Blue Ruin (37 page)

But before they could reprove him there came a quick ring at the door.

“Good-night!” said Elim furiously. “Can’t we have any peace? On Lynnie’s birthday, I ask you, can’t we have any peace? Has that poor fish come back? Here, Lynn, let me handle him!”

But Lynette arose from the table, a stern look upon her face, and went out into the hall, shutting the door behind her.

“Aw Gee!” said Elim, sinking back into his chair. “Aw Gee! Isn’t that the limit? Now I suppose he’ll stay all the afternoon and Lynn’ll come back looking like two ghosts.”

“Don’t worry, Elim! I think it will be all right!” said his mother, through a trifle anxious. “Lynnie will know what to do.”

“Everything will be all right,” said Grandma placidly. “You see! Lynnie belongs to the Lord. She is shut into the hollow of His hand. Nothing can touch her to harm her anymore!”

Elim blinked doubtfully.

They listened while the door was opened, heard a voice, a strange voice, heard Lynette’s greeting, eager, wondering, joyous. They looked at one another in wonder. What could it mean? Who could it be?

They had gone into the parlor again, whoever it was. It did not sound like Dana’s voice. And Lynette never would have greeted him in that tone, now, knowing all she knew. Who was it?

But in the parlor the two who sat and looked into each other’s eyes and said the pleasant greetings that people who have not seen each other for some days usually say, were utterly oblivious of anything but their two selves.

“I hope you will forgive me. I had to come,” said the tall stranger with the deep blue eyes. “I had to know what kind of a man it was that made the hurt look in your eyes. I’ve been hanging around for two days to see if I could place him. I think I saw him coming out the gate about an hour ago” —he called it “aboot”—“Am I mistaken?”

“Oh!” said Lynette, her eyes quite bright, the color rushing in waves to her cheeks, “How could you know?” Her voice was wondering, but not offended.

“I knew because I love you,” answered the voice with the burr on the curl of the words. “If he had been all right, if he had been the kind of a man who could have taken the pain out of your eyes, I should have gone on my way without calling and left you to your joy. But when I saw him I felt somehow that I must come. Am I intruding?”

“No,” said Lynette. “Oh no!” and her eyes told him more than her lips.

“Then will you come over here on this couch and sit beside me, and may I tell you how I have loved you since ever I saw you come on board the boat? Or am I too hasty?”

She came, and he told her, in words that transcended all she had ever dreamed that such a tale should be. How tame and flat seemed all else in her life that had preceded this hour!

Two hours later Lynette came suddenly to herself. She had heard the clink of silver and glass and realized that they still lived in a world where people ate, and that the family was awaiting her return disconsolately.

“Oh, but I must tell Mother and Elim and Grandmother!” she cried, starting away from the arms that were around her.

“Why, yes,” said the tall stranger. “Quite so! We should have thought of that before! How selfish we have been! And fancy having all those dear people! I have only an old aunt in Scotland, you know. Someday I must take you over to see her, my darling!”

She led him into the dining room without waiting to announce him, a Lynette whose face was aflame with holy joy and who had no idea that she was flustering them all, from the quiet grandmother who had sat putting in her linen stitches all the afternoon till she had darned up a whole inch beyond the hole and was almost run out of thread, to Elim frowning in the kitchen doorway, restless as an eel yet afraid to leave lest he should somehow be needed, and her mother in the kitchen doorway, her hands all floury and her hair awry.

“Mother!” she cried, with a lilt in her voice, the old lilt that had not been there for a year. “Have you got a birthday party ready? Because we have a guest. This is Alec Douglas, Mother. I told you about him, you know.”

Mary Brooke, wiping her hands on her apron and going forward to welcome the guest, heard her son murmuring behind her, “Aw gee! Another sucker! Good-night! I’m going to beat it!” But Elim came obediently forward when his sister called, and looked into the eyes, the deep blue eyes of the stranger, and was won.

“He’s a real man at last!” he said with a sigh of relief to his mother later in the kitchen while he was helping to dish up the dinner. “Gee, I’m glad we’ve got her fixed right at last.”

For Alec Douglas had not waited for formalities. He went to the heart of his business at once.

“I won’t deceive you, Mrs. Brooke,” he said with an extra twirl of the burr on Brooke. “I’ve come because I’ve fallen in love with your daughter and want her to marry me. I know it’s a great thing I’m asking of you, to share such a daughter as Lynette with me, and you don’t know me yet. But I’ll not take her away from you if you will all deign to come and live with me. And I’ll try to be a good son to you, and worthy of your trust.”

Then he turned to the sweet old grandmother.

“It will be a great thing to me to have a real grandmother again,” he said. “My own has been gone to her lang hame more than twenty years, and I’ve always longed for her. I’d be pleased if you would take her place.”

Elim stood on the outer edge of things, uncomfortable and forlorn while these preliminaries were going on. But at last the future brother-in-law whirled upon him and gave him a real clap on the shoulder that almost made him wince with the power of it.

“And you, lad, why we’re going to have rare times! To think I’ve got a brother at last! I’ve always longed for one. I’d only a baby sister and she went home, too. There’s only a little stone with ‘Janet’ written across it. But lad, I’ll take you to Scotland and show you the castle, where the Douglases used to live, and we’ll climb the crags and go fishing in the creek, and we’ll have a great time shearing the sheep, and if you care for golf we’ll have some of the real thing. How about it, lad? Are we brothers?”

Elim gripped the great hand that held his, grinned from ear to ear, and said, “Sure! Go to it! I’m with ya. That’s great!”

They had their party at last. They sat down to the bountiful table which Alec Douglas had helped to set, entering into the heart of the family with great delight to their exquisite joy. He cut the bread and he turned the ice cream, spelling Elim who was sent down to the spring house for watercress. He helped Grandmother to her chair and then asked the most wonderful blessing, till it seemed the Lord was right in the room, pleased at their happiness, ready to bless them.

It developed that Alec Douglas had come over at the request of a New York church who had called him unanimously without hearing him or seeing him, on the recommendation of their senior elder who had met him in London. He was seeking the Lord’s leading concerning the acceptance of the call. It was all a question of where he was wanted most in the vineyard. And then he began to tell them of the two years he had spent in Africa as a missionary among the heathen, of his experiences with lions and leopards, and the natives who had never heard of Christ before. Elim found himself listening absorbedly to the greatest sermon he had ever heard, and saying to himself, “Gee, he’s a regular guy. I’d like to be a Christian if I could be like that! It hasn’t hurt him not one little bit! There isn’t a yella hair on him.”

They sat long at the table talking, eager not to lose a word, and then Alec Douglas insisted upon helping them to clear off the table and wash the dishes, and while they went about their merry work and Lynette’s laugh rang out happily, a silent figure came down the mountain in the darkness and passed that way. He looked hungrily at the lights of the house where he had once been the most welcome visitor, heard the merriment, caught the glimpse of the figures moving about, and drew his fine brows down in bitterness.

“And she can laugh!” he said in his self-righteous wrath. “She has ruined my life, and she can laugh! Ruin! Ruin! Ruin! And it was all her fault!”

G
RACE
L
IVINGSTON
H
ILL
(1865-1947) is known as the pioneer of Christian romance. Grace wrote over one hundred faith-inspired books during her lifetime. When her first husband died, leaving her with two daughters to raise, writing became a way to make a living, but she always recognized storytelling as a way to share her faith in God. She has touched countless lives through the years and continues to touch lives today. Her books feature moving stories, delightful characters, and love in its purest form.

Love Endures

Grace Livingston Hill Classics

Available in 2012

The Beloved Stranger
The Prodigal Girl
A New Name
Re-Creations
Tomorrow About This Time
Crimson Roses
Blue Ruin
Coming Through the Rye
The Christmas Bride
Ariel Custer
Not Under the Law
Job’s Niece