Partners (16 page)

So Noel went to sleep and Reuben went to work, but in the back of his mind he was trying to remember a Bible verse or two out of his primary school days so that he wouldn't lose prestige with his young ward. And that night when the lights were out, he spent some time on his knees on his own account.

The report from Ted the detective was that Mason Albee had taken a trip east and was being shadowed from time to time to keep track of him. Reuben was a little uneasy over this. Suppose he should turn up somewhere and see Noel or get on the track of Gillian? Although he couldn't see how that was possible with as little as he must know of her movements, unless he had himself employed a detective. He resolved to be very careful and not let Noel out of his sight at all.

The report from the agent from the shore was that the cottage would be ready for occupancy Tuesday morning. The electricity was already in except for a few fixtures that would be set on Monday, the water would be turned on, and everything ready.

Then Reuben called up Aunt Ettie again.

"There! I thought that would be you, you spendthrift!" was her greeting. "Didn't I tell you to lay off that telephoning? Now, what's the matter? Has the girl backed out?"

"No, it's all right," said Reuben, grinning at the familiar address of the old nurse. "I just want to know when you are likely to get started, so I can plan to bring down your two companions. The doctor seems to think Miss Guthrie would be able to go early this week, and the agent says the house will be ready Tuesday morning. When will you be ready for your guests?"

"Well, we plan to get going right early Monday morning, if Ames gets the man he has track of to look after his cows. So, we'll likely stop overnight at Ames's sister's house and then go on early Tuesday morning. He thinks we ought to get to your seashore around noon on Tuesday. He wants ta unload and get back ta his sister's fer the night so he can get home next day to his farmwork and a lot of trucking he has the rest of the week. Is that all right? I figure we can get the beds all up and make 'em, and fix a place ta eat that night, so you can bring your mob down Wednesday if you like. I'll be ready for 'em. And I think you'd better stick around till I see if I can stomach that girl. I might havta make you take her back, if she is one of these up-in-the-air kind."

"Oh, but she's not!" said Reuben firmly.

"You wouldn't know!" said Aunt Ettie promptly. "I'll havta see her meself."

Then he got to thinking of Agnes. He had accepted the invitation to the wedding and written the groom, but he hadn't answered Agnes's letter yet. How was he going to write Agnes? Like the old friend he used to be? Did he want to go back on that same footing? Of course, he was only a kid then, just out of high school, and Agnes and he had been awfully good friends. Why, Agnes had asked him to kiss her good-bye when he left the homeplace. She had said she would never think as much of any boy again as she did him, and he, poor fool, had told her he didn't think he would ever find another girl that he liked as well as he did her. She was pretty and vivacious. She had sparkling black eyes and black curly hair that was always done in the most tricky way. And her eyes could speak volumes, which her assumed shyness would not allow voice. At least that was how it seemed to him now as he went back over his former friendship with her.

His mother had never quite liked Agnes. She had told him that Agnes was too sophisticated and she wished he would find a girl who was not so forward and always ready to take the front of the stage. But he hadn't ever seen that in her. She had seemed a sweet, shy girl to him. Very real and genuine, very ready to do anything to please and have a good time. He wondered, had his mother merely been overanxious that he should have the best in friends as well as in all other things? Or would she have been jealous of any girl upon whom his fancy rested? Perhaps that wasn't it. His mother hadn't really known Agnes. Agnes belonged to an ultrafashionable set, and his little quiet mother had never been associated with that sort. She did not play bridge and was never a clubwoman. She loved her home, and her painting and sewing. She delighted in literature, in reading good books and magazines; she longed for her son to be a scholar, like his father, to have fine standards and a wide outlook on life, to admire genuine things and not be deceived by glamour and glitter.

And in the long run Reuben felt that he agreed with his mother on what he wanted to become. But he was just a little uncertain whether his mother, if she had really known Agnes, would not have counted her real.

He remembered the look in Agnes's eyes when she had said good-bye, the feel of her face against his when he had shyly kissed her, the soft lips, the yielded pressure in his arms. He hadn't been in love with her then, he was sure, but he had been intrigued by her. He had felt as if this might be merely the beginning of something that in the far future might materialize. Yet he had been content to leave her when he went away to college, and later to study abroad for a while, and he had not cared to go back to the old hometown on his return. In fact, he rather shrank from going because both Father and Mother were gone, and the thought of Agnes had not been enough to drag him back. At least not just then. And so he had taken this most promising position in the Glinden firm, and he dreamily sometimes thought of how the day would perhaps come when he would go back, a successful businessman, and see Agnes again, maybe to find her all the more charming.

But now as he thought over her pleasant letter with its flattering persuasion to come to the wedding, his heart quickened a little at thought of her.

He was in a position now to go to her and renew the old acquaintance. He would have something to offer her now, if he still found her desirable. And it would be good to see her again and catch up the broken threads of life. To go again with the girl he had fancied as a schoolboy.

So Reuben wrote to Agnes, but in spite of him, as he wrote formality crept into the penned words:

 

Dear Agnes:

How pleasant of you to add your word and your urgency to the wedding invitation. And I am going to do my best to come, although I had made other plans for my vacation and this comes right in the middle of it. I had intended going to the far West for a few weeks, but now this invitation has come I cannot forebear excepting it and meeting all my old friends once more.

It doesn't seem so long, does it, since we all separated at commencement and went our different ways? I can scarcely believe that your little sister Rose Elizabeth has grown old enough to be married. It is certainly going to be exciting meeting you all again and finding out what has happened to each one of us. So I thank you for adding your voice of persuasion to the invitation Frank sent, and I shall surely plan to be present.

I am greatly anticipating seeing you once more and renewing our old acquaintance.

 

His pen paused and he was about to finish with "Yours as ever," and then he changed his mind. Was he really "as ever" to her? He didn't know. He tried to think of her sanely and coolly and to recall her vivacious face, but somehow every time he did there came the sweet little quiet face of Gillian, framed in soft brown hair that rippled away from her delicate features, and Agnes's face wasn't at all like Gillian's. No, he had been away from Agnes too long to sign himself "Yours as ever," he decided. Then hastily he finished, "Sincerely," signed his name, and let it go at that. What he had written was certainly sincere and yet committed him to nothing, and that was the best way to have it. Why, Agnes might have changed greatly. She might be engaged to someone else. It didn't matter. He was "Sincerely" and he could take whatever relationship he chose when he saw her. At least he could do this much for the memory of his mother's anxiety.

And the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that he had taken the right attitude after such a long absence. And besides, there was Anise Glinden! And then he laughed aloud. Anise might be interested to make him perform a part in her play, to flirt with him for a little while, and to throw her wiles about him, but he had no desire to have any permanent attachment to Anise, and he was quite sure she herself would try to look far higher in the social world than to a junior employee of her father's.

But then he wasn't considering marriage with either of these girls. He had definitely decided long ago that he must reach a certain point in his worldly climb before he wanted to be tied up by marriage. Well, it would be time enough to decide when he got to the old hometown, had a chance to talk with Agnes, and see if she had the same power over him that he used to think she had. So he turned his thoughts to business in the immediate present, wrote a few more letters, jotted down notes of things he wanted to do, and finally went to bed. But there was a distinct anticipation in his mind as he thought of that wedding invitation. As he drifted off to sleep, he tried again to think how Agnes would look and how they would meet. And yet before he knew it, he was planning about taking Gillian to the shore, trying to arrange the minutest details so that the journey would not tire her. He was thinking out how he ought to do his own packing and how to get wedding things ready in time. He must decide whether to take Noel with him to his rooming house when he went to get his own wardrobe, and what garments he would leave in a packed suitcase ready to pick up before he went to the wedding. He felt he must plan to stay a few days at the shore to be sure that Gillian and Noel were safe and happy with Aunt Ettie, and be sure that Aunt Ettie was happy and satisfied with the two he was leaving in her charge, before he went away. Those matters must be adjusted or he was certain he would have no enjoyment out of his vacation no matter how he spent it. He didn't want to be thinking of Gillian taking Noel and running away again. He didn't want to have to get a detective to hunt her up when he returned. He was determined that the lives of these two whom he had been trying to help must run along smoothly from now on.

So at last he fell asleep, and woke up to hear distant early bells chiming from far steeples and to realize that this was Sunday and he was expected to "make" a Sunday school today. It seemed an appalling obligation, but he found there was a new eagerness in his heart over it. Then came the memory of Ted's words about that uncle Mason who had gone east. Would that old reprobate turn up and make trouble? Was it possible that he might come while he was away at the wedding? Because if he thought that possible, he wouldn't go at all. It would be terrible for Gillian to be frightened again in that way. He must try to get this business hurried up and the old criminal in jail safely before he left his charges.

But Noel awoke joyously. He awoke singing. At least he was so still that Reuben thought him still asleep until he heard that sweet little voice singing old long-forgotten words:

 

"Safely through another week God has brought us on our way;

Let us now a blessing seek, on th'approaching Sabbath day;

Day of all the week the best, emblem of eternal rest."

 

Reuben looked over at the little smiling face.

"That's what my Gillian and I sing every Sunday morning!" said Noel. "Do you know that song?"

"Why, yes," said Reuben, strangely stirred by sweet memories. "My mother and I used to sing that together when I was a little boy."

"Oh, that's nice! Let's you and me sing it together now." And Noel's clear soprano piped up again, Reuben trailing along with a low growl quite creditably.

That was a strangely happy day for the young man, almost as if he were put back a number of years into his own childhood days. Perhaps the angels guided them to the right church, where the Gospel was preached simply and clearly. His heart was stirred to realize how long he had wandered from the way his mother had brought him up in. Condemned, he sat and listened, with a small boy's hand nestled in his, and felt as if God were there looking into his heart. It wasn't that he had done great wrong. He knew that outwardly he kept the law and stood for that which was right. But in the sweet quiet atmosphere where he could feel the presence of God, he realized that he had walked far away from God. It wasn't as if he hadn't known the way of life since babyhood. But he hadn't realized till now how far he had gotten from the things that make for joy and peace in this world.

So he didn't merely sit there and let his mind wander all over next week making plans. He really listened, and there was a sweet seriousness upon him as the service closed and they went out. The young minister grasped his hand and said, "Let me welcome you. I wish you would come again." And Reuben responded heartily, "Thank you, I will. Your sermon helped me."

Noel was content, feeling that a real Sunday had begun in the right way. They went to the hospital as soon as they had finished the delightful chicken dinner and ice cream that the hotel served, and found Gillian eager for their coming. She was sitting up in a big chair, with a blue robe about her and her eyes so very blue that Reuben was startled. It seemed they had caught the color from the garment she wore. Reuben thought to himself,
Why, she's beautiful! She's like her little brother!
And he looked in wonder from one of them to the other.

When the nurse went out of the room for a moment, Gillian handed over an envelope. Quite casually so that Noel, who was examining the pictures in a magazine belonging to the nurse, did not notice.

"I found this envelope in the box," she said. "It has some papers and a photograph of that uncle I was telling you about, though he is only in the background. The picture was taken of Mother and Noel, but he stood there. I thought it might help in identification. There is also a copy of my mother's signature."

"Good!" said Reuben. "That will all help, of course. I'll take good care of these."

And then Noel came over to stand beside Gillian, and they spoke of other things. Of the cottage by the sea and the kindly Aunt Ettie whom he hoped they would both like. Reuben told some little incidents of his remembered childhood when Aunt Ettie was a part of his home life.