The Beloved Stranger (10 page)

“Don’t you suppose I’d have found out eventually that he was that sort? And what good would your killing yourself have been? Haven’t you any sense at all? For pity’s sake stop crying!
You’re
not to blame.” Sherrill was frantic. The girl seemed to be going all to pieces.

“Yes, I am! I’ve taken your husband!” went on Arla, getting a fresh start on sobs, “and I’ve taken your wedding away from you, and now you want me to take your clothes—
and I can’t do it!”

“Fiddlesticks!” said Sherrill earnestly. “I tell you I don’t
want
your husband, and if anybody wanted a frantic wedding such as this has been, they are welcome to it. As for the clothes, they’re all new and have never become a part of me. I’m glad to have you have them, and anyway you’ve
got
to, to carry out this thing right! Now stop being a baby and get your shoes on. I tell you the time is going fast. Listen! I
want
you to have those things. I really do! And I
want
you to have just as good a time as you can. Don’t you believe it?”

“Oh, you’re wonderful!” said Arla, suddenly jumping up and flinging her slender young arms around Sherrill’s neck. “I just love you! And to think I thought you were so different! Oh, if I’d known you were like this, I wouldn’t have come here! I really wouldn’t!”

“Well, I’m glad you came!” said Sherrill fiercely. “I didn’t know it, but I guess I really am. Of course, I’m not having a particularly heavenly time out of it, but I’m sure in my heart that you’ve probably done me a great favor, and someday when I get over the shock, I’ll thank you for it!”

“Oh, but I wouldn’t have wanted to hurt you,” sighed Arla, her red lips still quivering. “I really wouldn’t. I’ve always been—well—decent!”

“That’s all right!” said Sherrill, blinking her own tears back. “And I wouldn’t have wanted to hurt you either. There! Let’s let it go at that and be friendly. Now, please, powder your nose and hurry up.
Smile!
That’s it!”

Just then Gemmie came back, a big warm coat over her arm, richly furred on collar and sleeves.

“It’s getting late, Mrs. McArthur!” she suggested officially, and presented Arla’s chic little hat and doeskin gloves with a look of approbation toward them. Gemmie had decided that the substitute bride must be a lady. At least she knew how to buy the right clothes.

Arla paused at the door as Gemmie stepped off down the hall to direct the man who had come to take the suitcase, and whispered to Sherrill: “I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me!
Never!”
she said huskily.

“That’s all right,” said Sherrill almost tenderly as she looked at the pretty shrinking girl before her. “I’m just sorry you couldn’t have had a regular wedding instead of one all messed up with other things like this.”

“Oh, but I never could have afforded a wedding like this!” sighed Arla wistfully.

“Well, it might at least have been peaceful,” said Sherrill with a tinge of bitterness in her voice. “But never mind. It’s over now, and I hope a good happy life for you has begun. Try not to think much about the past. Try to make yours a happy marriage if it can be done.”

They passed on together down the hall to the head of the stairs where Carter McArthur and his best man stood waiting, and as she saw her bridegroom standing there so handsome and smiling and altogether just what a happy bridegroom ought to look like, there came to Arla new strength. She lost her sorrowful humility and became the radiant bride again. That was her
husband
standing there waiting for her!
Her
husband, not another girl’s! Only a short walk down the stairs now, a dash to the car, and she would be out and free from all this awfulness, and into a new life. She might be going into hell, but she was going with him, and it was what she had chosen.

Then suddenly, as Arla’s hand was drawn within the arm of her bridegroom and they walked smilingly down the stairs with measured tread, Sherrill, falling in behind, felt greatly alone and lost. A sinking feeling came over her. Was she going to fall? That would be dreadful, now when it was almost over. Must she walk down those steps alone? Couldn’t she just slip back to her room and stay there till they were all gone?

But just as she faltered at the top step, she felt a hand under her arm, and a pleasant voice said in her ear: “Well, is it all over now but the shouting?” and she looked up to see the cheerful grin of Copeland.

She had forgotten his existence in the last few tense minutes, but he had been waiting, had seen her weakness, and was there just at the right moment.

“Did anybody ever before pick up a friend like you right out of the street in the dark night?” she asked suddenly, lifting grateful eyes to his face.

“Why, I thought it was
I
who picked
you
up!” he answered quickly with a warm smile.

“Well, anyway, you have been wonderful!”

“I’m only too glad if I have been able to live up to the specifications,” he said earnestly and finished with his delightful grin again.

The people down in the hall looking up said to one another: “Look at those two! They look as if it were
their
wedding, don’t they? Who is he, do you suppose, and where has he been all this time?”

Sherrill stood with the rest on the wide front veranda watching the bride and groom dash across to their beribboned car, which awaited them. She even threw a few of the pink rose petals with which the guests were hilariously pelting the bridal couple. Even now at this last moment, when she was watching another girl go away with her bridegroom, she must smile and keep up appearances, although her knees felt weak and the tears were dangerously near.

Mrs. Battersea had stationed herself and her lorgnette in the forefront, and she fixed her eagle eye especially on Sherrill. If there was still any more light on the peculiar happening of the evening to be gleaned from a view of the original bride off her guard, at this last minute, she meant to get it.

Sherrill suddenly saw her, and it had the effect of making her give a little hysterical giggle. Then Copeland’s hand on her arm steadied her again, and she flashed a grateful smile up to meet his pleasant grin.

Mrs. Battersea dropped her lorgnette, deciding that of course this was the other lover appeared just at the last minute; only
how
did they get that other girl?

They were all gone at last. The last guest had joked to Aunt Pat about her wonderful surprise wedding; the last bridesmaid had taken her little box of wedding cake to sleep on and stolen noisily away. Just Aunt Pat and Sherrill and Copeland left standing alone in the wide front hall as the last car whirled away.

Copeland had stayed to the end, as if he were a part of the household, stayed close by Sherrill, taken the burden of the last conversations upon himself as if he had the right, made every second of those last trying minutes just as easy for her as possible, kept up a light patter of brilliant conversation, filling in all the spots that needed tiding over.

“And now,” said he, turning to the hostess as the last car whirled down the lighted driveway, “I have to thank you, Miss Catherwood, for a most delightful evening. Sherrill, it’s been wonderful to have had this time with you. I must be getting on my way. I think your butler is bringing my things.”

Just then the butler came toward them bearing Graham Copeland’s suitcase and high hat. Sherrill looked up in surprise. With what ease he had arranged everything so that there would be no unpleasant pauses for explanation.

But Aunt Pat swung around upon him with a quick searching look at Sherrill.

“Why, where are you staying?” she asked cordially.

“I’m at the Wiltshire,” he answered quickly. “I hadn’t time to get into proper garb before the ceremony, so I brought my things up here, and Sherrill very kindly gave me a place to dress.”

“Well, then why don’t you just stay here tonight? It’s pretty late, I guess. We’ve plenty of rooms now, you know,” and she gave him a little friendly smile that she gave only to an honored few whom she liked.

“Thank you,” he said with an amused twinkle at Sherrill. “That would be delightful, but I’ve an appointment quite early in the morning, and my briefcase is at the hotel. I think I’d better go back to my room. But I certainly appreciate the invitation.”

“Well, then, you’ll be with us to dinner tomorrow night surely. That is, unless you and Sherry have made other plans.”

“I certainly wish I could,” said the young man wistfully, “but unfortunately I am obliged to take the noon train to Washington to meet another appointment which is quite important.”

Aunt Pat looked disappointed.

“I wonder,” said the young man hesitantly, “I’m not sure how long I shall be obliged to stay in Washington—several days, likely, as I have some important records to look up at the Patent Office—but I shall be passing through the city on my way to New York sometime next week probably. Would I be presuming if I stopped off and called on you both?”

“Presuming?” said Aunt Pat with a keen look at Sherrill. “Well, not so far as I know,” and she gave one of her quaint little chuckles.

“I do hope you can,” said Sherrill earnestly with a look that left no doubt of her wish in the matter.

His eyes searched hers gravely for an instant, and then he said as though he had received a royal command: “Then I shall surely be here if it is at all possible. I’ll call up and find out if it is convenient.”

“Of course it’ll be convenient!” said the old lady.
“I’m
always at home whether anybody else is or not, and I’ll be glad to see you.”

He bowed a gracious thanks, then turned to Sherrill as if reluctant to relinquish his office of assistant.

“I’ll hope you’ll be—” He hesitated, then finished earnestly, “All right.”

There was something in his eyes that brought a warm little comforted feeling around her heart.

“Oh yes!” she answered fervently. “Thank you! You were—It was wonderful having you here!” she finished with heightened color.

“Oh, but you’re not going that way!” said the old lady. “Gemmie, tell Stanley to bring the car around and take Mr. Copeland—”

A moment more and he was gone, and Sherrill had a sudden feeling of being left alone in a tumultuous world.

Now she must have it out with Aunt Pat!

Slowly she turned away from the door and faced the old lady, all her lovely buoyant spirits gone, just a weary, troubled little girl who looked as if she wanted to cry.

Chapter 6

W
ell,” said Aunt Pat with grim satisfaction in her voice, “you never did anything in your life that pleased me so much!”

“Oh, you darling Aunt Pat!” said Sherrill, her face glowing with sudden relief, and quick tears brimming unbidden into her eyes.

“Why, certainly!” said the old lady crisply. “You know I never did like that Carter McArthur. Now, come upstairs to my room and tell me all about it!”

“Oh, but aren’t you too tired tonight, Aunt Pat?” asked Sherrill, struggling under the shock of relief.

“Bosh!” said Aunt Pat. “You know neither you nor I will sleep a wink till we’ve had it out. Run and get your robe on. I suppose you gave the grand new one to that little washed-out piece. Of course she had to have it. But put on your old one with the blue butterflies. I like that one best anyway. Gemmie”—raising her voice to the faithful maid who was never far away—“send up two plates of
everything
to my room. Everything, I said. We’re hungry as bears. Neither of us ate as much as a bird while that mob was here. No, you needn’t worry, Gemmie; it won’t hurt me this time of night at all. I’m as chipper as a squirrel, and if I’ve stood this evening and all the weeks before it, I certainly can stand one good meal before I sleep. The fact is, Gemmie, things have come out my way tonight, and I don’t think anything could very well hurt me just now.”

“Yes, ma’am!” said Gemmie with a happy glance toward Sherrill.

A general air of good cheer pervaded Aunt Pat’s room when Sherrill, in her old robe of shell pink satin with blue butterflies fluttering over it, and her comfortable old slippers with the lamb’s wool lining and pink feather edges, arrived and was established in a big stuffed chair at one side of the open fire. Aunt Pat, with her silver hair in soft ringlets around her shoulders, sat on the other side of the fire robed in dove-gray quilted silk.