Читать книгу The Search - Grace Livingston Hill - Страница 5

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It had taken only a short time after all. The crowd drowned its cheer in one deep gasp of silence and broke up tearfully into little groups beginning to melt away at the sound of Michael ringing up the gates, and telling the cars and wagons to hurry that it was almost time for the up-train.

Ruth Macdonald started her car and tried to bring her senses back to their normal calm wondering what had happened to her and why there was such an inexpressible mingling of loss and pleasure in her heart.

The way at first was intricate with congestion of traffic and Ruth was obliged to go slowly. As the road cleared before her she was about to glide forward and make up for lost time. Suddenly a bewildered little woman with white hair darted in front of the car, hesitated, drew back, came on again. Ruth stopped the car shortly, much shaken with the swift vision of catastrophe, and the sudden recognition of the woman. It was the same one who had been with John Cameron.

“Oh, I’m so sorry I startled you!” she called pleasantly, leaning out of the car. “Won’t you get in, please, and let me take you home?”

The woman looked up and there were great tears in her eyes. It was plain why she had not seen where she was going.

“Thank you, no, I couldn’t!” she said with a choke in her voice and another blur of tears, “I—you see—I want to get away—I’ve been seeing off my boy!”

“I know!” said Ruth with quick sympathy, “I saw. And you want to get home quickly and cry. I feel that way myself. But you see I didn’t have anybody there and I’d like to do a little something just to be in it. Won’t you please get in? You’ll get home sooner if I take you; and see! We’re blocking the way!”

The woman cast a frightened glance about and assented:

“Of course. I didn’t realize!” she said climbing awkwardly in and sitting bolt upright as uncomfortable as could be in the luxurious car beside the girl. It was all too plain she did not wish to be there.

Ruth manœuvred her car quickly out of the crowd and into a side street, gliding from there to the avenue. She did not speak until they had left the melting crowd well behind them. Then she turned timidly to the woman:

“You—are—his—mother?”

She spoke the words hesitatingly as if she feared to touch a wound. The woman’s eyes suddenly filled again and a curious little quiver came on the strong chin.

“Yes,” she tried to say and smothered the word in her handkerchief pressed quickly to her lips in an effort to control them.

Ruth laid a cool little touch on the woman’s other hand that lay in her lap:

“Please forgive me!” she said, “I wasn’t sure. I know it must be awful—cruel—for you!”

“He—is all I have left!” the woman breathed with a quick controlled gasp, “but, of course—it was—right that he should go!”

She set her lips more firmly and blinked off at the blur of pretty homes on her right without seeing any of them.

“He would have gone sooner, only he thought he ought not to leave me till he had to,” she said with another proud little quiver in her voice, as if having once spoken she must go on and say more, “I kept telling him I would get on all right—but he always was so careful of me—ever since his father died!”

“Of course!” said Ruth tenderly turning her face away to struggle with a strange smarting sensation in her own eyes and throat. Then in a low voice she added:

“I knew him, you know. I used to go to the same school with him when I was a little bit of a girl.”

The woman looked up with a quick searching glance and brushed the tears away firmly.

“Why, aren’t you Ruth Macdonald? Miss Macdonald, I mean—excuse me! You live in the big house on the hill, don’t you?”

“Yes, I’m Ruth Macdonald. Please don’t call me Miss. I’m only nineteen and I still answer to my little girl name,” Ruth answered with a charming smile.

The woman’s gaze softened.

“I didn’t know John knew you,” she said speculatively. “He never mentioned——”

“Of course not!” said the girl anticipating, “he wouldn’t. It was a long time ago when I was seven and I doubt if he remembers me any more. They took me out of the public school the next year and sent me to St. Mary’s for which I’ve never quite forgiven them, for I’m sure I should have got on much faster at the public school and I loved it. But I’ve not forgotten the good times I had there, and John was always good to the little girls. We all liked him. I haven’t seen him much lately, but I should think he would have grown to be just what you say he is. He looks that way.”

Again the woman’s eyes searched her face, as if she questioned the sincerity of her words; then apparently satisfied she turned away with a sigh:

“I’d have liked him to know a girl like you,” she said wistfully.

“Thank you!” said Ruth brightly, “that sounds like a real compliment. Perhaps we shall know each other yet some day if fortune favors us. I’m quite sure he’s worth knowing.”

“Oh, he is!” said the little mother, her tears brimming over again and flowing down her dismayed cheeks, “he’s quite worth the best society there is, but I haven’t been able to manage a lot of things for him. It hasn’t been always easy to get along since his father died. Something happened to our money. But anyway, he got through college!” with a flash of triumph in her eyes.

“Wasn’t that fine!” said Ruth with sparkling eyes, “I’m sure he’s worth a lot more than some of the fellows who have always had every whim gratified. Now, which street? You’ll have to tell me. I’m ashamed to say I don’t know this part of town very well. Isn’t it pretty down here? This house? What a wonderful clematis! I never saw such a wealth of bloom.”

“Yes, John planted that and fussed over it,” said his mother with pride as she slipped unaccustomedly out of the car to the sidewalk. “I’m very glad to have met you and it was most kind of you to bring me home. To tell the truth”—with a roguish smile that reminded Ruth of her son’s grin—“I was so weak and trembling with saying good-bye and trying to keep up so John wouldn’t know it, that I didn’t know how I was to get home. Though I’m afraid I was a bit discourteous. I couldn’t bear the thought of talking to a stranger just then. But you haven’t been like a stranger—knowing him, and all——”

“Oh, thank you!” said Ruth, “it’s been so pleasant. Do you know, I don’t believe I ever realized what an awful thing the war is till I saw those people down at the station this morning saying good-bye. I never realized either what a useless thing I am. I haven’t even anybody very dear to send. I can only knit.”

“Well, that’s a good deal. Some of us haven’t time to do that. I never have a minute.”

“You don’t need to, you’ve given your son,” said Ruth flashing a glance of glorified understanding at the woman.

A beautiful smile came out on the tired sorrowful face.

“Yes, I’ve given him,” she said, “but I’m hoping God will give him back again some day. Do you think that’s too much to hope. He is such a good boy!”

“Of course not,” said Ruth sharply with a sudden sting of apprehension in her soul. And then she remembered that she had no very intimate acquaintance with God. She wished she might be on speaking terms, at least, and she would go and present a plea for this lonely woman. If it were only Captain La Rue, her favorite cousin, or even the President, she might consider it. But God! She shuddered. Didn’t God let this awful war be? Why did He do it? She had never thought much about God before.

“I wish you would let me come to see you sometime and take you for another ride,” she said sweetly.

“It would be beautiful!” said the older woman, “if you would care to take the time from your own friends.”

“I would love to have you for one of my friends,” said the girl gracefully.

The woman smiled wistfully.

“I’m only here holidays and evenings,” she conceded, “I’m doing some government work now.”

“I shall come,” said Ruth brightly. “I’ve enjoyed you ever so much.” Then she started her car and whirled away into the sunshine.

“She won’t come, of course,” said the woman to herself as she stood looking mournfully after the car, reluctant to go into the empty house. “I wish she would! Isn’t she just like a flower! How wonderful it would be if things had been different, and there hadn’t been any war, and my boy could have had her for a friend! Oh!”

Down at the Club House the women waited for the fair young member who had charge of the wool. They rallied her joyously as she hurried in, suddenly aware that she had kept them all waiting.

“I saw her in the crowd at the station this morning,” called out Mrs. Pryor, a large placid tease with a twinkle in her eye. “She was picking out the handsomest man for the next sweater she knits. Which one did you choose, Miss Ruth? Tell us. Are you going to write him a letter and stick it in the toe of his sock?”

The annoyed color swept into Ruth’s face, but she paid no other heed as she went about her morning duties, preparing the wool to give out. A thought had stolen into her heart that made a tumult there and would not bear turning over even in her mind in the presence of all these curious people. She put it resolutely by as she taught newcomers how to turn the heel of a sock, but now and then it crept back again and was the cause of her dropping an occasional stitch.

Dottie Wetherill came to find out what was the matter with her sock, and to giggle and gurgle about her brother Bob and his friends. Bob, it appeared, was going to bring five officers home with him next week end and they were to have a dance Saturday night. Of course Ruth must come. Bob was soon to get his first lieutenant’s commission. There had been a mistake, of course, or he would have had it before this, some favoritism shown; but now Bob had what they called a “pull,” and things were going to be all right for him. Bob said you couldn’t get anywhere without a “pull.” And didn’t Ruth think Bob looked perfectly fine in his uniform?

It annoyed Ruth to hear such talk and she tried to make it plain to Dottie that she was mistaken about “pull.” There was no such thing. It was all imagination. She knew, for her cousin, Captain La Rue, was very close to the Government and he had told her so. He said that real worth was always recognized, and that it didn’t make any difference where it was found or who your friends were. It mattered what you were.

She fixed Dottie’s sock and moved on to the wool table to get ready an allotment for some of the ladies to take home.

Mrs. Wainwright bustled in, large and florid and well groomed, with a bunch of photographer’s proofs of her son Harry in his uniform. She called loudly for Ruth to come and inspect them. There were some twenty or more poses, each one seemingly fatter, more pompous and conceited looking than the last. She stated in boisterous good humor that Harry particularly wanted Ruth’s opinion before he gave the order. At that Mrs. Pryor bent her head to her neighbor and nodded meaningly, as if a certain matter of discussion were settled now beyond all question. Ruth caught the look and its meaning and the color flooded her face once more, much to her annoyance. She wondered angrily if she would never be able to stop that childish habit of blushing, and why it annoyed her so very much this morning to have her name coupled with that of Harry Wainwright. He was her old friend and playmate, having lived next door to her all her life, and it was but natural when everybody was sweethearting and getting married, that people should speak of her and wonder whether there might be anything more to their relationship than mere friendship. Still it annoyed her. Continually as she turned the pages from one fat smug Wainwright countenance to another, she saw in a mist the face of another man, with uplifted head and sorrowful eyes. She wondered if when the time came for Harry Wainwright to go he would have aught of the vision, and aught of the holiness of sorrow that had shown in that other face.

She handed the proofs back to the mother, so like her son in her ample blandness, and wondered if Mrs. Cameron would have a picture of her son in his uniform, fine and large and lifelike as these were.

She interrupted her thoughts to hear Mrs. Wainwright’s clarion voice lifted in parting from the door of the Club House on her way back to her car:

“Well, good-bye, Ruth dear. Don’t hesitate to let me know if you’d like to have either of the other two large ones for your own ‘specials,’ you know. I shan’t mind changing the order a bit. Harry said you were to have as many as you wanted. I’ll hold the proofs for a day or two and let you think it over.”

Ruth lifted her eyes to see the gaze of every woman in the room upon her, and for a moment she felt as if she almost hated poor fat doting Mamma Wainwright. Then the humorous side of the moment came to help her and her face blossomed into a smile as she jauntily replied:

“Oh, no, please don’t bother, Mrs. Wainwright. I’m not going to paper the wall with them. I have other friends, you know. I think your choice was the best of them all.”

Then as gaily as if she were not raging within her soul she turned to help poor Dottie Wetherill who was hopelessly muddled about turning her heel.

Dottie chattered on above the turmoil of her soul, and her words were as tiny April showers sizzling on a red hot cannon. By and by she picked up Dottie’s dropped stitches. After all, what did such things matter when there was war and men were giving their lives!

“And Bob says he doubts if they ever get to France. He says he thinks the war will be over before half the men get trained. He says, for his part, he’d like the trip over after the submarines have been put out of business. It would be something to tell about, don’t you know? But Bob thinks the war will be over soon. Don’t you think so, Ruth?”

“I don’t know what I think,” said Ruth exasperated at the little prattler. It seemed so awful for a girl with brains—or hadn’t she brains?—to chatter on interminably in that inane fashion about a matter of such awful portent. And yet perhaps the child was only trying to cover up her fears, for she all too evidently worshipped her brother.

Ruth was glad when at last the morning was over and one by one the women gathered their belongings together and went home. She stayed longer than the rest to put the work in order. When they were all gone she drove around by the way of the post office and asked the old post master who had been there for twenty years and knew everybody, if he could tell her the address of the boys who had gone to camp that morning. He wrote it down and she tucked it in her blouse saying she thought the Red Cross would be sending them something soon. Then she drove thoughtfully away to her beautiful sheltered home, where the thought of war hardly dared to enter yet in any but a playful form. But somehow everything was changed within the heart of Ruth Macdonald and she looked about on all the familiar places with new eyes. What right had she to be living here in all this luxury while over there men were dying every day that she might live?