The Prodigal Girl

by Grace Livingston Hill

  It was just then, perhaps, that Betty suddenly grew up and became a woman.

  Chester had not received any of the frantic messages that were sent to him. He had not gone to the places where he might reasonably have thought to go. He had found one or two important matters that must be attended to at once, and he had used every minute of time and attended to them, with the one object in view, to get back to the farm Monday evening and spend Christmas Eve with his family. He had not even taken time to call on the phone, he was going back so soon. Instead he took the time to purchase gifts—not the gifts he had planned for them on that evening when he had first known of his new prosperity, but sensible things that could be used on the farm and make the winter in the cold and isolation a delight. He telephoned an order for skis, and snowshoes and a new kind of sled for sledding and some better skates and warm sweaters, and a lot of games that could be played indoors on stormy days. He bent his every energy to getting back, that this Christmas might yet be one of the happiest that they had ever spent together.

  He reached the farm about nine o’clock Christmas Eve and burst through the door with a shout of welcome.

  They all came rushing to meet him, Eleanor with tears upon her face, eager expectancy in her look.

  “Oh, have you found her?” she cried as he stooped to kiss her. “Where is Betty? Didn’t you bring her back with you? Oh, couldn’t you bring her back? Was it too late?”

  She looked with blank eyes past him to the closed door where no Betty stood as she had hoped.

  “Bring her back?” said Chester. “Back from where? Has Betty gone down to the village alone at this time of night? Surely you didn’t let her go alone!”

  It was a long time before they could make him understand, and finally Chris had to break in:

  “Now, Muth, dear,” he said gently, “you just wait, and let me han’l this! I’ll tell Dad. He left me in charge!”

  And so they finally made the whole terrible story clear.

  It appeared that they had done every one of the things that he suggested eagerly as the story was unfolded. Yes, they had telephoned this one and that; yes, they had wired to all the stations. Yes, they had—

  He walked the floor in his first frantic realization of truth that Betty had been gone three days, and no word had come from her.

  It was too late to hope to stop the folly of a marriage. Too late to do anything but try to find her and keep her from further folly if possible.

  “It is all my fault!” he exclaimed as he wheeled at one end of the room and started pacing back again. “I have not been the right kind of a father! I have not watched my children! I am like Eli. My children have become vile, and I have not restrained them! It is my fault, and now my punishment has come!”

  “Oh, but I am her mother!” broke out Eleanor, sobbing as if her heart would break. “I have not been the right kind of a mother—”

  “Stop!” said Chester, pausing before her and laying his hand on her bowed head. “You have been a wonderful mother! You have not gone out into the world to know the world as I have. You did not know—”

  “Oh, I knew,” said Eleanor, “but I did not believe it was true. I didn’t think such things could ever happen to us. I thought people were exaggerating! Oh, if I could only go back and have Betty in my arms again, a little baby, I would do so differently. Those people who are teaching child psychology don’t know. They ought to be told that they are doing mothers harm—”

  “They are blathering idiots!” said Chester viciously. “But that does not let us off. We were brought up in the fear of the Lord, you and I, and somehow we have failed to hand it on to our children. They have lost the sense of sin! They have lost the sense of right and wrong. I saw that the night I went out after Betty! I saw that when I found Jane dancing a vulgar dance in a drugstore for the edification of a lot of dirty-minded fellows. I saw it later when the letter came—”

  He became aware of Chris’s miserable eyes upon him and little Jane’s dark head down upon the arm of the sofa as she huddled in its corner, her eyes smoldering with unhappiness.

  “But we must not think of that now. We must do something!

  You have been wonderful, Chris, I’m proud of you. But now I think that we cannot any longer keep this thing quiet. I will try to get in touch with Mansfield, our New York man who handles all the office detective work. Perhaps he can think of something else to do. Chris, you say you tried to get in touch with the Westons, how lately?”

  “This afternoon,” said Chris, comforted that his father was satisfied with his action. “They are gone to New York, but the servant didn’t know the address.”

  “Well, I’ll get Mansfield at once if I can. It’s a bad night, Christmas Eve, to expect to get anybody, but we’ll be able to find out something. Perhaps they’ll broadcast it tonight, though I’m afraid it is too late to get in now.”

  “Oh, Chester!” wailed Eleanor. “Must we do that?”

  “I’m afraid we must, dear, if we want results. But I’ll see what Mansfield says—”

  “But Chester, you must have some supper.” Eleanor sprang up and went toward the kitchen.

  “No, Eleanor. Not now. I couldn’t eat!” said Chester. “Not now. You go to bed. You look completely exhausted. I’ll come up and tell you what he says when I get him.”

  “But just a cup of coffee—”

  “No, Eleanor. Not now. I couldn’t swallow it. I’ll get something when I want it.”

  Chester went into the library and shut the door. They heard the telephone ringing now and then; they heard Chester’s low voice talking and then long silences. The household settled to sleep at last, feeling the burden of responsibility rolled from their shoulders to a certain extent, feeling greatly comforted to have the husband and father at home again and undertaking.

  But Chester, in the room below as he waited for Mansfield, who was reported to be out of town for a few hours, was kneeling beside his mother’s old rocking chair, praying. By his side on his father’s desk the old Bible was spread open, for Chester had been reading the word of God concerning Eli, trying to find some hope for his own sin. And when he could not find it he bowed in deep anguish and prayed, “Oh, God, forgive me! Have mercy upon me, a sinful father, that I have not seen nor knew what was coming to my children, and have not restrained them. Oh, God, have compassion on my little Betty! Oh, God, find my little Betty! Save my little Betty!”

  Chapter 26

  Out across the miles of snowy fields the echo of that prayer hovered in the air as it went up to the throne of God, its wavelengths lingering about through the gray dawn, while the father knelt and poured out his heart in the same words again and again: “Save my little Betty! Oh God, find my little Betty!” From heaven’s broadcasting station perhaps that prayer went back till Betty’s heart tuned in and heard—Betty, lying in the cold white snow, listening to her father’s prayer that had gone up to God and was sent back to her. Betty, finding God still following her, standing apart, across the snows of Christmas morning!

  All had gone blank out there on the snow. Betty could no longer hear her father’s voice in prayer. She felt alone, forsaken! But God was still there. She could not rise nor look, for her body seemed to have gone dead, but she knew He was there.

  Suddenly a hand touched her on the shoulder. She was surprised. She opened her eyes and saw a face bending over her and two pleasant eyes looking into hers.

  “Are you God?” she thought she heard her own voice ask, her little frozen voice.

  “No,” said a kindly voice, “but I’m God’s child! What are you doing here, sister?”

  “My feet are dead,” she answered out of the case of fire and ice in which her body seemed to be fastened. “I think perhaps they are broken off.”

  He stooped and lifted her in strong arms, and she felt the sucking bed of snow release her from its deadly hold.

  She was too tired to look up, except for a glance at the kindly face and the pleasant eyes upon her, eyes
that looked as though the sunshine was in behind them somewhere.

  There was an old Ford standing out there in the road about five yards from the place where she had fallen. She wondered how it had got there without her hearing it. He put her in the backseat, brushing the snow from her garments. He unwound the tattered silk about her ankles that had slipped down farther and farther until they were mere ribbons cluttering about her feet.

  “You poor kid!” he said as he unfastened the little inadequate shoes. “You poor kid! Your feet must be frozen!”

  “Oh, are they there yet?” said Betty, rousing from the stupor into which she had immediately sunk. “I thought they were broken off!”

  He cast a furtive, anxious glance at her flushed face and caught the hoarse rasp of her voice as she coughed. He took off his big driving gloves and took her cold, cold feet in both of his warm hands and rubbed them.

  “You poor kid!” he said gently.

  She laughed hoarsely.

  “I ran away to get married,” she said, laughing again deliriously, “and I left my galoshes in the station!” He gave her a quick keen glance.

  “Where do you live? Who are you?” he asked in a quiet voice, not at all as if it mattered or were anything to make her excited.

  “I’m Betty Thornton,” she babbled. “I live in Briardale when

  I’m home, but we’re spending the winter at the old farm beyond Wentworth. I’d better get out and go on. I’m on my way home. It’s getting late and my head is hot and my feet are cold, or else it’s the other way around.”

  The young man looked at her anxiously as he took out a suitcase and began to search for things.

  “How long have you been on your way?” he asked, pulling out a pair of long gray woolen golf stockings and drawing them over her feet.

  “Since the stars came out,” said Betty unintelligibly. “The car rolled down the hill and the glass broke, and there was one star God had in His hand! God was there!”

  She looked at the young man anxiously as if she wanted to be assured that she was right.

  “Yes, God is always there,” affirmed the young man quietly. “Now, drink this coffee. It’s still hot.”

  He unscrewed the top of a thermos bottle and poured out the last few swallows of coffee. He tipped the little metal cup to her lips and she tried to swallow, but the knife was there in her throat.

  “There’s ice in my throat,” she explained, looking at him wildly. “I shall have to wait till it melts.”

  “Drink the rest of this. It will help to melt the ice!” he urged, and Betty swallowed again, obediently, and sank back on the folded coat he had laid under her head.

  She did not open her eyes when he tucked a blanket about her. She felt herself sinking into a deep place now that was as hot as she had been cold a little while before. She was thinking that God’s child had kind eyes. They were nice eyes. They comforted her. She liked to hear him say, “Poor kid!”

  While Chester was still upon his knees crying to God, confessing his sin, and praying for mercy on his child, the shabby Ford turned into the lane and plowed its way up to the old farm.

  Betty’s mother was the first one at the door.

  She had come downstairs to prepare breakfast, anxious for her man, tiptoeing about lest she wake him, not daring to open the library door lest she disturb him, yet anxious to know what he had done during the night.

  The throb of the car roused the house. Chris was down almost at once, and Jane, calling from upstairs at the window:

  “It’s Betts, Muth! But that’s not Dudley Weston with her! Who can it be?”

  Eleanor did not hear Jane. She had flung wide the door and with her hand fluttering to her throat was standing wide eyed looking out, her intuition telling her that this was no ordinary news that was about to be revealed.

  “While they are yet speaking, I will hear,” was the promise that Chester Thornton had read as he knelt before the old Bible.

  He was still praying, “God, find my little Betty!” when John flung the library door wide and called excitedly:

  “Dad, come quick! Betty’s come home, and she’s awful sick!”

  They carried Betty upstairs to her bed in the bright Christmas morning, for the clouds had cleared and the sun was sparkling over everything, but Betty did not recognize it. She tossed on the big, cool bed and thought it was a field of snow. She looked in her mother’s face and did not know her. Two white-robed nurses took up their station around her bed before long, and two noted physicians from New York came in consultation with the little country doctor from Wentworth, and all that skill and science could do was being done for Betty Thornton.

  Downstairs the Christmas tree, partly decked in its tin stars and paper frills, stood neglected and desolate. The children stole by it without looking. It seemed a desecration now to think about Christmas with Betty so sick.

  The white-haired minister drove up every day in the old Ford to find out how the little patient was doing. Once or twice he came up into the room and knelt beside Betty’s bed and prayed, while her mother wept outside the door, and her father stood beside her, his arm about her and a look of utter anguish on his face. The minister’s son did not come in. He did not want to intrude, but he always asked anxiously, “How is she?” when his father came back to the car.

  The Christmas season passed without a celebration. Anxiety held the household in its grip. Even John and Doris learned how to sigh, and one day Eleanor caught Jane at the window crying.

  “Betty had no right!” she explained when her mother asked what was the matter. “She had no right to spoil Christmas for us all. She oughtta uv thought of other people a little!”

  “Hush, darling,” said her mother. “If Betty will only come back I think perhaps she’ll understand that now—”

  “Come back?” said Jane with a quick catch of alarm. “Won’t she come back?”

  “We hope so, darling, but the doctor isn’t sure!”

  “Well, why did she have to do something to upset everybody else? If she wanted to be silly she’d oughtta uv found some way that wouldn’t hurt her family.”

  “When people do wrong, Janie dear, they never do it alone. They always bring consequences on other people. We’re all bound up in the bundle of life together, and a man or woman or girl or boy can’t sin in any way without hurting others.”

  The day came when Betty turned feverish eyes upon them all and demanded:

  “Where is God’s child? I want to see him.”

  And for hours she kept asking the same question.

  They did not know what she meant, and they sent for the old minister, who knelt beside her bed and prayed.

  She stared at him with eager eyes.

  “You are nice,” she said, looking at him intently, “but you are not the child of God. He warmed my feet and brought me to my father’s house. I want to see him. I want to ask him a question.”

  “Ah,” said the minister, smiling kindly, “I think it is my son David that you mean. He is a child of God. I will send for him!”

  And that night David Dunham left his studies in a far city and journeyed up to Vermont in answer to his father’s call, but he did not borrow his roommate’s Ford this time. He caught the fast express, and was at home as soon as steam and rail could bring him.

  “Well, sister,” he said, sitting down beside the bed and taking her little hot hand in his, “I am the child of God you sent for. What can I do for you?”

  She turned her restless eyes upon him, and her voice was full of pleading:

  “Oh, won’t you ask God not to judge me for letting Dudley take that drive?”

  “And who is Dudley?” asked David Dunham kindly.

  “Dudley is the boy I was going to run away with, and he wouldn’t have got killed if I hadn’t gone.”

  There was great distress in her voice. Chester and Eleanor looked at one another in dismay. This was the first they had heard of Dudley. Had Dudley been killed? What terrible experience had t
heir beloved child been passing through without them? Or was this some wild raving of delirium?

  The anxious young voice went on:

  “Won’t you tell God not to look at me? He keeps looking at me all the time. He thinks I’m unclean! He thinks I’m foul! My father said so. And He keeps looking at me all the time. Won’t you tell Him to stop?”

  David Dunham turned his clear eyes on the sick girl. He took hold of the little hot hand that Betty held out pleadingly, with his big cool grasp, and spoke quietly, commandingly, to her:

  “Listen, sister! Didn’t you know that Jesus Christ has opened a fountain for sin and for uncleanness? Long ago He shed His blood to make a fountain to wash away our sins. He wants to make you clean, sister, that’s why He is looking at you.”

  “But I’m afraid of blood!” she cried, clinging to his hand. “There was blood on Dudley Weston’s head and face. There was blood on the stretcher they carried him on—I couldn’t wash in blood!”

  “This is Christ’s blood, sister. It is not human blood. Human blood could not wash us from sin, but Jesus’ blood can wash us whiter than snow!”

  “Oh, did you have to be washed, too? It that why you look so much like God?”

  “I certainly did, sister. We all have to be washed.”

  “But won’t it hurt?” Betty’s eyes were full of fear.

  “I’ll say it won’t!” said the young man with a light in his face. “You just ask Him, and it’s done, just like that!”

  “You ask Him, won’t you? I’m afraid.”

  David Dunham knelt by the side of the bed, the little hot hand still in his, and began to pray:

  “Oh, God, our Father, in the name of Jesus, who died to make us clean from sin, please wash this young woman, and make her free from sin forever. Put her behind the blood now, and make her Thy child! Wash her and make her whiter than snow, for Jesus’ sake who loved her and died for her.”