Kerry

by Grace Livingston Hill

  So with great joy Kerry rode away into the brilliant spring morning, to find her church again. It seemed almost as if she might be going to find McNair, too, so happy she was.

  They had to drive down past her lodging house before Kerry knew which way to direct Holbrook. As they passed, the door opened and Dawson hurried out with a suitcase, looking this way and that before he plunged across the street and around the corner. But for once his uncanny vigilance was at fault. He did not see Kerry, and she shrank back startled. He was not expecting to find her in a seven-thousand-dollar car.

  In the end they located the church, after a little skirmishing, and succeeded in getting good seats in the gallery in spite of a big crowd that was already gathering.

  “This is a pleasant room,” said Holbrook, looking around interestedly. “Not stuffy like most churches, with dull windows and no sunshine. I declare it looks really cheerful. Though I must confess I haven’t seen the inside of many churches since I was a kid, except for weddings. I wouldn’t expect to find anything as nice as this so far downtown. And what an audience! Gosh! Look at ’em standing up around the walls and sitting on the pulpit steps. Why, it’s like a first night show. Who did you say this guy was? People must know about him.”

  Kerry repeated what McNair had told her of the speaker, and he watched him when he came to the platform with real interest.

  “I like his mug,” said Holbrook after he had studied him a minute or two, “he looks like a real man. Gosh! He’s homely, isn’t he? But I like him.”

  The first burst of the gospel singing seemed to startle the young man, but after a verse or two somebody handed them a book, and she heard his clear baritone joining in with the rest. Somehow it made her very glad to have him take hold and be interested this way. She wondered if there were a possibility that he, too, might learn to know and love the Lord Jesus. She felt that she had found so much in the new life already that she longed to pass it on to someone else. It seemed the only way she could show her gratitude for having found the truth herself. It thrilled her to think that this nice boy had not sneered at her, not turned down the church service.

  Young Holbrook listened intently to the prayer and Bible reading, much as if it were all new to him, but when the speaker with the quaint burr on his tongue began to talk, his eyes were fixed upon him in utter absorption. He sat as if fascinated.

  Kerry, watching, was glad, and prayed in her heart while she listened, “Oh, Father God, speak to him through this preacher. Help him to find Jesus Christ!”

  When the service was over the young man lingered looking wistfully toward the platform where many were thronging the preacher, shaking hands, stopping to talk with him.

  “Gosh! I never heard a preacher like that!” said the young man. “He’s human, he is. Gosh if I could hear preaching like that I’d go every Sunday, I swear I would!”

  “He’s to be here for another week, I think,” ventured Kerry.

  They drove back by the silver river in the bright noon sunshine, talking together quite naturally as other young people might have talked over a movie or the possibility of rain or another war. They were talking of the possibility of the return to earth of One called Jesus.

  “Gosh! If that was true it would make some change in things here, wouldn’t it? Gosh! I’d like to be around when that happened. That is, if I had a drag with God some way, so I knew where I’d be.”

  “Why,” said Kerry with assurance, “that’s entirely possible. A friend who knows Him well has been telling me that is what the Bible promises, that all who believe on the name of the only begotten Son of God have exactly that through Jesus Christ. He’s up there now before God to plead for us—all of us who are willing to be His—He will ‘present us faultless.’”

  “Oh, gosh! But you don’t know me!” said the young man gravely. “I wouldn’t come in His class at all.”

  “But I thought you told me yesterday that you weren’t a sinner.”

  “Well, not exactly a sinner, of course!” admitted the boy. “But when you come to face God, why of course that’s different—if there is a God at all—I wouldn’t stand a chance at all with God.”

  “Well, I don’t really know much about these things myself, for I’m a very new child of God, but I’ve been told, and shown that the Bible says, that ‘God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him hath everlasting life.’ The man this morning said that Christ puts His own righteousness over us and God doesn’t take account of us and our lives at all, because they’ve been bought and covered over with Christ.”

  Mile and mile they talked, and Kerry found herself recalling word by word the way in which McNair had led her, and as she talked she seemed to be nearer to him, and was exhilarated with the thought that now she was really passing on what she had found.

  All too soon they arrived at the Holbrook home, and found everybody out on the porch waiting for them. Natalie in a ravishing pink taffeta was lounging in the hammock swing with her Celt beside her, and began at once to jeer at her brother for going to church. Kerry hated it for him, and wished they wouldn’t. It seemed to her that all the beauty of the morning was being dispelled.

  But the young man received their taunts with a baffling seriousness.

  “Say, you all don’t know what you’ve missed. Some great speaker from Scotland. Say, you ought to go and hear him. He’s great! Dad, did you ever know what a lot of things are going on today that were foretold in detail in the Bible hundreds of years ago?”

  “Oh, listen to him!” laughed his sister, “he must have been to a spiritualistic séance, or an evangelistic tent or something.”

  “Sounds a bit leery, I admit,” the father said with a smile.

  “Extremely fanciful, I should say,” said the young man’s mother loftily. “Shall we go out to the dining room now?”

  The afternoon was filled with cheeriness. People came by twos and threes, dropped in to talk and laugh, and a few to have a quiet game of cards. There was music occasionally, and much laughter and banter and tossing of frivolous conversation back and forth. There did not seem to be any chance to escape. There was a girl named Amelie Rivers who absorbed young Holbrook to the exclusion of everybody else. Once he looked across the room at Kerry and sent her a swift smile, which cheered the loneliness a bit, but instantly his mother, who seemed to be keeping close watch on him, sent him on an errand and Amelie with him.

  Kerry was glad when tea was served and the afternoon was drawing to a close. She felt relief at the thought of getting back to her own little lodging room. The noise of the afternoon was getting on her nerves. The radio kept up a continual clatter above the voices of the guests, and Kerry wondered how they stood the confusion. But nobody else seemed to mind. When the radio soloed in a high soprano or bellowed in a howling bass, they only raised their voices louder and kept on their even course of conversation. Kerry, stranded in a big chair in the great arched window looking toward the river felt like one caught on an island in the midst of a noisy eddying sea.

  Evening came and with it no relief, until finally, when the young people began to dance, the older ones to play cards, the men went down to the pool room in the basement, and the Amelie girl continued to demand young Holbrook’s entire attention, Kerry quietly excused herself on the plea of having to work the next day, and went to bed. She was glad that her weekend was over, and that she might go back to real living tomorrow. Her last thought at night was that perhaps when she went back to her room there would be a letter awaiting her from McNair.

  Chapter 16

  Kerry went to town the next morning on the train with the elder Holbrook.

  Young Harrington had offered to take her in the car, in fact had been most assiduous in pressing the drive upon her, but his mother had succeeded in sidetracking him. Most apologetically, when she heard what was going on, she interrupted.

  “I’m so sorry, Harrington, but I promised Amelie you would drive us over to the Thornto
n’s this morning, and I’m afraid you could not possibly get back in time.”

  Young Holbrook frowned and was quite rude to his mother about it, but she remained firm.

  On the whole Kerry was glad to make her adieus and get away. Fervently she thanked Mrs. Holbrook for her kindness, and for further vague invitations which she somewhat reluctantly added to her husband’s statement that of course she would come out often. Kerry did not intend to come again if she could help it, and she knew that Mrs. Holbrook did not intend to issue further definite invitations if she could help it.

  Mr. Holbrook was absorbed in his morning paper most of the way to town, but Kerry was glad to have a little quiet to herself before she entered upon her new duties. She felt as if her spirit were ruffled up with the last hour at the breakfast table. Yet she could not help feeling glad that she had had opportunity to introduce Harrington Holbrook to the things of the spirit. At least he might think of them sometime again, and find the way of salvation. And she suddenly realized that she cared very much to have others get what had brought such peace to her own troubled soul.

  Kerry found her new work most interesting.

  She was given a desk all her own in a large pleasant room with many other desks. There was a typewriter that swung back out of the way when not in use, and behind her chair a large filing case, which was her special charge. Her work was also to include some proofreading, and that appealed to her.

  At the first glance she saw that her fellow laborers were educated people who would be congenial associates, and she was motivated at once to do her best work. She felt before the day was over that she had the friendliness of the whole office. Everyone had been kind in showing her around and giving her little hints that helped her quickly to fall into line and get her work done as it should be. Even Ted, the fifteen-year-old office boy who brought copy up from the printing shop and ran all the errands, was thoughtful, bringing her a glass of water when he brought one to a neighboring desk. At noon Ted took her to the corner to show her a neat little tea room tucked away in a side street where he said they had the best apple pie and crullers in the whole city, and soup good enough to eat itself.

  Kerry accepted his friendship joyfully and gave him one of her rare smiles that somehow seemed to catch its brightness from the glory of her red-gold hair. When she came back from her lunch she brought him three round sugary doughnuts in a paper bag.

  “They were so good,” she said with another smile. “I thought you’d like to taste them today.”

  His eyes danced with pleasure.

  “Oh, gee!” he said gratefully. “That’s nice of you. I bring my lunches, and I didn’t have much today. My mother was sick and I had to make it myself. Only brought some bread and an apple.”

  Late that afternoon when Kerry left the building Ted was standing at the curb beside his motorcycle. He waved a comradely hand.

  “So long!” he said cheerily. “They weren’t hard to eat, were they! Well, see you!” and he swung his leg over the saddle and steered away with a great sound of chugging and backfire.

  Well, he was only a boy, but it was nice to have someone who was friendly. It took away the great loneliness that possessed her in this new land.

  It was nearly a mile from the office to her lodging, but Kerry felt the exercise was good for her and besides, it saved money, and she must conserve every cent. Her weekend party had taught her that there were many little changes that must be speedily made in her wardrobe now that she was a working woman. Not that she meant to lay in stock of evening and sports clothes, far from it. But there were a number of articles that she should have, and they must be bought as fast as she could afford them.

  As she started on her walk a hope sprang into her heart that gave light to her eyes, brought a flush of pleasure to her cheeks, and quickened her footsteps. Perhaps there would be a letter awaiting her from McNair.

  It was dusk in the hall when she unlocked the door and went in, but it was light enough to see that there was no letter lying on the hall table where she had seen other letters on Saturday, presumably for other occupants of the house. Disappointment dropped down upon her, but unwilling to give up the possibility she tapped on Mrs. Scott’s door and inquired, thinking perhaps it had been put away for safekeeping until her return. But there was nothing.

  Rather heavyhearted, with a sudden weariness and unaccountable loneliness upon her she went up to her room.

  She had not realized how cheap and sordid everything would look after the luxury in which she had been. Yet it seemed a quiet haven to her, and she was glad to get there.

  She dropped down on her bed and laid her tired face in the pillow. After a few minutes’ rest she got up and turned on the light, smoothed her hair, rubbed her cheeks until they were pink, and smiled at herself in the little crooked mirror. She must not give way like this. She was here in New York for a purpose. She must not let things by the way distract her and upset her, and deter her from the work that was hers. If she had not let herself get notions about McNair she never would have felt so downcast when he did not write. Of course he was busy, and she could not expect him to take the first minute to keep his promise; and anyway, what had he to say to her, a mere stranger, except pleasantries and an apology for having had to leave before he had fulfilled his promise of taking her around the city? It would be only a letter of courtesy anyway. Why did she mourn for it? She simply must stop thinking about him! God had used him to show her the way to find Him and now had taken him away before she allowed herself to become too interested in him. She would take hard hold of the things he had taught her, and remember him only as a good, kind friend who had gone his way back into his own world.

  She got out her little Testament and read a few verses and found comfort for her desolate young heart. Then she decided to go out and eat supper and hunt up her church again. A meeting had been announced. Of course, that was what she would do. And she would take pencil and notebook along and take down all the wonderful preacher said, so that she would have references to look up afterward. For she had noticed on Sunday how often he mentioned chapter and verse of something he quoted.

  So she got her supper and went to the meeting. Listening again to the great preacher she forgot her loneliness, and yet, in spite of herself she could not forget McNair.

  His friendship lingered with her and she found herself thinking that she would tell him this or that, or she would ask him some question about a certain point that was brought up.

  The interval since she had seen Dawson had dimmed her dread of him, and as several days passed without her meeting him on the stairs or in the street, she began to hope that he had given up his annoyances, and was perhaps going about his own business. She knew that he was still in the house because she heard him going upstairs late every night, but she had formed the habit of throwing a small rug across the crack of her door so that even her light would not give him notice of her presence there, and so felt secure in her own premises.

  The work at the office grew daily more absorbing and interesting. As the week went by Kerry liked more and more the people with whom she worked, and she found them being friendly to her, not only for her own sake, but for her father’s sake. For little by little it had leaked out among the offices who she was, and several people high in authority had come and introduced themselves. Some even said they had known her father years ago, or had had the privilege of hearing him speak in his younger days before he went abroad. So she was very happy in her work, and before the end of the week had lost some of her feeling of being a stranger everywhere.

  Sometimes Ripley Holbrook would pass through the room where she was busy, and would stop at her desk to ask her how it was going, and say that he hoped she would come out to see them again soon. That made it nice, too, for all the others showed her that they felt she was high in favor.

  Ted brought her a daffodil one morning that had fallen from a florist’s car, and another time a little pink geranium in a pot from the shop where the
florist’s car belonged. He had done the man a favor and begged for the plant. Kerry carried it home and kept it on her windowsill, watering it daily. It bloomed sweetly in the city gloom, and seemed like a silent companion full of good will.

  Harrington Holbrook breezed into the office Friday morning just when she was busiest and insisted that she should promise to take a horseback ride with him in the park on Saturday afternoon, but she sweetly declined.

  “In the first place I can’t ride, in the second place I have nothing suitable to wear riding, and in the third place I couldn’t anyway, I am a working woman, you know.”

  The boy went away at last when she had convinced him that she wouldn’t go, with a kind of hunger and dissatisfaction in his eyes. But Kerry did not sigh. She kept on working, eager for the afternoon to come when she might go back to her room and see if there was any mail for her.

  Yes, it would keep cropping up, that eagerness for McNair’s letter! In spite of everything she kept looking for it.

  “If it would only just come and settle me!” she told herself. “Of course just a little formal note in excuse, but I hate to think he has entirely forgotten when he was so kind and interested.”

  But the week went by and still no letter.

  Sunday morning she went to church again, and took a seat near the back. Just before the sermon began Harrington Holbrook came in and sat beside her.

  “I just thought you’d be here!” he whispered, and then settled down to listen. And he really seemed interested! Kerry couldn’t help being glad to have him there, and so friendly, but she kept worrying a little underneath it all. If the Holbrooks knew that he was seeking her they would not like it. At least his mother would not, she was sure of that. And it might put her in a bad light before her employer. It would look like a secret understanding between them. Yet it was good to see the look of interest in his face again as the sermon went on. He really was listening. Perhaps he would get something that would be lasting for his whole life.