Brentwood

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “Oh, and you’ve shown me an inheritance I didn’t dream before that I had!” said Marjorie, with shining eyes.

  As she took her way home an hour later, she reflected how utterly changed was her life in just a short week’s time. It almost seemed that she was a different girl from the one who had come up in the beautiful Wetherill mansion doing all the proper conventional things that a girl in her station should do, happy and carefree, a trifle wistful, and not quite satisfied. And now here she was in a new city, with a brand-new family all her very own, a new home, new interests, and at least one new friend. Unless she might also count the lawyer Mr. Bryant a friend, too, for he had been very kind. And not once had she felt a pang of regret for the things she had left behind her. Not once had she been sorry she had not accepted her other invitations for the holidays! Oh, of course, she sorrowed for the one who had been her mother for so many years, but that grief had been so gradual and final when Mrs. Wetherill was gone, that it was a thing she had to put aside entirely from her life or else be in continual mourning. And she was glad she had such an absorbing interest to divert herself from the loneliness that would surely have settled down upon her if she had stayed in the house alone and tried to go on with her life as it had been.

  The doctor was there when she reached the house. He was standing in the living room talking to Betty, telling her about a certain Christmas in his childhood when he had been alone among strangers, desolate and forlorn, his only Christmas present a maple sugar Santa Claus. He had stood by the window all the afternoon licking it and staring out on a strange little western town because he had nothing else to do. He never had liked maple sugar since.

  Betty stood in the doorway listening sympathetically to the story, and Marjorie thought she saw a wistful look in the young doctor’s eyes. She wondered if he had a home and family now to make Christmas merry for him, or was he lonely yet? If he was, how nice it would be if they were only in Brentwood and could invite him to Christmas dinner. Nice to have Gideon Reaver, too. But, of course, they couldn’t do anything like that in this little house, especially with Mother sick and nobody to help get the dinner. It was not to be thought of, but it was an idea for another year, supposing all went well. What nice times they could have in the lovely old house in Brentwood! Marjorie clutched the precious deed-papers happily in her hand and hurried upstairs to take off her hat and get ready to help with dinner.

  That evening after supper they all gathered for a few minutes in her mother’s room, all but Ted, who had to go to his evening job.

  Sunny came smiling in and pulled at Marjorie’s dress.

  “ ’Nother Betty, story, please! ’Nother Betty! ’Nother Betty! Tell us a story, please!” he begged persistently.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake!” said Betty petulantly. “Stop calling her that silly name! Mother, what are we going to call my sister? We can’t go around ignoring her, or calling her ‘you’ all the time. Nobody dares mention her, and I think it’s time we had some understanding about it. I’m sure she doesn’t want to go around as ‘’Nother Betty’ all the time. I guess it’s up to you, Mother, to tell us what to do. Are you well enough to think about it?”

  The mother smiled.

  “Oh, yes, I’m well enough, but I don’t think it is exactly up to me. It seems to me that the sister herself should be consulted. Your father and I have talked it over, and he feels that she should keep the name with which she was christened. He says it is her legal name. It is so recorded on her birth certificate, and in the papers of adoption, and also it is courteous for her to keep the name given her by the people who were father and mother to her all these years.”

  “But they couldn’t be hurt by it now,” burst forth Betty.

  “No, perhaps not, but there is a fineness of courtesy that goes beyond mere hurting people,” suggested the father. “Besides, none of you realize that your sister has grown up with her name and it would be awkward and annoying for her to change it now. All of her Chicago friends call her Marjorie, and if you will just think a minute you will find that we ourselves have spoken of her as Marjorie. Even you children have called that picture of your sister ‘Marjorie.’ You would probably have to work pretty hard to change to anything else.”

  They were silent, realizing that this was the truth.

  “Well, I like Marjorie better than Dorothy, anyway,” said Bud, as if that settled it.

  “I’m not sure but I do, too,” said the mother. “How about you, dear child? What would you like to have us do?” She turned loving eyes toward Marjorie.

  “Why, I’ve always liked Marjorie pretty well,” she said, “but I wouldn’t mind changing if you preferred the other. I would want you to call me what you liked best.”

  “Then she’s Marjorie!” announced the father. “Don’t you say so, Mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “Say it, Sunny! Sister Marjorie!”

  “Sitter Mar-dory!” said Sunny with great effort, and then laughed long and loud over his achievement.

  The little conference was broken up, and the mother hustled off to bed soon after that, but Marjorie, as she bade her mother good night, was taken in frail, loving arms and tenderly kissed.

  “My little Marjorie!” she whispered, and Marjorie felt that she belonged thoroughly, name and all. And it was a relief not to have to get used to a new name. Some people would call her Miss Gay, of course, and her old friends would say Miss Wetherill, but what did it matter? It couldn’t change herself. And now she had a family of her own what did she care about a name?

  “And when she gets married, she’ll have to change her name anyway, won’t she? That is, she’ll change the end one. Isn’t that so, Marjorie?”

  Marjorie laughed. “Yes, brother, when and if. But that will be something else again, so don’t let’s worry about it.”

  Chapter 14

  Lawyer Melbourne forgot to telephone Evan Brower until midmorning of the day before Christmas. He really wasn’t to blame, for the case he was working on was a very important one, and some new features developed suddenly that made it necessary for him to fly to the far west and be gone three days. Evan Brower never entered his mind again until his return home, when he chanced to come on a memorandum on his desk that Brower must be called.

  So Evan Brower was in a state of mind when at last the message got to him late in the afternoon with Marjorie’s address. He immediately went to work trying to get her on the telephone. Mr. Melbourne had not given the drugstore number. It hadn’t occurred to him. So Evan tried in vain.

  At last he went out and sent a large box of wonderful orchids to her by telegraph with his Christmas greetings.

  He made his plans to slip away from his mother’s annual family Christmas gathering immediately after the old-fashioned midday dinner and take a plane to the city where Marjorie was staying. He would arrive in plenty of time to take her out for a late dinner and the evening somewhere. He did not let her know of his coming. It was better to take her by surprise.

  The Gays, meanwhile, had been having a wonderful time getting ready for Christmas. Marjorie, of course, had done the ordering. There was a twenty-pound turkey, a wonderful bird, and all the trimmings. The girls waited upon their mother joyfully, asking questions about the stuffing and the roasting, and Marjorie had her first real lesson in serious cooking.

  Ted had brought the Christmas tree home two days before and stood it up at the back door to the envy of all the backyard-gazers. Christmas Eve he brought it in and set it up in the parlor, where it glorified the shabby little room. They strung holly wreaths and laurel about until the faded wallpaper retired utterly from view and the ugly wooden mantel became a thing of beauty.

  The children were allowed to stay up and help trim the tree, hanging their own silver chains and pretty little strings of silver balls and tiny ornaments on the lower branches, while the older ones put on the lights and tinsel and balls above. Then they hung their stockings on the mantel and went to bed with shining eyes and ros
y cheeks, almost bursting with excitement.

  It was the next morning about ten o’clock, while they were just in the most interesting part of opening the presents, that the doorbell rang and an enormous box arrived from one of the big city florists.

  “Miss Marjorie Wetherill,” the driver announced. “Sign on the top line!”

  Ted, who had gone to the door, hesitated. “Miss Wetherill!” Then he remembered and signed for it. He came back into the room with a ghastly look on his face, the Christmas joy all flattened out into a drab dignity as he came over to Marjorie with the box. Chicago had reached its long arm and was claiming their Lady Santa Claus! It seemed that the lovely illusions were about to be dispelled.

  Marjorie looked up and smiled.

  “For me? How ridiculous! How in the world did anybody find out where I was? Oh, perhaps it’s from Mr. Melbourne, our old lawyer. Shall I open it now or wait till we are done with our own things?”

  “Open it now and get it over with!” growled Ted in such a bearish voice that his mother looked up.

  “Why, Ted, dear! What a rude way to speak!”

  Ted turned red. He tried to think of some apology, but the words didn’t come. He couldn’t express just what it was that had brought a cloud over his bright spirits.

  “Oh, Mother! That’s all right! I know how he feels!” said Marjorie, laughing. “We both hate to have our own nice time interrupted just now. You know, this is the first Christmas I’ve ever spent with my very own family, and I don’t like anybody else to intrude. Put the box on the stairs, brother. They’re only flowers, and they’ll keep till afterward.”

  “No, open them, open them!” pleaded Bonnie.

  “Open!” echoed Sunny.

  So Marjorie, laughing, opened the box and disclosed the wonderful orchids.

  The card which lay on the top fell to the floor, and Bud picked it up and read it aloud before anybody noticed to stop him.

  “ ‘Christmas Greetings for Marjorie from Evan Brower.’ Who’s Evan Brower, Marjorie?”

  “Buddie!” said his mother severely, “that’s very rude! You should never read other people’s cards. Give it back to your sister at once. I’m ashamed of you!”

  Bud hung his head and handed the card to Marjorie, but he repeated his question. “Who’s Evan Brower?”

  Somehow Marjorie felt the eyes of the family upon her in question, though they hadn’t meant she should, and the color crept up into her fair cheeks. But she laughed.

  “Oh, he’s just an old friend of the Wetherill family,” she said casually. “They’re gorgeous, aren’t they? But let’s put them back in their box until we get through our fun. They’ll keep better there. Then we can get them out and decorate with them.”

  “They’re orchids, aren’t they?” said Ted, almost accusingly, Marjorie thought. “They’re about the most expensive flower there is, aren’t they?”

  “Why, I don’t know about the expensive part. Yes, I guess they are considered rather rare. We’ll give them to Mother, shall we? I’d like to have her have them. Now, let’s forget them and go back to our stockings. Bonnie, wasn’t it your turn next? See, there’s a note in the top of your stocking that has a cord tied to it, and it reaches down to that box on the floor. Can you lift it up or do you want me to help?”

  So the whole family were presently watching Bonnie with her lovely big doll and the orchids reposed in their box in the dining room, forgotten for the moment by all. How horrified Evan Brower would have been if he could have known. It was not until the girls went out in the kitchen to put the dinner on the table two hours later that Marjorie found Betty peeking into the box and touching a lovely bloom with the tips of her fingers.

  It is safe to say that Marjorie had never had such a happy Christmas in all her life. The thrill of giving had never been hers before. She had bought handsome presents for her friends and acquaintances out of the generous allowance she always had, but this giving to loved ones, especially what they needed, was a different thing, and she enjoyed every minute of that morning intensely. Such surprise and delight as there was over every little thing! The children went wild over their toys, and then got very still and sat and held them in a kind of wonder. Bud, of course, wanted the dining room cleared off everything so he could set up his electric train at once, but was persuaded to better things, and so the box with the electric train was relegated to the dining room with the orchids for a time, and Bud came back reluctantly to watch everybody and beam and enjoy.

  The last present was a long envelope done up in a fascinating box with a great seal and long red ribbons hanging from the package.

  “ ‘To Mr. George Gay with many wishes for a happy Christmas that shall last all the year,’ ” read Ted as he handed it out with a flourish. Ted was as much in the dark about it as any of them, for Marjorie had decided not to tell anyone her secret, so they all stood about in awe and wonder and watched their father carefully open the box, while Mother leaned over his shoulder and looked with interest. Because it was so elaborately wrapped, they both thought it must be some kind of joke, and cast amused glances of questioning about the silent young group.

  But they had to wait some time before the legal document finally came to light, and then there was a note within that had to be read. The astounded father studied the paper and then the note, and read them both slowly as it dawned upon him little by little that the document he held was a deed to his beloved lost house in Brentwood. But still he didn’t quite understand. So he turned to the note and read it aloud:

  Dear Father,

  This isn’t exactly a Christmas gift. It’s only an old possession come back to you, and this time entirely free from any obligation.

  Hoping it may bring you joy and comfort for many Christmases to come,

  Your loving ‘Nother Betty!

  When it finally dawned upon them all that the dear lost home was theirs again, there was first an awful stillness, followed by the biggest tumult of shouting and hurrahing the Gay household had ever known. The children weren’t quite aware yet what it all meant, but they climbed upon their father and clapped their hands and yelled at the top of their lungs, and then they climbed all over Marjorie, and then they started in on Betty and Ted, until suddenly Father noticed that Mother was crying softly. Smiling and crying like April rain in sunshine.

  “Look here, this won’t do, Mother! You’re going to get all used up. You ought to lie right down and rest and have everybody keep still!” he said anxiously.

  “Oh, no,” said Mother, smiling through her tears. “Don’t you know that joy never kills? I heard the doctor say that the other day myself, down in the hall to Betty! I think he was talking about me, and I couldn’t imagine what joy I could possibly be going to have that wouldn’t kill. But now I know. Two wonderful things! To think they should both come together! My dear other girl, and my dear home, both back again! It seems too good to be true!”

  “It does!” said the father, turning suddenly to Marjorie. “But I don’t understand how you did it? I can’t believe it yet. You don’t know, daughter, but those men who took the house from me are tricky.”

  “Oh, yes, I do,” laughed Marjorie. “I found that out. But I had a trickier one. I had a great lawyer that my Chicago lawyer recommended, and he made them see the error of their ways. They didn’t exactly want Mr. Bryant to take it to court and make the whole thing public. I gathered that he had something else on them already and they were afraid of him, for they came right down to terms as soon as he went to them.”

  Mr. Gay looked down at the paper in his hand thoughtfully, gravely, smoothed it gently with his fingers.

  “I ought to tell you, dear, I am not any better prepared to keep this now than I was when I lost it,” he said with a deep sigh. “Not as well, in fact, for then I thought I would have a good job soon and everything would be all right. But now I have learned that there are no jobs anymore for such as I. I hate to disappoint you, little girl, after you have been so thoughtful and t
aken so much trouble, but I’m afraid I should not accept this after all. You see, I understand business, and I know now that I never could possibly pay off this mortgage, nor even the interest on it. If I am able to supply food and a modest shelter and clothing for my family, it will be all I can possibly hope for. And I am exceedingly dubious about ever being able to do even that.”

  But Marjorie was beside him at once, her hand resting on his shoulder.

  “You don’t understand, Father,” she said, her face full of eagerness, “the mortgage is all paid off. There isn’t a cent for you to pay. Read your note. Didn’t you see it said it was all clear? There’ll be nothing any more on it but taxes and any repairs that have to be made, and I am going to look after those, at least until you get to be a millionaire.”

  “Oh, my dear!” said Mr. Gay, suddenly putting his head down on his hand. “This is too much! Too much! I never dreamed of such a wonderful miracle!”

  It was a long time before the Gay family simmered down to real life again. Such wonderful things had happened that it didn’t seem worthwhile to consider common matters anymore. Until suddenly the turkey set up an outcry from the oven and sent Betty and Marjorie scuttling to the kitchen.

  The children were all too excited to talk connectedly. They went from one gift to another, rejoicing over first this and then that. The girls in the kitchen were getting the vegetables cooking, basting the turkey, putting celery and cranberries and olives on the table, and talking.

  “Oh, I can’t believe I’ve really got a fur coat!” cried Betty. “You ought not to have done it, Marjorie. It’s much too grand for me, and I know it cost an awful lot. I could have got along with a cloth coat with just a collar of cheap fur. But oh, I love it! I never dreamed of anything half so grand!”

  “You can change it for any other kind,” said Marjorie. “I saw a beautiful beaver one, and a mink. Would you rather have mink or seal? I think fur is something each person has a special taste in.”