“Say, Carol,” put in Sally again, “did Jane have a brother? That best man looks like Jane, only darker. He’s terribly well set up, isn’t he, a young giant!”
“Why yes, Jane had a brother,” said Carol, looking puzzled, “but I always supposed he was a small boy. She spoke of him as a kid.”
“There! Hear the wedding march! Now she’s coming. Look, Carol. Turn around. There’s a perfectly stunning man bringing her up the aisle and a heavenly-looking child walking ahead. She looks like an angel just dropped down, all in yellow with gold curls and a great big white hat of floppy velvet. Gold shoes, too. Carol, this is no hick wedding. This is the real thing. Perhaps we’ve got the wrong church and this is somebody’s else wedding.”
“No, that’s Jane,” whispered Carol, looking around, “and that must be her sister, Betty Lou. Isn’t she lovely? That man is her father. I’ve seen his picture, but I didn’t realize he was so distinguished-looking.”
“Mercy! Girls, look at that veil! It’s real old lace!” whispered Gayle, talking from one side of her mouth but keeping her eyes on Jane as she walked by. “And isn’t she lovely? See how happy she looks, just as if she were having a good time. And look! Look at the groom. He’s smiling as if he saw heaven opened. My! I’d marry any man that would look at me like that.”
“Do be still, Gayle,” whispered Carol. “People are looking at us.”
All through the solemn, beautiful service they stared in wonder. Never before had they heard a marriage service where God seemed to be there and a part of the ceremony. Marriage ties had been lightly taken and as lightly dropped in their set. God played very little part in it all except to lend His name to the form. But the plain young preacher in his simple black coat was talking to Jane and her man as if God were real and mattered every day, and these pleasant pagans from the world were amazed. There was something about it all that was different, and they could not figure out what it was. Was it the same thing, perhaps, that made Jane what she was? They wondered.
Then Jane and her handsome husband came smiling down the aisle, recognizing their friends as they passed and Carol and her friends got a smile.
“And the lovely child in yellow with the velvet hat over her curls and the armful of great white chrysanthemums! Did you ever see anything quite so lovely in your life!” was heard all over the church.
“And the young man with her! Who is he? What, brother and sister? The bride’s brother and sister, did you say?”
The drive up the hillside was a revelation. All the way seemed to be decorated for the bridal party. Great golden maples standing in amazing rows, flanked by deep plumy pines, and a brilliant oak or red leaf maple or gum tree. How the hillsides and valleys were made gorgeous for the occasion, slowly ripened mellow colors, blending, blazing into marvelous color themes. It seemed almost as if it must have been done artificially by some great decorator just for the afternoon, a heavenly panorama of God’s best.
They pointed and exclaimed at the house as it came in view resting like a dream castle on the brow of the hill, with more gorgeous groupings of trees against its rugged stone. They never dreamed they were going there. And when they skirted the stone wall below and turned into the smooth drive in the grove at the entrance, they exclaimed again at the beauty about them, for it seemed like a fairy palace with windows of crimson and gold lit within and without. It almost seemed one should look for incense lamps and an altar.
“Where is Lew Lauderdale now?” asked Sally suddenly.
“Off in Africa shooting lions.” Rex laughed. “If he isn’t in Monte Carlo playing baccarat.”
“Said he was fed up on America,” said Gayle.
The car swept up the drive, and the house was revealed in all its beauty, its artistic lines and rugged strength looking as if it had grown there instead of having been built, so perfectly in harmony was it with its environment. “I thought you said he was a plain clerk in an office,” said Gayle. “My eye! I don’t call this plain!”
They entered the house and looked in amazement at the beauty and taste displayed, and then they saw Jane, smiling and sweet, and they caught a glance that Sherwood gave her of utter love and joy, and Gayle whispered, even before she got into the line, “Well, I guess Jane’s got the real thing somehow. I wonder how she did it?”
“It’s because Jane is the real thing herself!” answered Carol gravely. “I’ve always known it in a way, but I knew it better when she said what she did that day last fall and refused to go with us on our swimming party. You see, Jane isn’t just living for what she can see and feel and eat and do, she’s living for another world, and she believes in it and keeps it in her mind every day. Whether she’s right about the other world or not, it seems to make her happier to believe it. I wish I could!”
They drifted thoughtfully out to the wide, tiled terrace and down to the terraces below, and they looked down at the blue- tiled swimming pool, with its raceway of lily pads all around it, and its white marble steps across. They looked down to the sunken garden and the pretty golden blossoms banked in tawny clumps against the hemlock, and they sighed and wondered at Jane. Jane had dared to leave their favored group, to go her own way, to take her independent standards, to turn down a rich desirable, and to choose her mate from the rank of labor—and yet, she had all this! What did it mean? Were they perhaps somehow out of the way of the best?
There was no liquor at this wedding, and none of the usual provision for the passing of time, and yet everybody was happy and glad and gracious.
They gathered later around Jane, her group of old summer friends, and tried to find her secret. They asked her questions in a puzzled way, and she was graciously trying to answer them. But when she spoke, they did not seem to understand. Their language did not include some phrases she used. They turned away, despairing, to go back to their world. They understood only that Jane had somehow managed to get a fine establishment and a flawless mate and apparently plenty of money, without the usual forms of worldliness that they had always considered necessary.
Upstairs in the bridal chamber, wandering around looking at the bits of rare beauty here and there, Carol came on a Bible lying open on a little stand beside a deep inviting chair. Idly she turned the leaves and saw a verse marked in clear lines, and read it curiously: “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him will I trust.”
Carol shivered and closed the book. That was it! That was the secret! Those two had somehow connected their lives with God and had found a mysterious satisfaction. She would be afraid of God. She looked out the window, down the hillside at the lights on the terraces flashing in the pool, and sighed wistfully and turned to go. Sometime, perhaps when she was old and the things of this world had palled, she would hunt out God and try to find something— the thing that Jane seemed to have—but not now. She would be afraid of what God might do to her, afraid of what He might take away from her. And so she went on her way—unsatisfied.
Downstairs Jane was getting acquainted with Lorna, John’s lovely cousin.
“Oh, but I’ve seen you before,” she said, her eyes lighting at the memory. “I know, you’re the lovely girl that stood on the platform at the Junction the morning John got on the train! I saw you then and knew that I had seen you once before, at the tournament upon the mountain!”
And so all the links of memory were forged at last.
Then John was telling her that it was time to go and get dressed for their journey, and a great shining car drew up before the door, the Dulaney car, which it was understood was to carry the bridal party to their train. While it was being duly adorned with old shoes, white streamers of cotton cloth, and mottoes, and as the guests were chalking up the nice new bags that the best man, grinning, produced, specially prepared for the occasion, everyone was in gales of laughter, preparing merriment for the bride and groom. Yes, while every egress was carefully guarded, s
o they thought, to prevent the escape of their victims, Jane, ready in an incredibly short space of time and covered with a housemaid’s coat and an old felt hat, with her own new one tucked inside the coat, was hurrying down the servants’ staircase and then down the cellar stairs, to meet a figure in blue overalls and a wide farm hat. Together they scurried across the fields and scuttled hurriedly into a car that stood at the foot of an unused lane, a quarter of a mile from the house.
“It’s lucky I remembered to bring my new shoes,” said Jane as she kicked off a pair of bedroom slippers, which had been hastily donned for the field travel, and stowed them in the box behind the fence with the housemaid’s coat and hat and John’s new overalls.
In a moment more they were off in their own new car into a world of bliss, for a long, beautiful tour wherever they wanted to go and no duties or offices to call them back for a whole wonderful month.
The guests were all gone at last, leaving a great roomful of wonderful gifts in silver and pewter and wood and brass, in paintings and china and linen and crystal, in needlework and jewels and treasures of the world, which had to be cared for and put into safekeeping.
But at last the helpers were all through; the caterers’ cars were winding down the hill; the servants were gone to their well-earned rest. Father and Mother were in their room; Betty Lou was asleep in her charming rose-lined room; and Tom stood at the window in his own domain staring up at the stars.
As he looked at the stars, they blinked back at him, and he suddenly turned away from the window and swept the luxurious room with a grateful glance. Then he turned back to the winking stars, stretching his arms out luxuriously. “Oh boy!” he exclaimed ecstatically. “It’s a great life!”
Then he tore off his stiff collar and his coat with its white gardenia, snapped out of his dress shirt, and stretched again. “Good night, I’m glad I don’t havta wear those clothes every day! I’m glad we don’t havta get married every day. Gee whiz! There wasn’t a girl in the whole bunch could put a patch on either Jane or Betty Lou!”
He kicked off a shoe and sat reminiscent for a moment. “Good night! I don’t see what those two hadta go off for? Get a house like this all fixed up ta live in an’ then go off! Such a silly idea. I thought they both had better sense! Good night! Now we’ll havta wait a whole month before we can really begin ta live!”
As he finally got into bed, he murmured to himself, “Oh boy! I’m glad she didn’t marry that coddled egg!”
GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL (1865–1947) is known as the pioneer of Christian romance. Grace wrote over one hundred faith-inspired books during her lifetime. When her first husband died, leaving her with two daughters to raise, writing became a way to make a living, but she always recognized storytelling as a way to share her faith in God. She has touched countless lives through the years and continues to touch lives today. Her books feature moving stories, delightful characters, and love in its purest form.
LOVE ENDURES
3-in-1 Collection of Classic Romance
Treasure an exclusive collection of three timeless stories from America’s best-loved storyteller, Grace Livingston Hill.
A stranger salvages a wedding gone awry for one desperate bride in The Beloved Stranger.
Believing he is a murderer, a young man hides his identity in A New Name.
A rebellious teenager’s escape brings more than she bargained for in The Prodigal Girl.
With charming 1920s settings, these beloved romances capture the enduring power of faith—and love.
Check Out These Other Great Titles from
Grace Livingston Hill Classics
Amorelle
April Gold
Ariel Custer
The Beloved Stranger
Blue Ruin
The Christmas Bride
Coming Through the Rye
Crimson Mountain
Crimson Roses
Duskin
The Gold Shoe
Job’s Niece
Kerry
Ladybird
Matched Pearls
A New Name
Not Under the Law
The Prodigal Girl
Rainbow Cottage
Re-Creations
The Substitute Guest
Tomorrow About This Time
The White Flower
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A Girl to Come Home To
Happiness Hill
Happiness Hill Page 28