Coming Through the Rye

by Grace Livingston Hill

“Well, she’s some kid!” he said pleasantly. “We’ll send it back, of course.”

  “Well, she’s quite right!” said Nurse Bronson hotly. “No self-respecting girl would do otherwise, you know yourself! She wouldn’t be worth yer notice if she didn’t. She can’t let a young man pay her bills!”

  “But I told you I am not paying them; it’s the League.”

  “It’s all one and the self-same thing, Mr. Evan, and she knows it, and what’s more, you know it, too. She’s a right-minded girl, she is. I like her the more I see her. She’ll not take much more, I suppose. There’ll be little or nothing, perhaps less than nothing, from her father’s estate, I imagine. What will she live on?”

  “Much more, did ya say? She hasn’t a cent more, I happen to know. But she’ll live. Ye needn’t fear that. There’s more than yerself has that firm chin, Mr. Evan.”

  Little by little she told him the whole story of Kearney Krupper’s evening visit and its outcome, and although he had heard Chris’s version before, he managed to appear surprised and glean a number of details that set him to thinking seriously along new lines the rest of the evening.

  “We’ll have to do something about that little girl, Bronnie,” he said when she had finished. “I wish she hadn’t taken such an aversion to me. You don’t suppose she’d get over it enough to come and have a talk with me for a few minutes, do you? Couldn’t you manage that?”

  Nurse Bronson frowned. She had her views of decorum for these two.

  “Best wait till yer well, and I’ll try to manage it,” she said. “She’s not the kind of girl who goes traipsing after the men. She’s had a good mother, and she hasn’t got bobbed hair. They have notions when they don’t bob their hair. She’s old-fashioned.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” said Evan, looking disappointed. “Of course you’re right. I wouldn’t want her to come, on second thought. It might make talk against her. But we must do something. This check will shut the mouths of the rest of the committee, I’m thinking. I must tell them about it tomorrow, and then I’ll write her a letter and send it back!”

  “Yes, write her a letter!” said Nurse Bronson with satisfaction as she went about getting the dressing ready for Evan Sherwood’s shoulder. “She’s a bonny little thing, and that’ll be far better!”

  For somehow the delicacy of Romayne had so impressed Nurse Bronson that she did not want her put in a position where anything slighting could be said about her.

  So Evan wrote his letter, slowly, a few lines at a time, flavored perhaps with just a tinge of aloofness from the memory of her stormy brow and scornful lips as she told him she wished never to look on his face again. But by the time he had written a very nice, pleasant letter accepting her apology as if there had never been anything to forgive, he decided not to ask her to come and see him, nor to suggest that he would like to call upon her when he was able. Why should a man force himself upon a lady who had thrice expressed the wish never to see him again? She had apologized, of course, but that was not saying she wanted him for an intimate friend, much as she might feel indebted to him.

  She was nothing to him, of course, even if he did feel sorry for her, poor little kid, and of course he could find ways to help her without ever seeing her again. It would be like sending money to a foreign mission. One never expected to travel to Africa or China to personally administer one’s collection envelope. As for the check, he would simply return it, telling her that the League, not he, had been responsible for these bills, and that they were a part of the regular work of the League. In a sense their work had been the cause of her father’s illness and all that ensued, and it was only right and proper that they should pay all costs. He realized that that was a cold, practical way to put it, but it was the logical fact, and he mentioned it to show her that she need feel no further compunction in keeping the money.

  He was careful to show her check to Chris, and to two other members of the League Committee, before he enclosed it in his letter. One of these members was also the one who had suggested the possibility that Romayne might be one of the conspirators.

  Chris was deeply stirred by the check, and Evan allowed him to read her letter. But the suspicious member of the committee, while he perfunctorily said it was “very commendable of her,” still suggested that this might be only the gang’s way of trying to avert suspicion from her so that they might be able to use her again in new schemes of their own. And at that Evan’s jaw set firmly, and he told the little narrow-minded man that he knew Miss Ransom had nothing whatever to do with the business in any way and had never been aware of it until the night of the raid.

  That night Evan Sherwood set his firm jaw pleasantly and told the doctor it was time for him to get up, that he needed to get up to attend to his business, and that anyhow he was going to get up.

  That night, too, Chris went away thoughtfully, and the next day being the Sabbath, in the afternoon, he washed and dressed with unusual care, shaved himself till he shone, and was very particular about having the right shirt and collar, and about the crease in his trousers, and getting the right lick to his plastered-back hair. He tried several neckties before he was suited, and at last he took his way to Maple Street, where, with many honest blushes, he asked if he might see Romayne.

  The little Maple Street parlor, with its red-plush upholstery, its portraits, its blatant victrola, and its center table bearing a vase of artificial flowers, seemed the wrong setting for the delicacy of the girl he had come to see, and only served to make Chris more uncomfortable. He wished that he had thought of coming before she left her old house. It would have been so much easier to tell her what he had to say in the shadow of the heavy cream silk curtains and the alabaster vases. Somehow Romayne did not seem to belong here. And yet it was from this and worse that he was about to try to rescue her.

  “I guess maybe you’ll think I’m presuming, Romayne,” he began, fumbling the brim of his hat awkwardly, “but I had to come!”

  “How could I think that, Chris?” said the girl kindly. “You have done so much for us all that I can never forget it. I think perhaps I owe you an apology, too, for the way I talked to you those first days. I wrote a note to Mr. Sherwood about it. I want you to know that I appreciate everything you have done—”

  “Please don’t, Romayne!” he said, putting up a big earnest hand, on which he had spent much unaccustomed grooming. He felt as if she were forestalling all he was about to say.

  She stopped and looked at him, puzzled.

  “I guess you know how it is with me, Romayne. I’ve always thought you were the greatest girl on earth. I always will, even if you stamp on me. I know I’m not fit to lie down and let you walk over me. I’m not in your class at all when it comes to that—”

  “Oh Chris! Stop talking like that. You’re just the finest of the fine! I guess I know after all you’ve done for me the past weeks, and I sha’n’t allow you to talk that way!” broke in Romayne earnestly.

  “You don’t understand!” said Chris hopelessly. “I’m not just throwing bouquets. I’m trying to tell you how I feel about it. I’m making a proposition to you, and I want you to listen and understand it. But first, I want you to know that I know I’m not really good enough when you come right down to it. I don’t want you to think I’m stuck on myself!”

  “Oh, I won’t ever think that, Chris!” said Romayne, trying to help him out of his evident dilemma, although she could not quite get at what he was trying to say.

  “Well, then, it’s this way. I know I’m not good enough, but I seem to be all there is, and I want you to let me take care of you! It oughtta have been somebody like Evan Sherwood, but you won’t let him do anything, and of course you had a perfect right. And then I don’t know as he ever thought of this way out of the trouble, and I couldn’t just suggest it, you know, but I thought if Sherwood was out of the question entirely—you see, he let me read your letter last night, and I knew when you sent him that check it was all up with him doing anything more—so I t
hought the next best thing was me. You’re sure you won’t be offended or anything?” Chris’s face was red as a beet, and he mopped his shining forehead violently.

  “What on earth are you trying to tell me, Chris? What is it you want to ask? Don’t be afraid to say it right out!” urged Romayne.

  “I’m asking you to marry me, Romayne!” broke forth the earnest boy. “I know I ain’t good enough. I don’t have your class and all that, but you’ve gotta be taken care of, and that’s the only nice way I could do it. I’ll love you a lot if that’ll make up any way. I’ve always loved you. You’ve been like an angel in my life, so pretty and so good, and so little! And I’ll learn anything you want, and get to be the best I can—”

  “Oh Chris!” said Romayne with sudden tears in her eyes. “You dear Chris! Please don’t! It’s wonderful of you, but I couldn’t! I couldn’t possibly ever marry you! I’m not going to marry anybody! But it’s not because you’re not good enough! Chris, you’re the best thing I know. But I just don’t feel I could. I think a lot of you, but there’s something more to marrying than that. You have to love people in a different way. And I don’t love anybody that way! I don’t really! It wouldn’t be fair to you, you know.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t ask you to do that!” Chris said wistfully. “I’d do the loving, and you could have things your own way. I wouldn’t mind!”

  “Chris, you are wonderful! And I’ll never forget it of you, never! That’s the biggest sacrifice a man can make for a woman, to just put aside himself and let her have her way, and if I lived a hundred years, I’d never find a greater love than that, I know. But Chris, that isn’t real marriage. I’m sure it isn’t. My mother has told me that. I could love you like a brother, and I will. My own brother has forsaken me, but you’ve done more for me than he ever did. But I couldn’t marry you! It would be wrong!”

  “It’s class!” said Chris sadly. “I mighta known. But I couldn’t help trying anyway. You aren’t offended, are you?”

  “Indeed, no! How could I be offended? Chris, I think that was a most wonderful thing! Other people gave me flowers and wrote nice notes and telegrams, and even came and helped me, but you tried to give me yourself. I think it’s the most beautiful thing anybody ever did. I shall keep it in my memory like a treasure, and someday when you find a dear girl who loves you and whom you love, I shall tell her what a wonderful brother you’ve been to me, and how glad I am I wasn’t selfish enough to let you do what you offered, and saved you for her.”

  “There’ll never be anybody else like you, Romayne!”

  “There’ll be somebody better, Chris! Somebody who loves you that way! Somebody God made for you!”

  Chris sat staring blindly through big tears at a portrait of Nurse Bronson taken at five years old, with stringy ringlets around a chubby impertinent face.

  “Well, mebbe,” said Chris with a long sigh, “but I don’t see it now. What I’m thinking about is, how am I going to take care of you when you won’t let me marry you?”

  “Chris! Listen!” Romayne leaned forward earnestly. “You’ve not got to take care of me. God is doing that! He wants me to work my own way out, I’m sure of it. If He hadn’t, He wouldn’t have let things come out this way and left me to make my way alone. You mustn’t feel you’re responsible for me just because we’re old friends. I tell you, God wanted me to be in this situation for some reason, or He wouldn’t have let it happen.”

  “Yes, and He left me here to take care of you!” said Chris doggedly. “If He didn’t, why did I think of it?”

  “Well, you can’t!” said Romayne decidedly. “It’s quite impossible.”

  “If you were going to marry somebody like Evan Sherwood,” said Chris sadly again, “I’d be satisfied. You’d be taken care of a great deal better than I could do—”

  “Well, I’m not!” said Romayne shortly. “Chris, please don’t mention him again in that connection. He and I are absolute strangers, and neither of us has thought of such a thing. And I tell you, I won’t marry anyone, not now, anyway. And Chris, you needn’t worry about me; I can take care of myself. I really can.”

  “Wouldn’t you come and stay with my mother for a little while?” suggested Chris after a long silent pause, while he thrummed his hat brim round and round in his big nervous fingers. “She’d let you help her around the house, and she’d love to have you.”

  “Oh, thank you so much, Chris,” said Romayne with a troubled face, “but I couldn’t! Indeed I couldn’t. Just think what people might say about me! You’ll understand I couldn’t do that. I must have a job and take care of myself. That’s what all self-respecting girls do.”

  They talked for an hour and a half, and finally Chris went sadly away, his broad shoulders drooping pitifully, his round face downcast. It wasn’t so much that he had failed in his aspiration toward an angel as that he was worried what might come to the angel alone in this wicked world. There are just a few men like that who can forget themselves, and such love as theirs knows no class distinction. His dejection lasted till he went to see Sherwood for his usual evening orders.

  Evan Sherwood listened to his reports of various matters that had come up that day—how Krupper had gotten bail at last and was out and away, but a watch was being kept on his movements because they felt sure he would try to communicate with Lawrence Ransom somehow; how nothing more had been heard of Lawrence and it was thought he was on some South American ship that had sailed within the last two days. He must have shipped under an assumed name, or else was working his passage. Search was being made by wireless and by radio, but as yet there was not the slightest clue. It was important that they get him because it was now known that he possessed papers that gave evidence against the gang and could be used to great advantage in the coming election. But as yet neither the Federal authorities nor the League had been able to get a hint of his whereabouts.

  “Personally, I don’t think they’ll find him working his passage,” said Evan. “He’s too lazy and too selfish. He’ll make somebody else pay it, or he’ll stay where he is till he can. Those papers are with him wherever he is, too.”

  Having dismissed the business matters, he turned to Chris.

  “Now, what’s up with you, kid?” he said kindly, as Chris stood gloomily drumming on the window seat, staring down into the dark street.

  And Chris told him the whole story.

  Evan listened with a light of tenderness in his eyes and a growing thoughtfulness, now and then blurting out, “You said that about me to her, kid?” or “What did she answer to that?”

  At last he called, “Come here, kid. I want you to know I think that was great! I know what your humility is, and how you must have struggled to go to a girl that you felt was above your class with a proposition like that. It’s all nonsense, of course. There is no what you call ‘class’ to real love. But you felt that way, and you did the best you could in spite of it. Now, kid, you’re not to be long-faced about the result. You’re no worse off than you were before, and I take it she is more your friend than before. You can’t tell what may come—”

  “No!” said Chris with a choking sound in his voice. “She won’t change. She can’t! She appreciates it, as you say, but she’ll never feel different about me. I’m just Chris! That’s ended! But what gets me is, what’s going to become of her, with that Krupper let loose on the community again, and that gang coming home? They know her brother has something on them, and there’s no telling what they’ll do to her!”

  Evan Sherwood lay still for some seconds thinking, and then he said slowly, “Don’t you worry, Chris, I’m getting back on the job tomorrow, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  There was something in those words, and in the chief’s eyes as he smiled at Chris and gripped his hand, that comforted the boy as he went his way. If the chief got down to business, something real would be done—he was sure.

  Chapter 20

  Romayne sent the check straight back again to Evan Sherwood with a brief, decided l
ine or two showing how impossible it was for her to let anyone, be he person or League, pay any bills pertaining to herself or her family. She mailed it on her way to the house, where she had an appointment to meet the antique man.

  Romayne had been very much touched but also very much upset by Chris’s offer of marriage. She saw that it went deep with him, and this distressed her, but the immediate effect of his words had been to make her feel that she must lose no time in getting a job and putting herself on a plane where people would not feel they had to take care of her. She wondered what it was about her that made people feel that way. She studied her delicate, wistful face in the mirror before she started and decided she looked too babyish and unsophisticated, and her cheeks burned hot over the memory of Chris’s suggestion that if Evan Sherwood would marry her he would be satisfied. Generous of Chris, of course, to hand her around this way to be taken care of, but her natural pride did not like it.

  So she stopped at two employment agencies on her way to her old home and registered for a job. When it came to giving references, she gave Nurse Bronson and Chris, and then after some hesitation she added Dr. Stephens’s name. After all, he could say what he pleased about her. Perhaps he doubted her, but she could not help it, and his influence, if he cared to give it on her behalf, would of course count more than either the nurse’s or Chris’s name. Surely, Dr. Stephens would give her a good character, and he had seemed friendly.

  Nurse Bronson had warned her to be noncommittal with the antique man and not let him know whether she liked the prices or not until he was through with his estimates, so Romayne followed him around with pencil and paper and wrote down what he said he would give. Sometimes she remembered what her father had paid for a thing, and that helped a little. But for the most part she was utterly ignorant and knew she must trust to what he was willing to give. It was better to sell for a smaller price and get it done quickly. She longed to be out of the hateful house.

  Chris sent one of the officers around that morning to hunt for some papers in the cellar so that she was not alone, and Nurse Bronson came flying in about noon with some parcels in her hand and suggested a lunch together. That helped, for the antique man had gone away, promising to return at two o’clock with a truck in which to take the articles she was willing to sell, so she had opportunity to go over the list with someone.