Chance of a Lifetime

by Grace Livingston Hill

  When she reached her room she locked the door and dropped to her knees to pray, the tears raining fast down her face. Beaten! She was beaten right at the start. There could be no peace in this household unless she sacrificed principles that were deep laid in her life, and had all of them real reasons for their being. Oh, why had she come? Were Mother and Keith and Aunt Harriet all wrong in their decision that this trip was a duty? Had she been mistaken in thinking that it was God’s leading? And if it was, must she go back like a whipped kitten with her ears back and own herself unable to be in the world and yet not be of it, and keep sweet and happy through all the testings?

  An hour later she went down to lunch with a quiet serenity she would not have believed possible. Somehow, on her knees, she had been able to understand that she must not run away, not yet, anyway. She was going to give New York a real chance to show her why she had come.

  The luncheon hour was notable for the arrival of a big florist’s box for Sherrill. Carol looked at her cousin in angry amazement as the maid brought the box around to Sherrill’s seat and asked if she should open it.

  “There!” said Carol triumphantly. “Now I hope you see, Eloise! She certainly must have done some funny business to get flowers from Barney the first day off!”

  But Sherrill had been examining the card the maid brought her and looked up with a pleasant smile.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, with a twinkle in mischief in her eyes, “they’re only from one of the boys back at home,” and she laid a card down on the table where her cousin could read it.

  “Alan MacFarland,” said Carol insolently. “Who is he?”

  “Oh, just a boy I’ve known all my life. We’ve been schoolmates.”

  The maid had opened the box now, and the flowers were brought into view. Great masses of exquisite forget-me-nots, and feathery, fine baby’s breath.

  “Great Cats!” said Carol astonished. “He must have plenty of dough. They’re out of season! I didn’t know you could get them anywhere.”

  “You can get anything, my child, for money,” said her mother, eyeing the name on the box.

  “Forget-me-nots!” said Carol thoughtfully. “H’m! Love stuff! You would be that way. Mid-Victorian!”

  “You might put them on my tea table this afternoon,” suggested Aunt Eloise languidly. “Since they are out of season it’s a pity to waste them upstairs.”

  “Why, yes!” said Sherrill pleasantly. “I should like to. I’ll just take a few upstairs for that cunning little vase on my dressing table, and you can use the rest any way you like.”

  “Is he rich?” asked Carol impertinently.

  “Oh, not especially,” said Sherrill.

  “Is he good looking?”

  “That depends on what your standard is,” said Sherrill. “I always felt he was all right.”

  “Are you engaged to him?” Carol always went to the point without hesitation.

  “Oh no,” said Sherrill, still smiling. This would be one thing she couldn’t tell Alan about in the letter she meant to write him that afternoon. But she could tell Mother—or no—perhaps not. You never could tell. Mother might read it to Aunt Harriet and Aunt Harriet would just think it would be fun to tell Alan—no, she mustn’t tell. Meantime, her thoughts helped to keep her face smiling and not a bit ruffled at the catechism she was enduring.

  “You certainly are odd!” vouchsafed her cousin, smothering her cocoa with whipped cream.

  Sherrill politely refrained from giving her opinion of her cousin. As soon as lunch was over, she took her handful of blue-eyed flowers and went upstairs to her room, leaving the expensive out-of-season masses to the general public. But when she saw them again in an expensive crystal bowl on the tea table, she smiled tenderly at them, as if she felt they understood. They were perhaps doing more for her on the tea table than they could have done on her corsage or in her room, and the blessed thing about that was that Alan would understand when she told him about it. Alan always understood.

  The tea was not so bad, Sherrill thought. There really were some very nice people there, a few of them. She had a lovely talk with a sweet, white-haired old lady, who wore one or two magnificent diamonds and some exquisite old lace in the folds of her plain black velvet gown.

  Sherrill wore her grandmother’s rose taffeta and looked charming.

  “That’s not a Paquin, is it?” asked Carol coldly as she came down early.

  “Oh no, it’s a Washburn,” answered Sherrill brightly.

  “A Washburn? I never heard of him. Is he somebody new?”

  Sherrill laughed.

  “Very new,” she said. “I made it myself, Carol, out of Great-Grandmother’s nine-breadth gown of long ago. But I copied it after a dear little model made by Lanvin.”

  Carol stared. “I don’t believe it!” she said rudely.

  “If you don’t believe it, get me some silk, and I’ll make one like it for you.”

  “Are you a dressmaker, then? Where did you ever learn?”

  “Making doll clothes when I was a kid,” said Sherrill. “I’m not a dressmaker, of course, but I often make my own clothes.”

  An influx of guests at that moment broke in upon the conversation, but Sherrill caught her cousin’s eyes upon her gown several times that afternoon, and once she overheard her telling another girl: “It’s a Lanvin,” she said boastingly. “My cousin gets all her clothes abroad.”

  What an extraordinary world this was into which she had come to abide for a time. She had a feeling that it was going to be a very brief time, however. Her heart was longing deeply for home.

  She wore her white velvet to the symphony concert. It seemed to belong with beautiful harmonies, and besides she was going out with her uncle, and she wanted to look her best. Her uncle was the only one of the family whom she felt had something in common with her. Also she still had her doubts about staying very long in New York and she wanted to wear it at least once.

  Carol and her mother were not in sight when she came down to go with her uncle, so she felt no critical eye upon her; but later in the evening, during the last lovely number on the program, they rustled in and made quite a disturbance getting settled. Almost at once Sherrill was made to feel the glances that were turned toward her, and did she fancy it, or was her aunt actually more pleased with her after studying the lines of the lovely white velvet?

  Sunday started out very well. Sherrill came down dressed for church, but finding nobody in the family usually got up before noon, she went off by herself to find a service, and happened, or was guided, to a place where a world-noted speaker gave a burning message of truth. She came back refreshed, with her heart throbbing with eagerness to witness for such a Lord as hers, and her mind made up to bear the unpleasantness of the way, if only she might be used somehow, somewhere.

  But the rest of the day was anything but satisfactory. Carol turned on the radio and filled the rooms with jazz. Groups of merry callers dropped in, and giddy young people, who stared at Sherrill, danced a little and finally went off on a joyride, Sherrill pleasantly but firmly declining to participate.

  The remaining company presently resolved itself into tables of bridge. At this point Sherrill was planning to steal away to her room, but to her dismay Barney Fennimore arrived to call upon her, and she was forced to remain.

  He was there when Carol and her friends returned, and Sherrill felt embarrassed and unhappy, knowing Carol’s cold gaze and lips boded no pleasant tomorrow. But Barney was oblivious of jealousy and pursued the even tenor of his way, chasing this new admiration.

  The evening was no better. More people came. More dancing and cards. More jazz music. A young man, with long hair and a languid air, arrived with a violin under his arm and played for them some of his new compositions. Sherrill did not like any of them. They sounded to her trained ear like desecration. She had not thought before that music could express anything but the highest and best emotions, but this seemed coarse, and evil, like the worst secret thoughts of
wicked spirits creeping stealthily out in the open. All sense of the Sabbath was gone. Sherrill had a hurt in her heart for lack of it.

  Sherrill really loved the Sabbath, and she was glad indeed when she could reasonably get away to quietness and her Bible. Fervently she hoped that she might see her way clear to get away before another such day came round again. How could one live so close to this world and not be of it?

  And when Barney sent her a great box of orchids the next day, which did not make things any better between Carol and herself, Carol resented every bit of attention Sherrill had.

  Sherrill wrote a long letter home the next morning, describing in detail the beautiful home of her uncle and the appearance of her aunt and cousin, the furnishing of her room, the city of New York in general, and not telling any of the things the family wanted to know. But Grandma keenly read between the lines.

  “She’s not telling you everything!” she declared, after the letter was read. “She’s not having a very good time. You needn’t be surprised if you see her back pretty soon. She’s true blue, that girl is.”

  Now that she was gone, and the die was cast, Grandma trusted Sherrill utterly. She also trusted God.

  “Oh, I hope not,” said Keith with a disturbed glance. “I’d like her to get the benefit of this visit. It will scarcely be likely she’ll get another chance at luxury and beauty and culture. It’s the chance of a lifetime in a way.”

  “Benefit, if any!” soliloquized Grandmother, who sometimes caught a slang phrase from the young people and used it with true intelligence.

  “Well, I’m glad she had the right dresses.” Sherrill’s mother sighed. “I suppose that’s worldly pride, but I just couldn’t stand seeing my girl patronized.”

  “Well, there’s one thing, Mary,” said Harriet Masters, who was listening to the letter. “Nobody but an inferior would attempt to patronize that girl.”

  Harriet Masters had a letter from Sherrill, too, telling gleefully how her clothes had been received and thanking her over again for having made it possible for her to appear at ease among the creatures of fashion who judged people only by their clothes.

  Alan came in while they were talking to see Keith about an order he had got for him, and the letter had to be read all over again. Alan had a letter of his own, but he felt shy about sharing it, so he didn’t mention it. Perhaps later he might tell Keith, but just now he wanted the joy of it all to himself.

  Alan was hard at work. With Judge Whiteley’s help, he was getting things into good shape. Judge Whiteley had been wonderful, fixing that note, getting the mortgage paid off, and offering some sound advice. He also offered to be the right-hand advisor during Mr. MacFarland’s illness, and suggested that Alan run in every evening for a few minutes and tell any perplexities and problems of the day.

  Alan had not been slow to follow this suggestion, and the result was not only a warm friendship formed between the older wise man and the boy but the avoidance of a number of serious mistakes that Alan, in his ignorance, would very likely have made.

  In addition to his other duties, he had undertaken to follow up Sherrill’s work with the Flats people, and he had finally won enough friends for his cause to organize a Bible study class over there, which met once a week with a teacher from the city. Some of the young people from the church went over, too, and served lemonade and cake afterward. So the work grew, and Alan wrote down all the doings for Sherrill’s approval and suggestion.

  Besides that, Alan had to write to Bob Lincoln.

  Three letters had come from Bob, filled with the wonders of the way and with shy questions about the Bible, which, in addition to the reading prescribed by the study class, he had started to read through from the beginning.

  So three weeks passed, and Rockland was beginning to feel the vacancy left by Sherrill Washburn’s absence and incidentally what a power Alan MacFarland had become. Even the other businessmen were beginning now to call him MacFarland, instead of Mac, or Al, as it had been, and Mother MacFarland looked up one day from the coffee she was pouring and was suddenly struck with the idea that her boy was growing up and that he looked and acted like a man, and she sighed even while she rejoiced over him.

  Alan’s father was decidedly better. He was even well enough now to have a few minutes’ conference with his son every day, and to approve and commend the various things that had been done.

  “I guess I had to get sick so you would put things on their feet for me,” he said, in his slow, pleasant way one day. “I guess I had to find out what a fine son I have. It was the chance of my lifetime, son!”

  Alan looked up, startled, and then smiled to think how often that phrase had been in his mind of late. He had thought that about the desert trip, and Bob had said it was his chance, and Sherry’s family thought her going to New York was the chance of her lifetime! He sighed at that thought— Oh, what if it should prove to be a chance that would take her away from him forever— Who was that poor fish that had brought her home from that villainous party anyhow? Wasn’t there anything besides sending forget-me-nots that he could do?

  “SAY IT WITH FLOWERS,” flaunted an advertisement in the weekly local as he turned the empty pages over, so he went out and said it with Parma violets, and then sauntering home, he passed her house and saw the old stone barn set way back in the lot next door, a big elm etched against the evening sky above one end and a group of spruce trees down in one corner near the street. That was an idea! Why hadn’t he thought of that before? Sherrill wanted to build that over into a house. Well, why not, someday? He would pay a sizeable deposit on it, and if he used his old car for another year instead of turning it in … and that would give him something to think about and plan for anyway, while Sherrill was gone. So Alan went to see Henderson.

  Chapter 18

  Sherrill had a heart-to-heart talk with her uncle on the way down to the symphony concert, and he must have said something very decided to the rest of the family afterward; at least no more was said about either dancing or bridge lessons, and when there came an invitation to a dance or any other function that Sherrill felt would be out of her sphere, she was allowed to stay home.

  It may be that this state of things was helped somewhat by the fact that Carol was fiercely jealous of her cousin and was just as well pleased to have her stay at home rather than have her winning personality and her lovely clothes to compete with.

  It cut Carol deeply that Sherrill seemed to have landed the catch of the season right at the start; Barney Fennimore continued to drop in every day or two and ask for Sherrill. Carol always acted just as if he were calling on herself personally and did her best to claim the center of the stage, but she knew in her heart that it was her cousin he came to see, and she was furious about it.

  A climax was reached one Friday afternoon when Carol and her mother had been away for nearly all day, attending various shopping and social functions, and arrived home just in time to see Barney Fennimore take his departure, a more than usually serious look upon his face. Uncle Weston had been away all the week on a business trip, and Sherrill had not had an especially easy time.

  “I think that it’s time that something was done about this!” stormed Carol, stamping her expensively shod foot. “Eloise, are you going to sit and see my cousin take away my men friends from right under my nose?”

  “Really, Sherrill,” said Aunt Eloise, giving her niece a withering glance, “I think for a saint, and a novice, that you are doing very well. I scarcely anticipated when I invited you here that you would be so ambitious as to set your cap for the most inaccessible man in town. I think you scarcely can realize his position, and his wealth and family. He wouldn’t marry you, you know. He’s only playing! Young men like that do play around with a girl without any thought of getting settled in life. He doubtless thinks perhaps that you have money just because you managed somehow to get some clever clothes, but when he came to find out, he would have some excuse—”

  The danger signals flamed out on Sher
rill’s fair cheeks, and a brilliant flash came into her eyes. She swung around toward her aunt and opened fire in the midst of her sentence. “Stop!” she cried. “You’ve no right to talk to me in that way! I have never asked that young man to come and see me, nor urged him to stay, nor encouraged him in anyway. And I have no desire to marry him, or anybody else at the present, anyway. And if I had, I should not have come away from home to find somebody. I will not stand being spoken to in that way! I think you are—disgusting! Oh!”

  Her voice was trembling with tears. She could not trust herself another instant. Pressing her fingers to her eyes to stay the torrent that threatened, she fled from the room.

  “Oh, so the little saint has become a spitfire!” pursued the clear, icy tones of her aunt as she hurried down the hall.

  Locked in her room, Sherrill fell upon her knees beside the bed and sobbed her heart out. She had failed, failed, miserably and abjectly. She had lost all chance of being a witness in that house. She had let her tongue get away with her pride, and abased herself so low by answering back that she felt the case was hopeless. She could never undo what she had just done. No woman, especially Aunt Eloise, would ever forgive being called disgusting! Oh, why had she cared so much after all? The nasty little things they had said had just been the enemy’s way of trying her. And she had fallen!

  Over and over came the words about her Savior in His hour of trial: “And He answered them not a word.” Oh, if she could have done that! Have remembered that it was not flesh and blood she was striving against, but the rulers of the darkness of this world. If she had only remembered the resurrection power that was hers to claim in any time of temptation, over the weakness of the flesh.

  Well, but now, having done this, she must go and apologize. That of course was the obvious thing for a lady, much more a Christian, to do.

  So after praying for strength she arose, bathed her eyes, and went to her aunt’s door, tapping gently for admittance.