The mother gave a little gasp as she looked up, and then swallowed her surprise and managed a smile.
“That sounds wonderful, Audrey. I’d get a couple of them if I were you, dear. You don’t come on a thing like that often, you know.”
Suddenly the father looked up with a very wicked twinkle in his eye.
“Hop to it, Audrey girl!” he said pompously. “My entire bank account is at your disposal.”
Jane almost lost her composure then. The look on Evadne’s face was so full of so many things. Astonishment, incredulity, wonder. For the first time that evening she seemed to be really interested in them all. “They are just taking her for a ride,” giggled Jane to herself, “and she doesn’t seem to know it. Well, they probably have some reason, and it certainly is wonderful to see a girl like that getting razzed.”
But these dear people, the father and mother, and Audrey, were kindly, and not naturally sharp-minded. What reason could there be for their animosity? Was it their son? Were they afraid for him? For surely this girl would not be good for any young man, a girl with a cruel twist to her character!
“Thanks, Dad,” said Audrey. “Come on, Jane, if you have finished your lemon pie. Let’s take a run on the beach and work off some of our extra spirits. May we be excused, please? We have a date with the moonlight!”
Audrey arose as her mother nodded assent, and catching Jane’s willing hand led her out of the room by a side door, out of the house, and down onto the broad stretch of smooth white beach, with the shimmering opal-tinted expanse of sea stretching as far as the eye could reach.
“Weren’t you great!” said Audrey. “You certainly played up to my lead in fine shape. I nearly ruined it all by laughing; you did so well.”
“Well, I wasn’t quite sure I should,” said Jane. “It didn’t seem quite true. Of course, I couldn’t go to a regatta, and I never expect to see one, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to answer like that. I don’t suppose I’ll ever see her again, but it was fun.”
“Yes. Wasn’t it? Isn’t she the worst ever? I can’t stand her. She’s waiting on the chance of seeing my brother tonight, and he may not come home till next week. He’s off on a business trip. I wanted you to meet him. He’s a dear! But some other time perhaps! Now, we came out to run, let’s run!”
So they dropped hands and flew down the beach till they were entirely out of breath. At last they slowed down and walked more quietly together.
“I’m afraid you will think we are terribly rude, the whole family, I mean. We don’t usually ride our guests that way. But it happens that this particular one has been most obnoxious to us all in more ways than one, and I think Dad especially was trying her out on one or two points and studying her.”
“Yes,” said Jane. “I thought it must be something like that. Has she any right—that is—is she—engaged to your brother, or anything?”
Jane could not shake off a certain sense of embarrassment as she spoke of the brother. How silly, just because his name was Kent! It couldn’t be her Kent, it just couldn’t! Things didn’t happen that way. Even if it were, he wasn’t hers. Why should she care? But she must remember to ask Audrey her last name at the next lull in conversation. It was absurd to be visiting here and not know it.
“Engaged? Goodness, I hope not!” said Audrey vehemently. “Still, you never can tell. A girl like that has ways of getting around a man that are inexplicable. Oh, it would break our hearts if my brother should marry her, or even be engaged to her.”
“There are a lot of couples who must have been deceived in each other,” said Jane. “I don’t see what some of them see in each other. Of course, we see a good deal of that in the store, and it makes me disgusted. There are some really good-looking young men there that act fool with every girl they meet. A girl can scarcely know whom she can trust. So many men are all for themselves!”
“Oh gracious!” said Audrey. “That makes me think of the man who came to the door while we were at dinner. And we slipped out the side door and ran away! Now I suppose he is sitting there yet, waiting for me, or else he is very angry and has gone away forever! Well, I really don’t care. He was getting to be a nuisance. But I don’t want to be rude. Would you mind running back with me partway? I don’t like to leave you away off here alone, but if you don’t want to come in right away you could linger down by the lifeboat where we were this afternoon till I can get rid of him and come to you.”
“All right,” said Jane. “I’d love sitting in that boat and just looking out to sea. I wish you wouldn’t hurry. Stay as long as you want to. I’ll be all right. Don’t come back unless you want to use me for an excuse to get away from something.”
“Ah! It’s rare to have a friend who understands!” said Audrey, catching Jane’s hand and squeezing it. “Now, let’s go!” and they were off again down the beach.
Jane climbed into the stranded lifeboat and settled herself, gazing off into the silver sea, across the molten stretch of sand. She spread her rosy dress about her and could scarcely believe it was herself sitting there by the sea. So much sea, so much moon, so much silver and gold, and not a rift of a cloud in the sky!
Presently her thoughts went back to the dinner, and the strange girl, and the young man named Kent who was supposed to have come to the door and didn’t. Oh, could it be her Kent, her lawyer? Of course not. That would be too fantastic.
But if it should be, and he came home while she was here, what would he think of her? Wouldn’t she appear to be just in a class with that Laverock woman at dinner? How dreadful!
It seemed awful to think of him as interested in such a girl—if it should really be the same man. She couldn’t believe it. She just wouldn’t. And she wouldn’t think about it, nor him, anymore. She would just enjoy this wonderful silver vision. Why, this was as near as an earthly mind could ever vision the heavenly shore! Would it look like that when she died and was nearing the shore of heaven? She could almost see the towers of a heavenly mansion, off there in the silver-blue sea.
“Oh, God! Keep me from getting mixed up with this earth so that I shall forget that this world is not my home!”
Then as her thoughts sped back into the past week, she began to hum softly and then to sing louder:
“Oh Lord, You know
I have no friend like You,
If heaven is not my home
Oh Lord, what shall I do?”
Her voice rolled out sweetly in the wide silver night. She felt as if she were talking to God. She had a strong consciousness that she was all alone with God, that no one else could hear her. It had been literally years since she had been so much alone as this. She always felt that she would be overheard if she sang. She had never dared even in church or the Bible class to let her voice out to its fullest. But now she felt that the soft murmur of the sea would drown any sound she made, so that it could not possibly reach up to the house, and there was not a creature in sight either way.
She leaned back against the tiller of the boat and sang on. When she had finished the simple song, she sang others, some that she had heard recently at the Bible class, and more from the store in her memory, until the past came trooping about her and peopled the lovely silver world with those she had loved and lost. There were tears in her eyes now, and her voice broke occasionally, but she sang on with that full-throated beauty that she scarcely had known she possessed. She was just singing to the Lord. At last she paused, and it was as if all the sacred truth she had been taught by her parents, all the wonderful new Bible truths that she had been learning the past few days, blended together and thrilled her young soul till it wanted to speak aloud to God. Instinctively she went back to the new song that had been ringing in her heart more or less ever since she had first heard it. She sang it as if she were singing to God from the depths of her being, slowly, soulfully, beautifully, through to the end:
“Oh Lord, You know
I have no friend like you—!”
And coming out of the silver night
it sped up the beach and down the beach like the cry of a saved soul suddenly learning its isolation from all around it. The wistful longing of her desolate young heart rang out hopefully with the final lines:
“I can’t feel at home
In this world anymore!”
And suddenly, as she ended, the melody rang on from the beginning again, with other voices like an echo taking up the strain:
“Oh Lord, You know”
Startled, yet still feeling herself alone, and as if angels, or some trick of her own imagination, had supplied the harmony, her voice took up the tune again and she sang as if inspired.
It was only an instant before she realized that they were real voices, those voices, and not a figment of her imagination, not angels, like those that came to the shepherds of old, not supernatural as for a minute it had seemed, but human. They were real-live voices singing with her. Tenor, bass, and now Audrey was humming an alto with them also!
She sprang up and looked around, but kept right on singing. She dared not stop. There they were, standing just a little back from her boat on the sand. She couldn’t see their faces enough to distinguish who they were, till they drew nearer, singing as they came.
It was then that she saw Kent, and a great gladness filled her heart. She didn’t stop to realize how astonishing the situation was, nor what he might think of her to find her here. She was just glad, and a flood of light filled her face and lit her eyes as she looked toward him with instant welcome, answering the radiance of welcome already in his own face for her. It was only a moment that they turned the glory light upon each other. Then Jane came to herself and began to take account of other factors in the situation. Who was this man with Kent? Could it be the man who had come to the door while they were at dinner? No, for she had seen this man before. Who was he? Ah! She knew now. It was the new teacher of the Bible class, Mr. Whitney! And no wonder he could sing like that, his own song that he had sung for them!
Oh, and they had all heard her sing alone, and maybe she had made mistakes! But how grand it was for them all to be there singing it together! And no wonder Audrey and her parents seemed familiar to her! She could see now, even in the moonlight, how very much the brother and sister resembled each other. Strange that she had not recognized that at once! She certainly would not have come here if she had! What should she do? Disappear?
“Sing it again,” exclaimed Audrey, as the last notes died away on the brilliant night. “I’m just getting on to that alto. It’s lovely. What tender beautiful words!”
So they sang it again, and it seemed even more exquisite yet.
Jane was standing down on the sand now with Audrey’s arm around her lovingly, looking off to the edges of the silver sea where little golden lapping wavelets caressed the silver sand. And suddenly she was aware that two other figures were coming slowly toward them down the beach, a woman and a man.
Chapter 18
The woman was dressed in blue, with golden hair that gleamed in the moonlight, and all at once something clutched at Jane’s throat with cold, frightening fingers, and drove the gladness away from her heart. What impossible situation was this anyway?
Here she had been rejoicing that Kent Havenner had come, when she had no possible right to rejoice. He belonged definitely to this other girl in blue! This insolent girl. No wonder Audrey didn’t like her. But it didn’t make any difference that she was a disagreeable girl. She evidently had a right to him. She had made it plain that she came down here to see him, had planned to surprise him at the door as if they had an understanding between them. And of course she, Jane, had no claim whatever upon Mr. Havenner, except in a business way, and possibly as a member of the Bible class. She never had had any claim, social or even religious, that should give her a right to such a tumult of joy as had come to her when she recognized him behind her singing. The blood burned hotly in her cheeks, and she was glad that moonlight would somewhat camouflage her face and hide her confusion. For she was ashamed. Almost as if her joy had been written flamingly across her face, she was ashamed! A nice girl did not admire a man so much as that at first. A man who was really nothing to her, a man she did not know except as an honorable respectable businessman. It was all wrong that it set her heart to singing. She had no right. Even if he did not definitely belong to any other girl yet, she had no right to be so happy about his approach. It was probably because she had had so little really enjoyable companionship, that she had idealized him. And she must snap out of it! Right here and now she must get wise to herself and take this all in a matter-of-fact way. He was nice, of course. But she would miss even the nice time she might have for a couple of hours tonight if she got silly about this thing.
She would just act to him exactly as she had always acted since she knew him—after all, the acquaintance was so very brief—and then when she got by herself she would give herself such a lecture as she never had before, and try to get some sense into her head. Meanwhile this was a nice time that God had sent her, and she must not spoil it. This teacher and Mr. Havenner, and Audrey! How nice that she was his sister! Still, of course she mustn’t count on coming down here again. But while she was here she would enjoy everything and not make them ashamed of her before these strangers, whoever they were.
The last notes of the quartette died away and there were the other two, standing a few yards from the boat!
It was Evadne’s voice that broke the sweet silence, trilling out an empty little laugh.
“My word!” she said lightly. “What a lugubrious song! It sounds as if you all were about to pass out! Why can’t you sing something cheerful?”
“I should say!” echoed Ballard Bainbridge. “Where did you rake up a deadly song like that? It sounds as if you were on a sit-down strike in a mine or something. You should sing something cheerful on a gorgeous night like this. How about it?” And he struck into the most modern tune he knew, with a pompous voice so filled with pride of itself that it sounded as if it were stuffed with cornmeal, or dry mashed potatoes.
There was utter silence while he sang, and Evadne stood beside him posed in the moonlight, wishing that it were the fashion to take pictures by moonlight and that someone had a candid camera. She knew she must be rather stunning with that light on her gold hair, and that handsome man beside her. So Audrey thought he was hers, did she? She’d better look out or she would lose him. Evadne had ways with her that could ensnare any number of men at once, no matter how impervious they thought they were to charms. She was glad that Kent was there where he could watch her. She had had no words with him as yet, for he had come in by the back door with his friend, and gone out again with Audrey by that same door. Evadne was not sure whether he had known she was there, for she had been sitting on the end porch, facing the other view of the beach, when he came in. But he knew she was here now, and she exulted in the thought that he would see her for the first time under such favorable circumstances. It had been a good hunch that had led her down here to his home. She was triumphant also that she had a good-looking man by her side. That was always an asset. Of course, she did not know how he despised that particular young man.
But Kent did not seem to be listening to the solo that was being rendered so affectedly. He was stepping quietly over to that Scarlett girl’s side, and taking her hand, smiling down into her face. Evadne darted a lightning glance at him. Was this only a gesture to show her that he had friends also? He was talking earnestly to Jane, as if he knew her well, smiling at her, and she at him. They were not disturbing the singer. They did not make a noise. But they were carrying on a silent little aside and enjoying it. She set her stubborn lips hatefully and flashed her jealous eyes, boding no good for any who displeased her.
Then the song was ended, and the singer beamed about waiting to be commended, but Evadne was busy and no one else cared to commend him.
“Let me introduce my friend Mr. Whitney,” spoke up Kent eagerly. “This is Miss Scarlett, Pat. And over here, Miss Laverock and Mr. Bainbridge. My siste
r Audrey, you have met.”
The stranger acknowledged the introductions courteously, and then Kent, still at Jane’s side, said: “Now, how about a walk on the beach while the tide’s out?” And possessing himself of Jane’s arm he whirled her about and started briskly up the beach, she falling quickly into step beside him.
“Shall we follow?” asked young Whitney of Audrey, and they started on a few paces behind the others.
There was nothing left for the other two guests but to follow. Ballard Bainbridge strolled lazily along, mortified that his song had made so little impression. He considered himself a fine singer.
“I’m afraid our efforts were scarcely appreciated,” he said loftily. “That is the trouble when one tries to uplift depression of any kind; it is so seldom understood.”
“Well, I thought your singing was swanky!” declared Evadne, lapsing into her lingo. “I never come out here, but I’m depressed. It is a great pity that these young people have been brought up by such antiquated parents. I thought Kent had gone out into the world enough to get over his early training, but he seems to have lapsed badly since I went abroad.”
“Yes, I suppose that is what’s the matter with them,” agreed Ballard, drawing Evadne’s arm into his and settling it comfortably close, their shoulders touching. “They are so bound by laws and customs and rules! It will be great when a new order of things is finally established in our country. Children will be no longer parent-ridden, they will be brought up by the state and able to express themselves as their wills prompt!”
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