THE HONOR GIRL

by Grace Livingston Hill

  He didn’t say all these things in just this way; he merely revealed them by his words, till all the cry and longing of his heart had been spoken out. Elsie forgot her own shame and sorrow in the pitiful picture of this lonely young life, and reached her hand into Jack’s overcoat pocket after his big hand, nestling in it comfortingly.

  “But God does care, dear. I know He does. Haven’t things been a little better lately?” she asked wistfully.

  He grasped the little hand strongly in his own.

  “You mean since you came? You bet they have! It hasn’t been the same house. It’s like heaven. It’s something like living now. It’s been wonderful. I don’t see why you did it, such a mess as things were here, and you had everything fine at Aunt Esther’s.”

  “I think God sent me,” she said thoughtfully. “I didn’t really want to come at all at first. I was interested in things in the city, and I had got weaned away from here. It was all wrong. I ought never to have gone away at all, I guess, or at least only for a little while till I got old enough to help make a home and know how to do things right. But I ought never to have been satisfied to stay there and live my life out without you. And yet I was. But, when I came out here that first day that I straightened things up a little, I felt something drawing me that I could not understand. And now I know that it must have been God telling me I was living where I did not belong, and I ought to get back to my place, and love it, and make it beautiful. It was because God loved you, Jack, that He made things different for us all.”

  “It doesn’t look much as if He loved you, bringing you into this,” murmured the brother with drawn brows. “I thought for a while that maybe Father was going to be different, now that you had come; but it didn’t last; you oughtn’t to have to bear it.”

  “Why not? Hard things make one grow strong. It isn’t a sign that God doesn’t love you just because He lets you get some hard knocks. You wouldn’t think a boy would be much account, would you, if he was brought up without hard knocks, just everything made easy for him?”

  So they walked about the town and talked until both felt strengthened for the fight they saw before them.

  It was all quiet at the house when they returned, and Eugene was just finishing his book-review. When it was done and the paper folded, Elsie shyly took a hand of each brother, and drew them over toward the couch.

  Wonderingly they followed her, and then she paused beside the couch and looked up at them bravely.

  “Will you kneel down with me?” she whispered wistfully.

  Embarrassed, yet not liking to refuse, the two big fellows knelt one on each side of her, their arms protectingly thrown about her; and kneeling so, with the flicker of the firelight upon them and the silent tragedy in the room above them, Elsie breathed her first audible prayer. It was a stumbling, halting, childlike petition; but it came from a heart full of longing and sorrow. It was very brief, only two or three sentences; but, simple as it was, it must have reached the Throne. The two big fellows found tears upon their cheeks, and they bowed their heads the lower, and had to struggle to keep back their own strong feelings. After the “Amen” they continued to kneel in silence for a minute or two; and, when they rose, they each in turn bent over their sister and kissed her good-night; but they had no language but their tears to show her how they appreciated her presence and her fine, sweet personality.

  Chapter 20

  Several times that evening and far into the night Cameron Stewart walked by the house in the stillness of the shadows, and kept watch with aching heart. He watched the lights go out one by one and quiet settle on the house; and again and yet again he walked by, that he might make sure that all was well. As he walked, he fought out something in his own heart, and tried to understand himself.

  Was it just sympathy that made him feel so keenly for this lovely girl? She was almost a stranger to him; yet he felt so strangely drawn to her. Something recoiled within him at the thought of her belonging to the man who had reeled off the trolley crying out invectives to the world. It seemed a hard thing that a man had a right to shame his own child in this way. When he thought of the lovely face of that girl as it must have looked when she saw her father, his very soul boiled within him with rage; and yet there was with it mingled a kind of pity for the poor creature who had allowed himself to become a slave to a habit that crazed him and unmanned him. It was of no use to wonder where the poor fellow got the liquor, of course as long as respectable people insisted upon having it, there would always be a way for tempted men to get it. The pity of it was that a girl like Elsie Hathaway had to be hurt by it. Such a bud of a girl, scarcely more than a child, and such a fine, sweet, brilliant girl too! If only he could do something to lift this sorrow from her life!

  The next afternoon as he drove his car down one of the principal city streets, he saw Mr. Hathaway ambling slowly, aimlessly toward him with uncertain gait. A glance made it plain that he was still under the influence of liquor, though by no means in the critical condition in which he had been the evening before.

  The truth was he had cunningly evaded Jack’s vigilance and made his way to the river, always his ultimate destination when despair overtook him and his own selfishness was revealed to him.

  How long he had stood shivering beside the murky water, looking down and thinking how it would be to lie beneath it with the boats stealing over his up turned face, and his eyes open always to the accusing heavens, he did not know. The usual climax was reached in the course of time, and an inextinguishable thirst clamored to be satisfied.

  He turned his footsteps away from the dramatic death he had never really meant to attempt, and hurried down into the city. He threaded his way this way and that through the streets, and suddenly there was a great car stopping beside the curb and a man leaning out to speak to him. He stopped, and tried to understand with his poor, bewildered brain.

  “Won’t you get in and ride with me, Mr. Hathaway?”

  Was it possible the man was asking him, him?

  He climbed unsteadily into the back seat, and allowed the stranger to wrap him up warmly. Then they whirled off through the streets, threading their way through the traffic, and finally getting out into the wide open thoroughfare. He soon fell into a profound sleep.

  For hours they flew over the road. Just as the dusk was dropping down about them they halted at a little inn in a quiet country town.

  Mr. Hathaway opened his eyes, and looked about in a dazed way. He wondered who the man was who was talking to him; but he got out and followed in where the lights shone and where little round tables were covered with white cloths.

  Food was being brought. There was hot oyster broth! It made him giddy to smell it. It tasted good, and he ate it greedily. It seemed to steady his nerves and send a tingle of life to his trembling fingers again. It gave him courage. There was a smell of coffee in the air. Yes, they were bringing coffee, smoking hot, and beefsteak, and other things. He ate and drank, and grew saner with every mouthful. About eight o’clock the telephone bell rang in Morningside and Elsie answered it.

  “That you, Elsie? Well, this is Dad. Yes, I’m all right. Yes, I’m taking a little automobile trip with a friend, and I’ll be home before midnight. Don’t sit up, and don’t you worry. Understand? I’m all right!”

  Shortly before midnight as softly as a car can go they slid up to the curb in front of the house, and Mr. Hathaway got out.

  But, quiet as they had been, Elsie was on the alert, and in her pink and silver robings was standing behind her rose curtains, peering out.

  The car stopped just behind the big lilac bush, so that she could not see who was driving it; but she heard a low voice say:

  “You usually go in town on the trolley, don’t you? Well, how about going with me tomorrow morning? I shall be going quite early. You have to be at your office at eight o’clock? Well, I’ll be at this corner at half past seven. That will give us plenty of time. Good-night.”

  The car slid away into the shadows again, and
Mr. Hathaway came steadily up the front walk with a self-respecting gait. Elsie slipped into bed with relief, and wondered what there was about the voice of the man that sounded so familiar.

  For three days Cameron Stewart had been taking Mr. Hathaway into town in the morning and bringing him out at night in his car, always managing to do it so unobservedly that as yet none of the family had found out. The third day, however, Jack happened to be home a little earlier than usual, and was standing at the front window when the car drew up to the curb behind the lilac bush and then whizzed silently away in the dusk. When his father came in, he asked: “Who’s your friend, Dad? Some class to you arriving in a big six car like that.”

  “It’s not the first time,” his father said, grinning proudly. “Been going and coming for several days like that. Some car, isn’t it? Why, my friend’s name is Stewart. He picked me up on Chestnut Street a few days ago, and since then we’ve been real chummy. He’s a nice, likely fellow. You ought to hear him talk.”

  “Stewart! You don’t mean it! Well, he’s some peach, he is! I wonder what he does it for.”

  “Oh, just to be sociable, I guess. Says he’s lonesome going and coming alone all the time.”

  Elsie, hovering in the hall fearfully, as she always did now when her father came home, heard the whole conversation, and stood looking out of the window thinking. It had been his voice, then, she had heard in the moonlight that night! She echoed Jack’s question in her heart, while her eyes grew strangely soft as she stared into the dusk.

  The days that followed were happy ones, although they were fraught with a certain degree of nervous anxiety. Each night the three children watched their father’s homecoming with tense, strained nerves, and relaxed into comforted sighs of relief when they saw him come steadily up the walk. Each morning his daughter’s heart was filled with prayer as she saw him go forth, always sending up a thankful song when she saw him climb into an automobile instead of a car in the dim morning light; and this happened as often as two or three times a week.

  Cameron Stewart was not forcing himself upon them. He did not come in to call for a whole week after the evening when Mr. Hathaway had come home under the influence of liquor. He wanted to let the circumstance be forgotten, so that his presence might not embarrass them. But when he came, Elsie let him know by the look in her eyes and the way in which she welcomed him that she was grateful to him. Nothing was said, of course; but he understood that she understood, and he was fully repaid for the small sacrifice he had made to help the old man past the hour of temptation and establish him in safe habits again.

  It was almost pitiful, the way Mr. Hathaway came forward to welcome Cameron Stewart. A little of his old brightness and courtesy seemed to have returned to him while the visitor was there. He told several witty stories, and entered into the conversation with a zest that made his own boys look at him with wonder. But Elsie sat quiet for the most part, watching the visitor, and letting the others do the talking.

  At last Stewart turned to her.

  “Now, you’ll play for us, won’t you?” he said with that bright smile that always won the hearts of people. And Elsie arose and went to the piano. There were things she wanted to say to this guest that she could not put into words—questions she would ask and gratitude she would speak. She might not let him know by her lips how she felt about it all, but she could tell him with the music. Perchance he would understand.

  So she played for him alone, forgetting the others, forgetting even that he might be a musician himself, or at least a musical critic, and therefore able to see mistakes and flaws in her technique. She was not thinking of herself. She was playing with her heart, making the phrases of the old composers speak things she could not put into words, ask questions she dared not frame, give thanks for intangible help that lay all unrecognized in any other way between them.

  Her father sat there happily watching, thinking how she resembled her mother, proud that the stranger liked her playing. He was not thinking much about the music himself. The brothers, with their books around the big table, looked up and listened now and then when some melody pleased them. They were conscious that it was being well done. They did not care greatly for such music themselves. They heard the pleasant sound of it, and saw the interest in the visitor’s face. He gave the deference due to their sister. They were content. The music meant nothing extraordinary to them. It was only to the young man that it spoke and revealed the hidden beauties of the girl’s soul, her fears and hopes, and wistful thanks, perhaps.

  The fire burned low, and the soft lamplight fell over the girl as she played, making a pretty picture. The young man sat in his shadowed corner, and watched her.

  It was a wonderful time to both of them and the beginning of a great understanding between them.

  Before he went home he talked over another problem with Eugene, gave Jack an amusing account of his visit to Stratford on Avon apropos of the Shakespeare play Jack was reading with a view to examination, and sang college songs with the three for an hour; but Elsie’s music had been the heart of the evening to him.

  It was an interesting coincidence that Cameron Stewart’s car was gliding slowly by the schoolhouse the next afternoon just as Elsie came out of the door to catch her car. Probably nobody in the street had noticed that he had gone by three times before that afternoon; but this time he drew up to the curb, and what more natural than that he should ask Elsie whether she was going out to Morningside and would ride with him?

  That ride meant a great deal to Elsie. She had been out in as beautiful cars before, and often with delightful young men who were, as her cousins used to say, “crazy about her”; but she had never taken such a ride as that. When she came to think about it and ask herself why she enjoyed it so much, she could not explain it to herself. Halsey Kennedy could talk, not so well perhaps, but interestingly. It was not the conversation, though that had been delightful, all about books and music and art, and what Elsie called “real things.” But it was not the conversation. The day was perfect as winter days can be, cold and bracing, but not too sharp. Still, there had been perfect days before. The car was luxury itself, and its driver was fully its master; but luxurious cars and easy drivers were not hard to find. No, it was something deeper and subtler than that. It was a sympathy between them, a kind of understanding even before a word was spoken, that made the day and themselves in tune with one another, and made the miles to Morningside, though they went by the longest possible route, fly by in a trice.

  It was on that ride that Stewart mentioned that he had tickets for the Boston Symphony concert the next week, with Paderewski as soloist, and asked her whether she would like to go.

  She flashed a smile full of light of joy up to him; and then her face grew sober, and she was still for a minute without making him any answer. At last she said, very low and sadly: “Mr. Stewart, you are a stranger in Morningside. Do you know—about—my father?”

  She lifted her brave eyes to his face, and drew herself up proudly. She was almost sure he knew; yet she would take no chances.

  He looked down into her true, loyal eyes; and a great wave of admiration passed over him. He could not keep it out of his eyes, though he controlled his voice to answer gently, meaningfully.

  “Yes, I know.”

  And there was no pity in his voice, only sympathy, kind and deep and understanding. Not even a shred of patronage or of lack of respect for her because of what he knew. His eyes answered every challenge in her own until all were satisfied. Then a great content came into hers, with a light as if someone had lit them, and she said with a little happy ring to her voice: “Then I shall be very glad to go. I couldn’t go anywhere with anyone unless he perfectly understood.”

  He smiled.

  “Did I look like that kind of a cad?”

  She laughed merrily as if a great load had suddenly rolled away from her.

  “No, you didn’t. That was why I had to protect you!” she said.

  The next Monday nigh
t they went to the concert, Elsie happy in the fact that Eugene had taken Jack to some doings at his frat house, and her father had to stay in town to do some night work in connection with a special invoice his firm was making; so no one would miss her.

  The Academy of Music was full that night in honor of the great soloist and beloved orchestra.

  High up in the family circle Katharine and Bettina sat with their father and mother, discontentedly watching the favored people in the balcony boxes.

  Katharine sat with the opera-glasses raised to her eyes, idly watching the people below her as they came in and settled to their places.

  Suddenly she pressed the glasses into Bettina’s hand.

  “Look! Look quick! There goes Elsie! Down in the balcony box to the left, the third seat from the center, the best seat in the house. See! There! They’re sitting down. Don’t you see him taking off her cloak, Elsie’s old gray one with the gray fur. Do you see her?”

  “Yes, I see her. She’s got an awfully good-looking man with her! He must have some money to get seats down there. Look at the roses she’s wearing. Aren’t they superb? How in the world did she meet a man like that out in Morningside?”

  “Oh, you can’t tell anything by his looks!” sneered her sister. “He may be some poor clerk whose firm has given him some tickets they couldn’t use, and he’s making a big splurge for once. Let me look again. It surely is Elsie, isn’t it?”

  “Sure! Don’t you recognize the little blue velvet hat with the silver brim? Look, Mother! There’s Elsie down in a balcony box. And with the most stunning-looking man! See, Katharine, he’s got a fur-lined overcoat. No mere clerk would have a fur-lined overcoat.”

  “You can’t tell,” sneered Katharine. “He may put his whole salary on his back.”

  But Uncle James had reached over and secured the opera-glasses and was looking now with all his might.

  “H’m!” he said significantly when he had got a good look. “I should say she had got a man this time! A real man. Do you know who that is down there with your cousin, Katharine?”