Ariel Custer

by Grace Livingston Hill

  She spent three days in Chicago.

  She bought a serviceable wardrobe trunk and filled it with a lot of pretty and suitable clothes, and a few other things that she had always wanted, but she bought nothing black. Nothing at all black, not even a book. It seemed so happy to her that she might purchase only glad colors, and she fairly reveled in the delight of looking over pretty things. She did not blossom into gaudy tastes, however, but stuck to soft pastel shades, heliotrope, pale blue, a delicate pink, and gray, so often gray or creamy white. Nothing loud or extreme, just suitable and serviceable for a quiet little woman. That was all she wanted. The only thing that troubled her was that she was doing the whole thing in a sort of underhanded way. She would rather have done it frankly, but that would have been so impossible with Harriet, and Harriet would have never let her go alone. She would have managed somehow to go along, and that, of course, would have spoiled the whole thing. She never would have gone at all under those circumstances. Oh, it never could have been done with Harriet. But still she was so happy that she scarcely ever thought of this at all.

  She took a taxi and did the city of Chicago like any sightseer, bought a book and found all the spots of interest, and then bought another ticket and went on her way. About the time the whistle in Glenside blew to call the men together to search for her, Emily Dillon was on her way to the station to take another train to bear her farther away. Dear soul! And if she took thought about them at all, it was to rejoice that she had made provision richly for the only two she cared a flip about in the whole Glenside village. How astonished she would have been could she have known what a stir she was making in her little old hometown. I’m not sure but she would have cried and rushed right back to embrace them all if she could have looked down from her high, far journey and seen those stalwart men from the firehouse, and those older men from the golf links, and the boys from the high school—and Jud! If she could have seen Jud with straining, bloodshot eyes, wild, disordered hair, and torn garments, plunging through the brakes and undergrowth in the deep, tangled heart of the woods, peering under great logs, over precipices, she would have trembled for the terror she had wrought in the hearts of those she had not thought bore any love for her. But oh, how her laugh would have rung out for the mercenary cousins who were so concerned for her that they were already wrangling about breaking her will and for the poor, fat partner of her house who had half killed herself putting up superfluous tomatoes, and hustling her supper up the stairs for a dramatic ending to a perfect day of revenge! But Emily Dillon never dreamed of any such thing and went on her way serenely.

  She stopped to see some wonders by the way—springs, rocks, geysers, mountains—and took everything that came with that same zest, but only on the side as it were, for her eyes were ever onward. And so, at last, after many days of enjoyment, she came to the city of her goal.

  Chapter 23

  It was broad, bright morning in Boise City, and Emily Dillon had gone to her hotel. She had made herself fresh and eaten breakfast before she ventured to let herself hunt up a telephone book. She told herself that of course his name might not be there. He might not have a telephone. Perhaps ranchmen had no need for a telephone. Perhaps he couldn’t afford one. But no, they had said he was rich. Still, Becky might have been mistaken. She kept her finger quite steady as it went down the line of Bs—Bab, Bac, Bad, Bae. How many strange names there were! She found her finger going slower. She was afraid to go rapidly or come on it too soon for fear after all it might not be there at all. And she came suddenly upon it—Nathan Barrett—standing out from the page and fairly shouting to her, so that her cheeks all alone in the room by herself flamed up to coral red.

  She swallowed hard a good many times, and got a drink of water before she could summon her voice to speak over the telephone.

  When at last she mustered courage to call the number, the answer came so promptly that it took her breath away and all power of speech.

  “Hello! Barrett at the phone!” Over the years the voice came booming at her, storming the citadel of her heart, fairly trampling down all the sweet wall of patience and self-denial she had built up of her courage. Her heart took a tumble and up again to her throat, threatening to smother her. She opened her lips to speak, but no sound came forth. She was weak with excitement and wonder. He was here, after all the years! It was really he, and she had found him. Without any trouble she had come right to him! He had been here a long time, and she might have found him sooner—if she had only known! “Hello!” came the voice insistently, inquiringly, again. “This is Nathan Barrett. Who is speaking, please?”

  There was something about the voice now that quieted her perturbation, and she was able to articulate.

  “Nathan,” she said, hardly above a whisper in a little husky tone, “is that really you?”

  “What? What was that? I can’t hear you! Please say that again!”

  Emily Dillon, frightened now at what she had said, glad that he had not heard, summoned all her studied calm, summoned to her mind the phrases she had been rehearsing all the way across the continent, and lifting up her voice in a sweet, conventional lilt such as would have been recognized at home, broke forth again: “This is Emily Dillon, Nate—” She had tried to say “Mr. Barrett,” but the words would not be spoken. “I’m taking a trip and have just heard that you live out this way. I thought I would call you up. I—you—That is, I thought it would be pleasant to hear your voice—and—perhaps you might care to call at my hotel.”

  “Emily! Emily Dillon!” There was unquestionable joy in the first utterance of her name, but a trifle of reservation in the second, although spoken even more eagerly. “Is it really you, Em’ly?” She was so glad that he had used her own words, the words he had not heard. “And after I’ve waited—Ah, after all these years! But where—Are you alone, Em’ly?”

  “Yes, I’m all alone,” said Emily eagerly. “I—I’m just taking a little trip, you know.” Her cheeks grew rosy, and it suddenly seemed audacious in her to be even taking a trip alone. Would he think her forward, to have called him up? “Father died about four years ago, you know,” she finished in explanation.

  “No, I hadn’t heard. Why—Em’ly! Why didn’t you let me know at once? Why didn’t you write me? I’d have come on—You know I told you—”

  “But, Nate, how could I let you know when I didn’t even know if you were living? You had been gone so many years and no word whatever, not even a sign. It was only a few days ago that I heard you were living out here somewhere. I wasn’t even sure it was so, or that I would be able to find where you were—”

  “But, Emily! I wrote, I sent you my address as soon as I started out here, and every once in a while I sent you a paper with something in it about my ranch, and always I put the address in the corner somewhere. And for a long time I sent you a card on your birthday. I thought sure your father couldn’t object to that. But when I got no answer ever I stopped, thinking it might only rile him up and make you trouble!”

  Emily Dillon’s face was sad but not surprised.

  “Nate! I never got any of them,” she said earnestly. “I’d have found a way somehow to let you know, if I had.”

  There was silence for a brief instant, a silence of growing indignation that both felt but neither voiced; then Nathan Barrett, clear, controlled, rising to the occasion: “Well, it’s strange whatever became—But that’s neither here nor there. You’re here now! You’re sure there wasn’t any other reason, Emily? You didn’t find someone else? You’re not married, Emily—nor going to be?”

  Her sweet, childlike laugh rang out merrily now.

  “Oh no, Nate, nothing like that. There never was.” Her voice dropped shyly, then in more serious second thought: “Are you, Nate? I heard—But it might have been a mistake, of course. People get things twisted. I just called up as an old friend, you know—”

  She was trying to be conventional, making the best of her way out of her maze of embarrassment, but he interrupted her wi
th a thundering note.

  “Em’ly! Where are you? Which hotel? Well, stay right where you are until I get there. I’m coming this minute. It won’t take my car long to get there.”

  The receiver clicked and Emily Dillon, dazed and happy, her heart thumping and her cheeks rosy, hung up her receiver. But almost immediately the bell rang again.

  “Give me that number again, Central!” It was his voice. “That you, Em’ly? Em’ly, you wait, won’t you? You won’t go anywhere, will you?”

  “Why, of course I’ll wait,” chirped Emily joyously. “Why, that’s what I came all the way out here for,” she caroled and then suddenly realized what she had said, and stopped short in horror.

  “You darling!” he breathed reassuringly over the phone. “Now wait. I’ll be right along. But you mustn’t expect the same limber youth you knew, Em’ly. I’ve worked right hard, and there’s been a good many years. I tried to keep young for you, but it was a long time to wait.”

  “I’m pretty old myself, Nate. You must expect an old lady, you know,” she said sweetly. “I meant to say that at first, but I got so flustered.”

  “Gosh! You’ll always be young to me, no matter how many years go by,” boomed the hearty voice. “The years can’t take away my little yella-haired, blue-eyed girl. You can say what you like, but I shan’t believe it. You’ll be just the same to me. Now, Em’ly, I’m coming, and don’t you stir until I get there!”

  She hung up her receiver again and went and looked at herself in the glass, a sober sadness dropping over her gladness like a veil. That’s true; he would be disappointed. She had not realized that part before. She had visualized him as fat, perhaps, and with gray hair and maybe a beard—she hoped not a beard. She liked better the thought of his firm, pleasant lips and smooth-shaven chin, but whatever he was she didn’t care, for his spirit would be the same Nate. But she had not realized before that he was expecting her to be the same. She studied the little lines around her eyes, the soft looseness of the flesh around her cheeks and chin, the silver edges of her hair. She tried to remember how she had looked when she was twenty and felt the contrast striking her soul like a death knell. All the fine dresses and hats and newly arranged hair could not bring back her youth, the pink of her cheeks like a young bud—the gold of her hair and the smoothness of her skin. Well, perhaps she had been a fool, but at least she was to see him soon. He might be disappointed in her, but she would see him and hear his voice. She would look in his eyes and know just how things had gone with him. If he was disappointed, she would know, and she could go back—or go on somewhere else, but she would be able to live her life out if she might see him once more and hear his voice.

  She studied herself in the mirror critically, until the smile came back to her lips, her eyes grew full of dream visions of the old days, and she forgot her fine little wrinkles, her withered-rose complexion, and the silver edges of her hair. After all, there was the same look in her eyes for him.

  She had meant to wear her blue silk to meet him, but now in a sudden panic she lifted out the little gray frock from her bag where it had traveled all the way lest she might need a change for some reason. It was exquisite with a touch of embroidery and a wisp of real lace. She had scarcely fastened the heavy rope of silk that girdled it, and clasped the pearl pin that had been her mother’s in the speck of fine lace that glimpsed above the round neck, before there came a knock at her door. Stepping to the door quite surprised and a bit flustered that he should have arrived so soon, she met a great box in the hands of a hall-boy.

  Silently, with shining eyes she carried it in and opened it, for it bore her name in unmistakable writing on the top.

  Roses! Wonderful roses, a kind that she seemed never to have seen before, long-stemmed, heavy-headed, magnificent; pale-pink, with a hint of sunset in their curved back petals, great buds that held their heavy heads like full blossoms, yet kept their baby texture and close-folded curves like loose silk in careless grace.

  She rallied by and by from contemplation of their loveliness and rang for a vase or jar to house them. She chose one gracious bud and nestled it in the lace on the front of her gown, and then she sat down before her roses and watched them. He had stopped to telephone to a florist for them before he left his house! How wonderful of him to think of a thing like that! It was almost like being a girl again to have a great sheaf of roses like that flung at her out of a strange land!

  She did not have time to think all the great thoughts that flocked to her heart before another knock came to the door, and this time he stood there himself behind the boy, who had brought him up to her sitting room. With sudden fight clutching at her heart, she rose! In her little gray dress and her little gray shoes, the rose in the frothy lace at her breast, she came forward to meet him, a little gray dove with a wondering light in her eyes.

  It did not take him long to get the hall-boy out of the way and shut the door. There he stood for an instant taking her all in. Then he came forward with both hands out.

  “Emily!” he said. “Emily!” and he folded her close in his big strong arms. He waited on no ceremony, he asked no questions, he just took her. She was his. He had waited long, and now she had come, and he took her.

  Emily Dillon, with a gasp of delight, laid her fine little old rose-leaf face on the rough gray tweed of his coat and let him crush her there, and loved it! Old and patient and sweet, but come at last to its own.

  He let her go at last and held her out at arm’s length, looking her over from gray feet to silver edges of old-gold hair, but lingering longest at her eyes, those eyes with the young dreams still alive.

  “You’re all right, Em’ly,” he said, lapsing into his boyhood’s accents. “You’re just perfect! I didn’t know you could stay so beautiful! All these years! I wouldn’t have you changed a lash. Not a lash! But, Em’ly, I’m grown a rough old hulk since you saw me. Are you sure you’re not sorry you came?” Emily Dillon gave one sweeping glance at the stalwart frame, the smooth, clear-cut, forceful face, and the kind young eyes, and nestled close again to the gray tweed coat, half closing her eyes and letting the widespread palm of her speck of a hand wander contentedly up and down the buttons on the front. And he, looking down, caught her lifted glance and answered it with a close pressure of his big arm, which filled her with delight.

  “And there! I almost forgot!” he said boyishly, tucking her under one arm and fumbling with the other hand in his vest pocket.

  He pulled it out at last, a small platinum circlet with a flashing stone, and drew her hand in his.

  “I hope it fits,” he said eagerly, as he clumsily searched for the right finger. “I told him the smallest size he had. I remembered your little, little hand, Em’ly! No one else ever had such a little hand!”

  She lifted her head, startled, and looked at her hand as if it were a stranger, and the big, clear diamond winked back a reassurance. Not since she had started on her timorous journey had she felt until now how right she had been to come, and she lifted glad eyes to his, half questioningly.

  “I thought we’d better go out right away and get a license and get married, don’t you think so, too? Then we could go right home and get caught up in our acquaintance and decide where we’ll spend our honeymoon.”

  She caught her breath at his precipitous plans, but he smiled a reassurance and drew her down beside him on the couch.

  “I figured it all out on my way down,” he said gently. “It’ll save a lot of tiresome waiting, and I must say I can’t wait any longer. We can go right from the courthouse to the church. There’s a good Methodist church here and a dandy little minister that knows his job. I joined the Methodist church soon as I came out here. It seemed sort o’ to bring me nearer to you, you know. I can just phone him, and he’ll be on the job, and we can go over to the church and get the ceremony out of the way. Then we’ll get a good dinner and drive home by moonlight. How does that suit you? But of course if you have other plans, I don’t want to be arbitrary. What had you
thought about?”

  Emily Dillon’s cheeks grew petal-pink, and she looked up with a soft mischief in her eyes: “Why, Nate,” she said softly, “you never asked me yet to marry you. How could I make plans?”

  He held her off delightedly and watched the pink in her cheek.

  “Is that so?” he asked amusedly. “Well, now, I guess that’s true. That was quite an omission on my part, wasn’t it? Well, I guess we can dispense with that formality now, can’t we? We’ve somehow got far and away beyond that, dear heart!” and he drew her close to his heart again.

  So Emily Dillon put on her gray-feathered hat and her little gray veil with a gray-ribbon edge that girdled her throat and made her look like a dove again, fitted on her long gray gloves, gathered up a wisp of a long gray silk coat she had acquired in Chicago, and went out to get married.

  Chapter 24

  In the quiet of the evening they drove home across the hills, with the stars looking down upon them, the same stars that reflected in the Copple Creek at Mercer, and a little thread of moon rising and riding the wide sky like a tipsy boat.

  “Do you realize, Emily, that we really belong to each other at last?” said Nate, as his big hand stole from the steering wheel and gathered hers close.

  “We’ve always belonged, Nate,” she said simply, “and we always would even if we’d never seen each other in this world again. I knew you’d be waiting to take me into heaven, or else I’d have to wait for you by the gate.”

  Into the great ranch house he ushered her, rough and made of logs, but full of conveniences and odd luxurious corners. A wide hearth of fieldstone on one side, with windows on either hand, a fireplace big enough to stand in, and deep, cushiony couches on either side covered with Indian blankets in many designs and barbaric colors, and piled with pillows of Indian work.