The Beloved Stranger (23 page)

“A wonderful piece of work,” mused Sherrill. “Oh,

Aunt Pat! You’ve done more with your life than any woman I know!”

“Fiddlesticks end!” said Aunt Pat scornfully. “I’ve not done the half that I should. Now, Sherrill, while I’m seeing my lawyer I’d like you to do a little shopping for those people if you will. They’ll need things to go to the hospital with, dressing gowns and robes and things, and decent suitcases to carry them in. I want them to be comfortable while they are there. That poor woman doesn’t look as if she’s had a day’s rest since she was born, and I mean she shall have. Get her a real pretty robe, and brushes and things. Nice pretty ones. She likes pretty things, I’m sure. Look at the way they’ve fixed up that old ramshackle house with just plants and vines. Not even paint! I’ll give you the money, and you get the necessary things. And I’m glad you’re going to that Bible class. There are a lot of things in the Bible I don’t understand, but I believe it from cover to cover, and I’d like to know more about it. I’m too old to study now, but you’re not, and you can tell me all about it.”

When they got home they found a stack of mail awaiting them. Notes of commiseration and protest from the people who had received their wedding gifts back again. Some letters, intended to cheer up Sherrill in her lonely estate of maidenhood, which made her very angry. A few giving her loving wishes from far-off friends who hadn’t yet heard of the change in the wedding arrangements.

She looked up listlessly from her lap full of letters and gave a deep sigh. How much more worthwhile was the world of helpfulness to which she had just been with her aunt, than this social world built around such an unstable foundation. She could sense through all these elaborate phrases that some of her old friends and playmates actually thought less of her because she had allowed herself to be washed up on the shore of maidenhood again, after she had once landed a man and gotten so far as wedding invitations.

Aunt Pat looked up sharply at the second sigh and handed over a letter.

“Well,” she said triumphantly, “they haven’t put your emeralds on the market yet, whoever it was that took them. Of course there has hardly been time for anybody to get them to Europe. But if they attempt it, it won’t be long before we know who did it.”

“Aunt Pat!” said Sherrill in astonishment. “Then you have done something about it after all!”

“Why, of course, child! You didn’t think I was a fool, did you? I called up the private detective who was here at the wedding and had a talk with him. He’s been quietly watching all the places where they would be likely to be put on the market. They’re all registered stones, you know. Any jewel dealer of repute will be on the watch for them. Sooner or later they would have to turn up at the right place to get a reasonable price for them. I talked to my lawyer about them, too, told him I didn’t want publicity, and he’s working quietly. So that’s that and don’t worry! They’ll turn up if you were meant to get them back, and if you weren’t, all the worry in the world won’t help you.”

After lunch Sherrill went to lie down and had a long restful sleep. She had a sort of feeling when she woke up of being stranded on a desert island, and now that she was coming near to that Bible class that she had promised to attend, she found a keen aversion to going. Why had she promised Lutie? Lutie was well enough herself, but Lutie had spoken of other girls who wanted to see her. They would be common girls without education, of course. They would have heard a lot of gossip about her wedding and how she didn’t get married after all, and would be watching every move she made.

She half started to the telephone to tell Lutie that she was tired and would go another time, and then the eager look in Lutie’s eyes came back to mind, and she couldn’t quite get the courage to call off the engagement. So she dressed herself in a plain quiet little knit dress of blue wool, and a small felt hat to match. It was one of her oldest sport dresses, and quite shabby now she thought. But she did not want to make Lutie feel that there was too much difference between them.

Miss Catherwood looked at her approvingly as she came into the room at dinnertime.

“Some people wouldn’t have known any better than to put on an evening dress,” she remarked irrelevantly and smiled her peculiar twisted grin. “Well, I hope you have a good time, and be sure to listen for me.”

Chapter 17

D
ubiously Sherrill parked her car and followed Lutie into the plain wooden building. If she hadn’t promised Lutie, she never would have gone tonight. She had lost her first curiosity about Lutie’s source of peace, and if she had not seen how eager and pleased Lutie was about taking her, she would have invented some excuse.

The building was not inviting. It was old and grimy. There had not been much money for fresh paint, and the floor was bare boards. A large blackboard and a battered old piano were the only attempts at furnishings besides the hard wooden benches, and the only decorations were startling Bible verses in plain print on white cards here and there about the walls.

“All have sinned and come short of the glory of God” was announced on the right; and Sherrill, entering, felt a shade of resentment at being classed with sinners. She had a feeling that her family had never been in that class.

There were other verses, but she had no time to read them, for several young girls came up and Lutie introduced them.

One put a hand on Sherrill’s arm intimately and with a sweet little smile said, “We’re so glad you have come. Lutie has been telling us about you, and we hope you will like it here. We just love it.”

Again there was just the least bit of resentment in Sherrill’s aristocratic soul that these girls should think her of their class, and expect her to be coming more than once. Yet there was something so winning about her smile, and so gentle in her manner, that Sherrill began to wonder if perhaps she had been wrong. Perhaps these girls were not all in Lutie’s class. It was difficult to tell. They wore nice clothes; one had a pretty little pink crepe dress and a white beret, like any girl who had been out to play golf or tennis. There was an earnest air about them that made Sherrill like them in spite of herself. Could it be possible that she, Sherrill Cameron, was a snob? She must get out of this state of mind. She would not come here again likely, but while she was here she would be one of them, and do her best to enter into the things. She would be a good sport. She would be in their class, even if they were not in hers. After all, what was her class anyway? She was just a girl by herself who would have had to earn her own living somehow if Aunt Pat had not invited her to live with her. The fact that she had earned it until then teaching school instead of cleaning rooms and ironing as Lutie did, really made no difference, of course. It was all silly anyway.

So Sherrill put out a friendly hand and greeted all the girls with her own warm smile, and they loved her at once. The strangest part about it was that somehow she couldn’t help liking them. They were all so friendly and eager, what was the use of trying to act exclusive?

There was one thing she couldn’t understand. She heard one of those girls just behind her speaking to Lutie. The words came out between the clamor of the people who were gathering. “She’s lovely, isn’t she? Is she
saved,
Lutie?” And Lutie murmured something very low that Sherrill couldn’t catch. Somehow she knew they were talking about her. And then the other girl said, “Well, we’ll be praying for her tonight,” and slipped away up front with a group of others, and whispered to them. They nodded, gave quick glances back, and a moment later Sherrill could see them off at one side bunched together with their heads bowed. A quick intuition told her they were praying for
her,
and the color mounted into her cheeks. Her chin went up a trifle haughtily. Why should she, Sherrill Cameron, need to be prayed for? And why should they
presume
to do it unasked?

But the room was filling up rapidly now. Lutie led her to a seat halfway up and gave her a hymn book. The little group of praying ones had scattered, one to play the old piano, two others to distribute hymn books and Bibles, and suddenly the room burst into song, but she noticed that two or three of them still kept their heads bent, their eyes closed as if they were yet praying.

Sherrill looked around her in amazement. Here was a crowd of people, almost all young people, and they were singing joyously as if it made them glad to do so. They were singing with that same lilt that Lutie had had while she was working, and their faces all looked glad, although some of them obviously must be very poor, if one might judge from their garments and the weary look on their young faces, while others again were well dressed and prosperous looking.

Presently they began to sing Lutie’s song:

“If I have sorrow in my heart,
What can take it away?”

And Sherrill, without realizing she was doing so, began to sing it herself, and felt a little of the thrill that seemed to be in the air.

She fell to thinking of her own interrupted life and wondering why it all had to be. Why couldn’t Carter have been all right, the perfect man she had thought him? Why did it all have to turn out that way, in that sudden mortifying manner? If it only could have happened quietly! Not in the face of her whole invited world as it were.

But suddenly she felt the audience bowing in prayer, and was amazed to hear different voices taking up petitions, so many young people willing to pray in public! And so simply, so free from all self-consciousness apparently. It was extraordinary. Even little Lutie beside her prayed a simple sentence.

“Please, dear Father, don’t let anything in us hinder Thy light from shining through us, so that others may see and find Thee.”

Dear little soul! How had Lutie learned all this sweet simplicity? Just a little serving maid, yet she seemed to have something really worthwhile. What was this mysterious power? Just an idea? A conviction?

One of the prayers impressed her deeply. It came from a girl’s voice up toward the front, perhaps one of those who had been introduced to her. It was “Dear Father, if any have come in here tonight not knowing Thee as Savior, may they find Thee and not go out unsaved.” Sherrill had a strange feeling that the prayer was for her, although she couldn’t exactly understand why she needed saving.

Then the prayers changed into song again, a rousing one:

“I’ve found a friend who is all to me,
His love is ever true;”

Ah! That was what she wanted, Sherrill thought, a friend whose love was ever true. It was almost uncanny, as if someone here knew just what she needed.

“I love to tell how He lifted me,
And what His grace can do for you,”

sang the audience, and then burst into that tremendous chorus that thrilled her, though she only half understood its meaning:

“Saved by His power divine,
Saved to new life sublime!
Life now is sweet and my joy is complete
For I’m saved, saved, saved.”

Sherrill ran her eye through the rest of the verses and lingered on those lines—

“I’m leaning strong on His mighty arm; I know He’ll guide me all the way”—

and experienced a sudden longing. If there were only someone who could guide her! Someone who could take away this utterly humiliated, lost feeling, and make her sure and strong and happy again; the way she used to be before all this happened to her!

Then another hymn was called for, and the eager young voices took on a more tender note as they sang just as earnestly, only with deeper meaning to the words than any of the other songs had carried. Sherrill followed the words, and to her amazement found a great longing in her soul that she might be able to sing these words and mean them, every one.

“Fade, fade, each earthly joy.”

That was what had been happening to her. The life that she had planned and that seemed all rosy before her had suddenly in a moment faded out.

“Jesus is mine!”

How she wished she might truly say that!

“Break every tender tie,”—

Ah! Her case exactly.
“Jesus is mine!”
rang the triumphant words. She glanced about at the eager young faces, so grave and certain. How could they be certain that Jesus was theirs? What did it mean anyway to have Jesus? Was it just a phrase? A state of mind? She studied several of them intently.