“Oh, that’s so kind of you!” said Vanna, quickly slipping into the old mocking tone with which she had used to meet such flatteries at home.
“I found that Roselands was a desert without you, Vanna!” he said, his eyes seeking hers intimately, “and I’ve come to take you back again. I came just for that! And your sister, too, of course, if she would like to go,” he added formally.
Vanna laughed. “That’s quite impossible!” she said brightly. “My sister and I may be up here several weeks yet. She doesn’t feel at all happy about going home, and it’s doing her a lot of good here. But it certainly was kind of you to think of us, and we’re just as grateful as if it were possible for us to go. Won’t you come up and sit on the porch a few minutes before you start on?”
“But I’m not starting on,” said Emory Zane with that slow, lazy smile that was so sure of itself and that sinister glitter in his handsome eyes that had often fascinated her. She wondered now why it had. “I’m not starting on anywhere until you go with me. I don’t care what your sister does, but you’ve got to go back with me. Your mother wants you. She sent very insistent messages to that effect. She needs you very much right away! And”—he looked deep into her eyes again —“I need you, darling! Isn’t it enough that I left everything else and came up here after you? Don’t I deserve the right to take you home?”
Vanna sat down stiffly in a porch rocker and looked at him, realized that the last thing she wanted to do in life was to go back home in company with this man, and yet felt a kind of spell of his presence coming over her, a mysterious influence that in the past she had played with and been pleased to have sway her, but that now had something unpleasant, something almost frightening in it.
They argued for nearly half an hour, Vanna trying to keep her cheerful, mocking tone and yet answer firmly, but the man was persistent. He did not for an instant waver in his intention to take her with him.
Then she grew grave and almost sharp with him, and he looked at her in amused silence for a moment before he spoke. She began to hope that at last she had convinced him that she did not want to go with him.
“Well,” he said finally, as if he had given in to her decision. “If you won’t go home, you won’t I suppose, but at least you owe it to me to go out a little while with me after I have come so far for you. Come, get your hat and a wrap of some sort, for it may be cool in the evening, and we’ll take a ride over these mountains and find some nice place to dine and dance for a while.”
“No,” said Vanna almost crossly. “I can’t do that either. I have an engagement this evening to play. I have promised, and they are depending on me. I couldn’t miss it.”
“What time do you play?” asked Zane, glancing at his watch.
“Eight o’clock!” said Vanna. “But we have a rehearsal at five, and I must be there.”
“Forget the rehearsal,” the man of the world said with a smile. “Let the others do the rehearsing. You don’t need it. We can get back here by eight, and that’s enough. Now, come, let’s get started if we have to get back so soon.”
“No,” said Vanna, again much disturbed in her mind, “I have to be back for that rehearsal!”
“Oh, well!” said Zane with a half-offended manner. “Have it your way of course. Only I should suppose you owed me one evening to myself, after all that has passed between us!”
Vanna had a quick, frightened wonder what he meant by that, but she was too anxious to get that flashy car away from the front door before any of the MacRaes should see it, to worry over a trifling remark.
“You’ll surely get me back by half past four?” she asked searching his face suspiciously.
“We’d better go at once, before you cut the time to nothing,” he laughed.
So Vanna, much perturbed, rushed upstairs to her anxious sister who had not failed to recognize the car and the hated voice of the man she despised as a friend for her sister.
“I’ve got to go out for a little while with Emory Zane,” Vanna explained hurriedly as she smoothed her hair and hunted for a hat. “I’m sorry to stand you up on the trip for the ferns, but it seems this is the only way I can get rid of him. He came up here to try to take us both home, but of course I told him that was impossible. He says Mother sent him.”
“Oh, Vanna!” wailed Gloria in a troubled voice. “You’ll be late for the rehearsal! I know you will! And it means so much to Robert Carroll to sing that special song tonight. It just belongs with what Murray is going to say. He was telling me about it last night.”
“Well, I’ll not be late for the rehearsal. I made that a special proviso. I’m only going to get rid of him later, that’s all. Please don’t make a fuss. I’ll get back as quick as I can. Four thirty at the latest I told him.”
“You can’t trust him,” said Gloria sorrowfully. “I’m sure you can’t trust a word he says.”
“If I can’t, I’ll know the reason why!” said Vanna indignantly. “I’ll be back, and don’t you worry! You know when I say I will, I mean it!”
“Yes, I know you,” said Gloria, “but you don’t seem to know what you’re up against.”
“Now, Glory, for pity’s sake don’t hold me up any longer. The quicker I go the quicker I’ll get back!”
“Maybe!” said Gloria cryptically.
She refused to go down and meet Emory Zane. In fact, Vanna didn’t urge her much. She stood at the window and watched the intimate way in which Emory Zane put her sister into his sporty car, watched them go blaring down the road toward Ripley with the triple horns playing an ostentatious blasé, and saw the hired man from down the road pause in his labor and look after them wonderingly, surely identifying Vanna. Now there would be more talk and perhaps another visit from Joan! Gloria sighed deeply and turned away from the window, feeling as if she would like to cry. Did Vanna really care for that slippery snake of a man? Could she admire him after knowing these two wonderful men up here in the mountains?
And then Gloria sat down suddenly and realized that she at least would never again be able to admire the kind of men she had known all her life, Stan’s kind, the kind that went in her set at home. That was not going to be a happy outlook for herself, to be dissatisfied with all the men in her world. But her world was spoiled for her anyway, so what difference did it make? And it was good to at least know there were men like Murray and Robert somewhere in the universe, even if they were not for her. She would cherish the days that she could spend in their company, and lay by pleasant memories, even if they were not to be a part of her future.
But oh, what should she do about Vanna? Supposing she was late? Supposing she did not come at all? Her heart quaked with terrible premonition. Could Vanna be so lost to all that was fine that she could engage herself to Zane? Could she really care for him after knowing fineness and nobility? Or hadn’t she seen it? Had she just been passing the time away and half laughing still at their lack of sophistication?
Now it happened that that very afternoon Murray had gone to Ripley on an errand and had stopped on the way back for a few minutes’ chat with Robert. They had been sitting on the porch talking of their work and planning their program for a meeting they were holding in Quiet Valley that evening.
After a little silence, Murray spoke. “How about Vanna, Bob? Does she know the Lord? I haven’t been able to make her out. She seems interested and yet she says so little. Have you had any opportunity to find her out?”
“I’ve had opportunity,” said Robert sadly. “Just had a talk with her yesterday, but I haven’t met with much response. We’ve talked, that is, I’ve talked and she has listened respectfully but has said almost nothing. A smile, a kind of wistful, questioning look. That’s about all. Perhaps I imagined even that. She has simply been noncommittal. No, I’m afraid the answer is no!” He sighed deeply.
“Yet one might easily take it for granted that she was in thorough sympathy. She has seemed interested in the work.”
“Yes, politely so!” said Robert. “How abou
t Gloria? Is she saved?”
“Not yet, I’m afraid,” said Murray. “Sometimes I think she isn’t ‘far from the kingdom.’ She’s fascinated with the study of the Bible, but I don’t know how much of the spiritual truth has reached her. She doesn’t say much either, occasionally asks leading questions that show she has been thinking. Bob, I wonder if you have felt as I’ve been feeling? I’m almost sure you have—that we have no business as yielded Christians going on with those two girls?”
It seemed as if the words were torn from Murray’s heart.
“Bob,” he went on, “I’ve been hearing a voice in my ears for days, Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers! Come ye out and be ye separate! Can two walk together except they be agreed? Bob, I don’t know what you think, but I’ve been on my knees before God over this thing, and I’ve come to a fork in the road. There’s no question of the way for me. You know, Bob, there’s no path for me but the one He chooses, no matter what it may mean to me!”
“I know it, old man, He’s been speaking to me, too, and of course there’s no question of what we must do. I believe that at first our Master purposely threw us together so that the girls might hear the truth and come face-to-face with Him through the Word. But they have heard now, and I believe our work is over. All we can do is to follow His leading and leave the rest to Him.”
There was solemn understanding silence between the friends, and then Robert spoke again. “I’ve been thinking, too,” said Robert, “all this afternoon, ever since that handsome car went by with Vanna in it, that after all, no matter if the girls were saved, and no matter how much we are prospered in the future, it isn’t at all likely that either you or I would be able to match our fortunes with the fortunes of two such girls as that. They are out of our class, that’s all!”
“That’s true, too,” said Murray thoughtfully, “but I’m not thinking so much about that. The only class that really counts is the spiritual class. We’re not to go out of that. ‘Come ye out … be ye separate,’ says the Word. The other doesn’t really count so much after all, if it be among born-again ones. Money and social prominence are worldly separations, not heavenly.”
“Think so?” said Carroll. “Perhaps you’re right, but it might not be so easy to persuade rich relations to think so.”
“Well, I hadn’t got so far as that,” laughed Murray. “I’m only concerned to be ‘in the way’ so the Lord can lead me to what He wants me to do, even if it breaks my poor natural human heart.”
“They’re going to wonder, of course, if we drop them suddenly,” mused Robert. “That doesn’t seem right either, at least without explanation. And of course there’s tonight. That’s all arranged for. We’d have to carry that through.”
“I know,” said Murray, “but I believe that if we’re really willing to follow our Master all the way at any cost, that responsibility of working it all out is up to Him. I can’t see how He can do it, but I believe He will!” Murray’s voice rang with confidence.
“Yes, of course He will,” responded Robert instantly.
“How little faith we have after all, trying to think out God’s plans for Him! But out part is to be abiding so closely that we’ll hear His lightest whisper, so that we won’t hinder the working out of His plans. And may I look to you, friend, to check me up if you see me going on in my stubborn self-will? What is fellowship in Christ for if not for that?”
“Yes, but don’t forget it works both ways,” answered Murray earnestly. And so the two young men set out on the way of the cross with bleeding hearts yet full of trust in the love and wisdom of Him who called them to follow Him.
A dozen times that afternoon Gloria went to the window and stared off at the loveliness of the hills, almost hoping to see the big cream-colored car returning. But it was lost in the distance, and it wasn’t half past four yet anyway. Gloria at last convinced herself that there wasn’t a thing she could do about it except to worry, so she sought out a book she had been reading and tried to drown her thoughts in that. But the thoughts ran on in an undertone and distracted her mind, and again she would get up and go to the window.
At last half past four arrived, and no Vanna! She gave up reading entirely and went and plastered herself at the window, her anxious eyes searching up and down the road, her heart in a quiver. What should she say to the boys if Vanna didn’t turn up at five? But of course she would! She had promised, and Vanna always did what she promised. Of course she might have miscalculated the time a little, but she would surely be here by five.
But five o’clock came and no Vanna, and Gloria, distracted beyond measure, went slowly downstairs and out across the road alone. She would come in a minute. She would surely be there very shortly, she told herself, as she opened the MacRae gate and stepped inside. And then Murray came smiling out to meet her and gave her a warm handclasp and a pleasant searching of the eyes.
“Come, let’s sit down here on the porch a minute before the rest come,” he said. “We’ll look up the verses you were asking about last night. Bob just phoned he would be a few minutes late.”
So Gloria, glad to get a few minutes’ reprieve from her worry, feeling sure that Vanna would be there before long, sat absorbed in Murray’s explanation of what was fast becoming a deeply interesting study to her.
Murray opened the little book to the third chapter of John.
“This was it, wasn’t it?” he asked. “ ‘The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the spirit.’ ”
“Yes, I wondered if that was the reason I couldn’t ‘get’ you at first. You were so different from anyone I ever knew.”
Murray smiled tenderly. “Anyone who is born again, born of the spirit,” he said “has a new life, a supernatural life that defies human explanation.”
“I would like to be born again,” said Gloria wistfully, lifting serious eyes to his. “I heard those young people talk about being saved. I wish I could know that I was saved!”
“You may,” he said quickly, a look of surprise and unutterable gladness coming into his eyes. “That’s what I have been praying for since I first knew you. But you know there is only one class of people who can be saved,” he said gently, to test her.
“Oh!” Gloria’s face clouded with disappointment. “I thought the verse said ‘whosoever.’”
Murray’s face held a glory light as she said that. “Our Lord said that He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance,” he said, watching her keenly.
Gloria turned now and looked Murray full in the face, and suddenly his meaning flashed over her.
“Oh,” she said awesomely, “but I am a sinner—a very great sinner!” Her eyes filled with tears. “I never knew it till I met you and heard you talk about Him!”
Then did Murray, his voice breaking with joy and earnestness, lead his beloved from one precious statement to another in the little book until at last, her own face alight, she said, “I see it now! I am born again! ‘He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life.’ ”
But the arrival of Robert Carroll cut short their thanksgiving celebration for the time, and still there was no sign of Vanna.
“I can’t understand why she isn’t here,” said Gloria with troubled eyes. “She was so sure she would be back. She didn’t really want to go, but an acquaintance from home drove through to see her and insisted she should go to ride for a little while.”
“Maybe they had tire trouble or something,” suggested Murray. “Suppose you play for us till she gets here. Then we’ll surprise her by being able to sing much better than she expected. She doesn’t really need the practice anyway. We’re the ones who need it. It doesn’t matter to her if she has never seen the music before of course.”
So Gloria sat down at the piano, and the singing went on— lovely music, lovely words, enunciated like a message—but her fingers found the notes automatically and her ears scarcely too
k in the beautiful melody, so wrought up was her mind. A cold, deadly fear seemed clutching at her thoughts, gripping her by the throat. She must not give way to it, for if she did, she had a superstitious feeling that her fear might come true. She must be calm and not let these two see how troubled she was. Oh, if Vanna would only come!
Every time a car went by on the highway, she turned her worried eyes toward the window, but still Vanna did not come, and at last she had to scurry over to get her supper or she would be late for the evening. Oh, wouldn’t Vanna come before the evening? Surely, surely she would not miss this appointment in which she had seemed to be so deeply interested!
“Don’t you worry,” said Murray as he left her at the Sutherland gate, “something has likely come up that she could not help. Maybe engine trouble—that’s serious off in the hills away from a mechanic or a telephone. If she doesn’t get here, we’ll carry it through all right. It isn’t that we’ll miss her so at the piano, but it will necessarily cut out your violin if you have to accompany us. However, there’ll be other times. And perhaps she’ll come yet. Maybe there is a message from her in the house now. But I won’t stop to see. I promised to do something for Mother before I go out this evening, and I must be getting back to it.”
But there was no message in the house from Vanna, and Gloria’s heart went down, down, her fears in a wild tumult that she dared not try to analyze.
“I wouldn’t worry so,” said Emily. “The audience won’t know what they’re missing, you know, and your sister likely has been detained in some perfectly reasonable way. Besides, an old friend, how could she help going when he had come all this way to see her? And as for accidents, if there had been an accident, we should likely have heard of it by this time. Cars like that aren’t very thick in these parts, and there would be plenty about them to identify them, even if they were unconscious and couldn’t tell who they were.”
But Emily’s calm suggestions did not serve to quiet Gloria’s troubled heart. Then eight o’clock hurried on, it was time to go to the meeting, and still Vanna had not come! There was nothing to do but go without her.
Beauty for Ashes Page 16