. “It was quite a merry send-off. I’m glad I went,” he said, trying to sound quite easy and natural.

“Of course!” said his mother, but her eyes searched him and read further than his words. And then, like a wise mother, instead of pursuing the subject further, she gave him something else to think about.

“The lawyer was here again this evening,” she said with a sigh, as if it wasn’t of much interest. “He said over again all the things he said the last time and a few more. He wanted me to sign the papers right away. He said he had to go west on a business trip, and he’d like to get this settled before he leaves tomorrow night. He said he’d give us fifty dollars toward our moving if we’d settle at once.”

Her son looked at her startled.

“Fifty dollars!” he said with a puzzled look. “He must want it a lot to let go even that much! He must have a purchaser for it, or else he knows his game is crooked and he wants to get away with it quickly before he gets found out. You didn’t give him an answer, did you, Mother?”

“No, I told him I would have to talk it over with you. But he wants his answer before twelve o’clock tomorrow.”

“Well, I’ll look into it first thing in the morning, but, Mother, I think we’ll keep him guessing. If anybody wants to buy the house, we are going to do the selling, see? It’s worth more to us than to anybody else, and we have nine days yet to pay the demand.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said his mother with a sigh. “We might lose even the fifty dollars, you know.” But she turned away satisfied that she had given her son something else to think about besides the girl who sailed away from him.

Thurlow went to bed at once, but he did not go to sleep. Neither did he spend all the time thinking about beautiful Barbara Sherwood. Instead, he was racking his brain for ways and means to save as much from the wreckage of the family fortune as he possibly could, and about the middle of the night he arose, turned on his light, and searched through the newspaper he had tried to read on the train until he found a paragraph that he had scarcely noticed when he first read it but that had come back to him with strange significance as he lie thinking. He read it twice through.

“It has been definitely decided to build a new schoolhouse in the Seventeenth Ward. The present school is overcrowded, and the capacity of the new school will have to be doubled.”

His eyes had skimmed over the page as he read it and it had meant nothing to him, but now it suddenly took on new meaning. Their home was in the Seventeenth Ward, a sort of a suburb yet counted as in the city. Perhaps there was a way out of this maze of trouble after all!