The Beloved Stranger (14 page)

A wave of shamed color swept over his face, leaving it white as death. He almost staggered and put out his hand to steady himself against the wall.

“You don’t care that you’re putting me through hell, do you?” he whined impressively.

She gave him a withering glance.

“You deserve it,” she said fiercely. “I don’t! I’ve always tried to be as decent as you would let me. I never played fast and loose with you. I’ve loved you always—and—I love you—now! God help me! Why do I love you? Oh, why? You are despicable! You know you are! How could anybody love a little handsome selfish beast like you? And yet I do! Oh, what a wedding night!”

She threw herself suddenly down upon the bed and wept bitterly. And he, trembling, almost ashamed, filled with passionate remorse and angry retaliation, turned the light off and crept humbly to her side, kneeling, groping for her hand. Her words had lashed him through fury into a sudden brief fleeting vision of himself.

“Arla!” he said, reaching after her in the dark. “Arla! Don’t cry that way! I do love you!”

Chapter 9

S
herrill awoke in the morning with a gorgeous sunlight streaming across the lovely old blue rug, lighting her familiar room cheerfully.

Then instantly, as if someone had struck her across the heart with a club, there came to her a remembrance of all that had happened since she awoke in that room so joyously yesterday morning. The future, drab and desolate, stretched itself away before her, a dreary prospect.

Sherrill’s soul turned sick at her own desolation, and all the horror of her situation rushed over her with a realization of details which she had not had time for last night in the sudden stress and need for immediate action.

And now of course the first thought that occurred was, had she done right? Was her action too hasty? Had there been any other way? What would other girls have done?
Could
she have married him knowing the truth about him?

Of course, if there had been the least doubt about it, if there had been any chance at all that she was misjudging him, she would have been wrong not to have given him an opportunity to explain, to clear himself if he could.

But she had heard his own words. She had seen him clasp that other girl and kiss her with the same passionate fervency with which he had kissed her. She had seen his face as he took her in his arms. She could never forget it. Yes, she had heard his own confession that he still loved the other girl, and that after his marriage and wedding trip they would be freer than ever—!
Ah!
She caught her lips between her teeth with a trembling breath. How that sight, those words had stabbed her! Oh no, there was no possibility of doubt. He was false-hearted. He had
meant
to be false!

If he had just been weak and fallen into this situation, one could forgive. Forgive, but not marry. She could never marry a man whom she could not trust.

But he had been deliberately false, and she could scarcely be sorry for him. No, she could only be sorry for that poor desperate girl who had been willing to go through hell to have him.

Well, there was such a thing as hell on earth, of course. Her own present outlook seemed not far situated from such a location, and yet she knew if she had to go through even a mild kind of hell for the rest of her life, she would rather take it alone than tied up to the man whom just a few short hours before she had been joyously preparing to marry. No, she must be thankful that a kind Providence had even in such a tragic moment prevented her from marrying Carter McArthur.

And yet though all that was true, Sherrill Cameron lay with wide desperate eyes staring out at a sunlit desolation.

She closed her eyes again and tried to wish herself back to sleep, but the eyes flew open like a doll’s that had lost their weights. She knew that she was definitely awake for the day and could not drop back into merciful oblivion again even for a brief space. She must face what was before her.

So she lay staring about the room that had sheltered so much of her joy and happy anticipation, and suddenly from every wall and corner things jumped out at her that had been connected with her courtship. A great bunch of dried grasses that she and Carter had gathered the day they took their first walk together. It filled a thin crystal vase on the mantel and made a thing ethereally lovely. Gemmie never would have known that it was a reminder of dear dead days.

High over her white marble mantel was fastened a pennant. It spoke of the first football game she had attended with Carter, less than a year ago! Gemmie wouldn’t have realized that the pennant spoke eloquently of a lost past.

Knotted carelessly on the corner of a signed etching on the opposite wall, for no apparent reason at all, was a bow of scarlet ribbon, a memento of last Christmas, kept because Carter had tied it about her hair the morning they were skating together, and then had drawn her face back and kissed her behind a sheltering hemlock tree that hid them from the view of the other skaters on the creek. And that was another memory that she must cut out and throw away. It did not belong to her and never had belonged, it seemed! Gemmie had no idea what that red ribbon meant.

Over on her desk that bronze paperweight! Gemmie never had known that it had been on his desk the day she first went with Carter to his office. She had admired it and he had given it to her. That was before Arla came to be his secretary! Ah, but he had known and loved Arla first! He loved her enough
afterward
to have sent for Arla. And yet he had gone right on with his intimacy with Sherrill! The bronze, too, must go into the trash!

And over on the bureau, that little ivory figurine! Gemmie had always admired that. But she did not know that Carter had bought it for her in a curio shop the day they went together to New York.

Oh! She could not bear these memories! She must not! She would give way and weep. And weeping was not for her today! She must keep a mask of happiness on her face. She must not let anyone suspect that her life was shattered by that wedding as it had come out last night. They must think it was all planned or at least that a definite and friendly change was made before the ceremony. She could not go around and explain the whole thing as it had happened. Even if she were willing on her own part, she could not explain what involved others’ secrets. No, she must play her part through to the end and keep a brave, cheerful, even merry face. How was she to do it?

Then suddenly she could not bear the sight of those things on her wall, and she sprang up and dashed the bunch of grasses down, sweeping them into the fireplace where Gemmie had carefully laid a fire.

The vase was only a plain little thing from the five-and-ten-cent store, but it seemed to understand what was expected of it, and as Sherrill lifted the grasses swiftly from it, it toppled and rolled slowly, deliberately down upon the hearth and smashed into a thousand pieces.

Sherrill stood for an instant looking at it regretfully, almost as if it had a personality. Poor fragile thing! Too bad for it to lose its existence through no fault of its own. It had been part of a lovely bit of beauty, but at least now she would not have it around to remind her of the grasses and the day that they were picked!

She stooped and swept the pieces quickly with her little hearth broom into a newspaper, and wrapped them carefully, putting them into the wastebasket. Now they were gone. Even Gemmie wouldn’t be reminded to ask where the grasses were.

Then she touched a match to the fire, and it swept up and licked the grasses out of existence in one flash.

Sherrill turned to the room again. She mounted a chair and pulled down the pennant, stuffing it fiercely into the wastebasket. She snatched the bow of ribbon from the picture frame and dropped it into the fire. She caught up the bronze paperweight. That wouldn’t burn! Nor the ivory figurine! What could she do with them? Give them away? They might somehow come back to face her someday, and she wanted to be utterly rid of them. Ah! There was one place where she would never be likely to see them again. She might send them to Carter’s office. But no, that would be only to bring back to his mind the days they had had together, and that she did not want. She wanted only to sever all connection with him, to wipe out from both his memory and hers, insofar as was possible, all thought of one another. Then only would she be able to lift up her head and breathe freely again.

She unlocked a little secret drawer in her desk to put the bronze and ivory out of sight, and came on a packet of notes and brief letters from Carter. There hadn’t been many because he had been right there to see her every day. She had almost forgotten these letters and some programs and clippings. She seized them now and flung them into the middle of the fire, closing her eyes quickly that she might not see the flames licking around her name in that handwriting that had been so beloved, turning her back lest she should repent and snatch them out to read them over again. She must not! No, it would unnerve her! It would make her heart turn back and lash her for what she had done in giving her bridegroom over to another girl. She must not because he never had been hers! He was not worth the great love she had given him.

And now she remembered how unworthy she herself had felt to marry him, and how she had prayed and wondered. Was this awful thing that had happened in some mysterious way an answer to her prayer? Oh, it was all a mystery! Life itself was a mystery. Joy one minute and awful sorrow and desolation the next! Sorrow! Sorrow! Sorrow!

Suddenly from the next room through the closed door there came a burst of wild sweet song:

“When I have sorrow in my heart,
What can take it away?
Only Jesus in-ah my heart
Can take that sorrow away.”

It was Lutie, the fresh-cheeked young girl who came in certain days in the week to help with the cleaning. Lutie had the windows of the guest room open and was beginning her weekly cleaning. Sherrill’s windows were open, too, and that was why the words came so distinctly. But how strange that such words should come to her just now when she was so filled with sorrow!

Lutie was banging things around, drawing the bed out, and the bureau, setting chairs out of the way and running the vacuum cleaner over the floor. Sherrill could hear the thump as the cleaner hit the baseboards now and then. And Lutie’s voice rang out clear again in the next verse:

“When I have fear in-ah my heart, What can take it away? Only Jesus in-ah my heart Can take that fear away.”

Sherrill began slowly, languidly to dress, listening to the song. Fear in the heart. She considered herself. Did she have fear in her heart? Yes, she recognized a kind of dread of the days that were before her. Not fear of anything tangible, perhaps, but fear of gossip, criticism, prying eyes. Fear of having to face all that would come in the wake of that wedding that was hers and yet was not. Fear of a drab future, a long lonely way ahead, no home of her own. She could never have a home of her own now, nor anyone to care for her and enjoy life with her. For she would never dare trust a man again, even if she ever found one whom she could love.

“When I have sin in-ah my heart—”

piped up Lutie joyously,

“What can take it away?
Only Jesus in-ah my heart
Can take that sin away.”

Sherrill was not especially interested in sin. She had never considered herself to be much of a sinner, and her thoughts wandered idly, considering her own case more than the song as she listened to the lilt of Lutie’s voice in the closing verse:

“When I have Jesus in-ah my heart,
What can take Him away?
Once take Jesus into my heart
And He has come to stay!”

There was a pause in the singing and the sound of voices in the hall. Thomas, the house servant, had come up to get the rugs to give them a good cleaning in the backyard. Lutie was demurring, but finally tapped hesitantly at Sherrill’s door.

Sherrill in her negligee opened the door.

“Miss Sherrill, Thomas was wanting to get your rug for cleaning, but I guess you aren’t ready yet, are you? I wasn’t sure whether you were in your room or not.”

“That’s all right, Lutie,” said Sherrill, stepping through into the next room where the girl was at work. “Tell him to go in and take it. I can finish without a rug.”

Sherrill went to the guest room bureau and began to arrange her hair, and Lutie came back after helping the man roll up the rug.

“That’s a curious song you were singing, Lutie,” said Sherrill pleasantly. “Where in the world did you get it? It sounds like a spiritual.”

“I don’t guess it is, Miss Sherrill,” said the girl, pausing in her dusting. “I got it down to our Bible class. It is pretty words, isn’t it? I like that part about Jesus taking your sorrow away. I sing it a lot.”

“But you’ve never had any sorrow, Lutie,” said Sherrill wistfully, eyeing the girl’s round rosy cheeks and happy eyes.

“Oh, Miss Sherrill, you don’t know,” said Lutie, sobering suddenly. “I’ve had just a lot! First my mother got awful sick for two whole years, and then when she got better my sister just older’n I died. And my little brother has hurt his hip, and they don’t think he’ll ever walk again.”

“Oh, Lutie,” cried Sherrill in dismay, “that is a lot of trouble!”

“Oh, but that’s not all,” said the girl, drawing a deep sigh. “My dad got some steel filings in his eye about nine months ago, and they think he’s going blind, and now they’ve laid him off the job, so my brother Sam and I are the only ones working, except Mother now and then when she can get a washing to do. And our house is all mortgaged up, and the bank closed last week where we had our money saved to pay the interest, and now we’ll maybe lose the house; and Mother needs an operation, only she can’t stop working to go to the hospital. And”—the girl caught her lip between her little white teeth to hold it from trembling, and Sherrill could see that there were tears in her eyes—“and—then—my boyfriend got mad and started going with another girl because I wouldn’t run off and get married and leave the family in all that mess!”