THE CHRISTMAS BRIDE (19 page)

And when Steele was finally sleeping by his side, Greg lay there thinking. Oh, if he had only known all this in his wilderness home! How it would have helped him through hard days and lonely nights and discouragements and disappointments! And then came the thought, would he have stayed there fighting for land and money and a chance to triumph over enemies and win success in the world when there was all this wonderful news to tell the world, and the world didn’t know it? Certainly he would have had to go and tell. He meant to do that now, just as soon as he knew enough about it all to make it clear to others. Just where he would begin he didn’t know, but he was ready to yield his life to God’s guidance.

Then he thought of Margaret and wondered if she knew.

And so, with a prayer for Margaret, he fell asleep.

R
hoderick Steele had stayed three days, and Gregory Sterling learned much and found out how to learn more. In the bookcase of his hotel room was a row of books that his friend had said would be helpful to him: a big concordance lay on his table beside his Scofield Bible, a commentary simple and clear of construction was at the other end, and several little papers and pamphlets that Greg had acquired at the Bible conference were scatted around the room.

Greg had been introduced to a bookstore where such books could be found, and he had secretly sent down to his friend’s Virginia address every book he heard him speak of wistfully as one he wanted to get someday.

But Rhoderick Steele’s work was done at the conference, and he had to get back to his church.

Greg couldn’t bear to see him go. He begged him to stay another week and teach him, offered to send down a man to take his place, but Steele said there were some sick people in his parish whom he must see, and he knew his duty called him home.

He in turn tried to take Greg home with him, but Greg shook his head gravely.

“I can’t go away,” he said, “not till I’m sure Margaret won’t need me. If I find her and find she is well fixed and has no use for me, well then I can come. But not now.”

Rhoderick looked at him tenderly.

“You must follow His leading,” he said.

On the train, he thought of the look in his friend’s eyes and said to himself, “I wonder!” and then rested his head back, closed his eyes, and began to pray for Greg and the little, lost girl.

Greg turned back to his hotel after seeing his friend off with a strange desolateness upon him. And yet it was not like the loneliness that had been his before Rhoderick came. He had a Savior, he had a Bible, an utterly new book, and he had been given the key to unlock it. He knew there were wonders hidden there for him, for he had had glimpses of some of them. So he went to his room intending to begin his study.

He had not been long at the strange new employment when his telephone rang and there was the voice of Nurse Gowen!

Nurse Gowen had gone back to her hospital work and was put on a nervous case that required her constant attention. She had not been able to do much to help in the search for Margaret. She had not called up for several days. She had her living to earn, of course, and though Greg had paid her more than she felt was right for the brief nursing case and for the help she had given him the first day of the search, her pride had sent her back to work.

Now her voice was full of eagerness.

“Have you heard anything yet of Miss McLaren?” she asked. “I’ve had some pretty bad days with this nervous case and couldn’t get a chance to get to the phone, but I’ve been thinking a lot about you and hoping you had found out something.”

“Nothing yet,” said Greg sadly. “I’ve sort of given up trying. There wasn’t anything else to do, though I did plan to go down to Rodman Street tomorrow and ask again if she had been there. It seems strange that she hasn’t gone for her clothes yet. She has the receipt for her back board. She wouldn’t have to wait for that.”

“Maybe she hasn’t discovered it yet. Maybe she didn’t understand what you said about putting it in her purse. Where did you put it? In the outer pocket?”

“No, inside with a letter from her grandmother that was in a little strapped compartment. She could easily miss it if she didn’t know. By the way, you don’t suppose, Miss Gowen, that Miss McLaren could have gone back to her home in Vermont, do you?”

The nurse was quiet for an instant, and then she said, “Well, that’s an idea. I don’t know why we never thought of that before. That would be the natural place for her to go, wouldn’t it? And since she had money in her purse, probably she did. But what about her things? It does seem strange that she didn’t go for them immediately after you told her that her board was paid.”

“She’s probably afraid of me, don’t you see?” said the young man forlornly. “I suppose she’s perfectly justified in her feeling after what that nurse must have said. But good night! It doesn’t seem as if I could stand it to give this thing up! She never talked to you about where she lived in Vermont, did she? You don’t remember the name of the town or the name of her people, do you?”

“Why, yes,” said Miss Gowen thoughtfully, “she did give me the address. I wrote it down on an old envelope. I told her I ought to have it in case she got worse or anything, and I wrote it down after you left on Sunday afternoon. Now, whatever did I do with that envelope? Strange I never thought of that before in all our searching! It must be somewhere among my things. I’ll go and look it up right away and call you again. Are you going to be there all the evening?”

“Right here!” said Greg.

Greg sat for the next fifteen minutes trying to put his mind on his study but found he could not. Finally, he put his head down on his book and began to pray: “Oh God, let me find her if you don’t mind. If it’s all right, let me find her and help her! Show me the way.”

Suddenly the telephone rang again and he sprang to answer it.

“Well, I’ve found the address!” said Nurse Gowen.

“Yes?” said Greg, eagerly.

“It’s Mrs. John Lorimer, Crystal Lake, Vermont.”

“That’s all?” asked Greg as he wrote it down.

“Yes, that’s all. I’m dreadfully sorry I didn’t think of it before.”

“Don’t worry,” said Greg. “I think I’ll find her now!” His voice was throbbing with excitement. “I’m not just sure how I ought to go about it, but I think I could telephone them and say she spoke to me about a job and I failed to get her address. That wouldn’t startle her grandmother. You know she was terribly afraid I had telegraphed them when she was brought to the hospital.”

“Yes, I know,” said Nurse Gowen, “but I can’t see how it could possibly alarm her, telephoning her that way. I think that’s a good idea. Well, I hope you find her. I certainly do. I took an awful liking to that little girl. She was sweet! Well, I must get back to my patient now, but let me know if you get any news; and if there’s anything further I can do, just call me up.”

“I will!” said Greg, eager to have her off the wire. “Thank you so much for getting the address. Good night.”

Greg lost no time in getting long distance and putting in his call for the Lorimers of Crystal Lake. While he was waiting to be called back, he thought of what he would say, working it most carefully lest he alarm the good old grandmother. It thrilled him to think that in a few minutes he would be speaking with someone near and dear to the girl who had so stirred his interest.

But suddenly the bell rang, and he found his heart beating very rapidly as he took up the receiver. Suppose she had gone home and it should be she who answered the telephone? What should he say at once to reassure her?

But it was only the long distance operator talking.

“Are you the party calling Crystal Lake, Vermont, name Lorimer? Well, that telephone has been disconnected.”

Dismay entered Greg’s heart.

“Are you sure?” he asked eagerly. “Perhaps it’s only listed so because the bill wasn’t paid. If so, I’m willing to pay the bill at once right here at the telephone office in the hotel. This is an emergency call. It is most important!”

“Wait a minute!” said the voice.

Finally came a chief operator and then a district superintendent, and Greg turned heaven and earth, metaphorically speaking, to induce the telephone company to annul that disconnection, but all to no purpose. They told him the telephone had been disconnected for six months and the wires were down.

Then Greg begged to have the number of some neighbor of the Lorimers. But when they asked for the address, he could give no street and number, and an hour passed away without his getting anywhere. All the patience and prowess and initiative that he had used in getting possession of his wilderness home and holding on to it, he brought to bear upon that telephone company but could not get them to give him a number in Crystal Lake unless he knew the name. At last he asked if there wasn’t a public telephone office or pay station there. He suggested a drugstore, but here was no regular drugstore. Finally, it was disclosed that there was a telephone located in the postmistress’s home, and Greg asked them to give it to him.

There was a moment’s delay, and then a big, loquacious, interested voice, tipped with curiosity, twanged vivaciously over the wire.

“Hello!”

“Is this the postmistress at Crystal Lake?” asked Greg, hoping his voice did not sound too anxious.

“No, this ain’t the postmistress. This is her Aunt Carrie Pettibone. My niece Lyddy Rice is postmistress. I’m just visiting her. I live over the other side of the mountain.”

“May I speak with Miss Rice?” asked Greg.

“Why, she ain’t here. She’s down to the Baptist church.”

“When will she be back?”

“Well, I can’t exactly say. You see, they’re having protracted meetings over there, and she goes every night. She was pretty late last night. They had a long-winded preacher. He’s awful interesting. I’d be there myself if I hadn’t sprained my ankle in the woodshed this afternoon, and I’m right hefty on my feet, so I had to stay at home tonight. Was there anything I could do for you?”

“Why, I’m not sure, if you’re a stranger there.”

“Oh, I ain’t a stranger. I’ve lived around here all my life. I was raised down to Crystal. I know everybody in this county.”

“Well, then I wonder if you know Mr. and Mrs. Lorimer?”

“I should say I do!” triumphed the voice. “My mother and her mother used ta go ta school together. She was a Russell, and they were old settlers round here. I remember I used ta hear my father say they was about the first folks around here that had a fine house. Their house was built over a hundred years ago. Has real oak beams. She inherited it from her folks, Rebecca Lorimer did, and that makes it all the harder for her now ta lose it. You knew they was going ta lose it, didn’t ya?”

“Is that so?” said Greg patiently, with a troubled frown. The pencil that he had prepared to take down Margaret’s address poised in the air an instant, then wrote “Foreclosure” on the pad beneath his hand.

“Yes, I guess there’s no doubt about it! Elias Horner himself is giving out that he’s given the Lorimers notice they got ta pay up the whole mortgage this time. It comes due four days after Thanksgiving, and he wants his money. It seems a shame, doesn’t it? Only three thousand dollars on thirty acres of land and that nice old house she was born in!”

Greg wrote quickly, “Elias Horner, three thousand, four days after Thanksgiving,” and frowned heavily into the telephone. He was getting more information than he had bargained for, but it was all valuable. It made it all the plainer that Margaret needed him.

“Are you there?” challenged the garrulous voice.

“Yes, I’m here,” said Greg.

“Oh, well I thought you mightta cut off. Well, as I was saying, Elias Horner, he’s calculating ta make a resort outta the house and the lake. The folks down in the village, some of them likes it and some of them don’t. Of course it’ll bring a lotta trade ta the store and mebbe raise the price of land, but the settlers around here don’t care fer having their ways broke up. They’ve lived here mostly a good many years just like the Lorimers. Mebbe I shouldn’t have mentioned their troubles. My niece thinks I talk too much, but you asking for them made me remember about the mortgage. What was it you wanted ta know about the Lorimers?”

“Why, I wanted to speak with one or the other of them if I could. They tell me at the exchange that their telephone has been disconnected.”

“Yes, that happened several months ago. About the time Mr. Pettibone’s father passed away. I remember we had ta send somebody up the mountain ta tell them about it, them being old neighbors for so many years, only four miles apart, but the valley between, of course. It makes it unhandy in these days not having telephones, especially in winter, but what can ya do when ya can’t afford it? The Lorimers certainly have been hard up since the bank went up. They lost every cent they had, and they was counted well off in these parts.”

“Well, I wonder if you could tell me,” said Greg hopefully, “of someone who lives quite near them who would be likely to be willing to send for them to come to the telephone? You’re not near enough are you? I have an important message for them.”

“Mercy no,” said Aunt Carrie Pettibone. “It’s five mile if it’s a foot up the mountain from here. And the onliest neighbor they got at all is Sam Fletcher, and he ain’t got a phone. He never did have none, and it’s a good thing I guess, too, fer his wife would be at it all the time and
never
get her work done. But you said an important message. It ain’t any bad news is it? It ain’t about Margaret McLaren is it? ‘Cause I know they’re terrible worried they ain’t been hearing from her so often. They’re afraid she’s sick. They ain’t had a letter at all except the telegram that come and hadta be sent up by mail ‘cause there ain’t no delivery around here. I guess she musta heard about the foreclosure, ‘cause she telegraphed something about money. That’s how I come ta know the date four days after Thanksgiving. You see, it come through by telephone, and I happened ta answer the phone. I mostly do when I’m here—it saves my niece a lotta trouble. You ain’t got bad news for ‘em about Margaret, have ya?”

“Oh no,” said Greg, “I merely wanted to inquire about her present address. You see, she asked me a few days ago about a position, and I promised to get one for her, but I failed to get her present address. I wanted to speak to her grandparents tonight and see where she is so that I can let her know about this opening. I think it will be greatly to her advantage and she will want to know about it at once. I thought perhaps I could get in touch with her family through another telephone and so find her address and telephone her tonight. I thought the postmistress would know someone near them. Of course I know the post office is not allowed to give addresses.”