The Story of a Whim

by Grace Livingston Hill

  One day when his heart was especially heavy and he found the Sabbath school lesson almost an impossibility, the little girl who had spoken to him before touched him gently on the arm.

  “Mistah Christie feel bad? Is somebody you all love sick?”

  The tears almost filled Christie’s eyes as he looked at her in surprise and nodded his head.

  “Youm ‘fraid they die?”

  Again Christie nodded. He couldn’t speak; something was choking him. The sympathetic voice of the little girl was breaking down his self-control.

  The little black fingers touched his hand sorrowfully. In her eyes was a longing to comfort, as she lifted them first to her beloved superintendent’s face and then to the picture above them.

  “But you all’s fathah’s not dead,” she pleaded shyly.

  Christie caught her meaning in a flash and marveled afterward that a child went so directly to the point, where he, so many years beyond her, missed it. He hadn’t learned yet how God has revealed the wise things of this world unto the babes.

  “No, Sylvie,” he said quickly, grasping the timid little fingers. “My Father isn’t dead. I’ll take my trouble to Him. Thank you.”

  The smile that broke over the little girl’s face as she said good night was the first ray of the light that began to shine over Christie Bailey’s soul as he realized that God was not dead and God was his Father.

  When they were gone, he locked his doors and knelt before his heavenly Father, pouring out his anguish, praying for his friend and for himself, yielding up his will, and feeling the return of peace and assurance that God does all things well. Again as he slept he saw the vision of the Christ bending over him in benediction, and when he awoke he found himself singing softly,

  “He holds the key to all unknown,

  And I am glad.”

  He wondered whether it was coincidence—and then knew it wasn’t—that Ruth Summer’s second letter reached him that day, saying that Hazel was at last past all danger and had spoken about Christie Bailey. So she, Ruth, hastened to send the message on, hoping the faraway friend would forgive her for the delay in answering.

  After that Christie believed with his whole soul in prayer.

  He set himself the pleasant task of writing to Hazel all he felt and experienced during her illness and long silence. When she grew well enough to write him again, he might send it. He wasn’t sure.

  One paragraph he allowed himself, in which to pour out the pent-up feelings of his heart. But even in this he weighed every word. He began to long to be perfectly true before her and to wish there were a way to tell her all the truth about himself without losing her friendship. This was the paragraph: I didn’t know until you were silent how much of my life was bound up with yours. I can never tell you how much I love you, but I can tell God about it, the God you taught me to love.

  The very next day a note arrived from Ruth Summers saying that Hazel was longing to hear from Florida again and was now permitted to read her own letters. Then with joy he took his letter to the post office and not long after received a little note in Hazel’s own familiar hand, closing with the words: Who knows? Perhaps you’ll be able to tell me all about it someday, after all. And Christie, when he read it, held his hand on his heart to quiet the pain and the joy.

  “Have you written to Christie Bailey that you’re coming?” said Victoria Landis, turning from the window of the drawing room car, where she was studying the changing landscape, so new and strange to her Northern eyes.

  “No,” said Hazel, leaning back among her pillows. “I thought it would be more fun to surprise her. Besides, I want to see things just exactly as they are, as she has described them to me. I don’t want her to go and get fussed up to meet me. She wouldn’t be natural at all if she did. I’m positive she’s shy, and I must take her unawares. After I’ve put my arms around her neck in regular girl fashion and kissed her cheek she’ll realize that it’s just I, the one she has written to for a year, and everything will be all right. But if she has a long time to think about it and conjure up all sorts of nonsense about her dress and mine and the differences in our stations, she wouldn’t be at all the same Christie. I love her just as she is, and that’s the way I mean to see her first.”

  “I’m afraid, Hazel, you’ll be dreadfully disappointed,” said Ruth Summers. “Things on paper are never exactly like the real things. Now look out that window. Is this the land of flowers? Look at all that blackened ground where it’s been burnt over, and see those ridiculous green tufts sticking up every little way, with an occasional stiff green palm leaf, as if children had stuck crazy old fans in a play garden. You know the real is never as good as the ideal, Hazel.”

  “It’s a great deal better,” said Hazel positively. “Those green tufts, as you call them, are young pines. Someday they’ll be magnificent. Those little fans are miniature palms. That’s the way they grow down here. Christie has told me all about it. It looks exactly to a dot as I expected, and I’m sure Christie will be even better.”

  The two traveling companions looked lovingly at her and remembered how near they came to losing their friend only a little while before; they said no more to dampen her high spirits. This trip was for Hazel, to bring back the roses to her cheeks. And father, mother, brother, and friends were determined to do all they could to make it a success.

  The morning after they arrived at the hotel, Hazel asked to be taken at once to see Christie. She wanted to go alone. But since that wasn’t to be considered in her convalescent state, she consented to take Ruth and Victoria with her.

  “You’ll go out in the orange grove and visit with the chickens while I have a little heart-to-heart talk with Christie, won’t you, dears?” she said, as she gracefully gave up her idea of going alone.

  The old man who drove the carriage that took them there was exceedingly talkative. Yes, he knew Christie Bailey; most everybody did. They imparted to him the fact that this visit was to be a surprise party and arranged with him to leave them for an hour while he went on another errand and returned for them. These matters planned, they settled down to cheerful talk.

  Victoria Landis on the front seat with the interested driver—who felt exceedingly curious about this party of pretty girls going to visit Christie Bailey thus secretly—began to question him.

  “Is Christie Bailey a very large person?” she asked mischievously. “Is she as large as I am? You see, we’ve never seen her.”

  The old man looked at her quizzically. “Never seen her? Aw! Oh,” he said dryly. “Wall, yas, fer a girl, I should say she was ruther big. Yas, I should say she was fully as big as you be—if not bigger.”

  “Has she very red hair?” went on Victoria. She had a purpose in her mischief. She didn’t want Hazel to be disappointed too much.

  “Ruther,” responded the driver. Then he chuckled unduly, it seemed to Hazel, and added, “Ruther red.”

  “Isn’t she at all pretty?” asked Ruth Summers, leaning forward with a troubled air, as if to snatch one ray of hope.

  “Purty!” chuckled the driver. “Wall, no, I shouldn’t eggzactly call her purty. She’s got nice eyes,” he added, as an afterthought.

  “There!” said Hazel, sitting up triumphantly. “I knew her eyes were magnificent. Now please don’t say any more.”

  The driver turned his twinkly eyes around, stared at Hazel, and then clucked the horse over the deep sandy road.

  He set them down at Christie’s gateway, telling them to knock at the cabin door; they would be sure to be answered by the owner, and he would return within the hour. Then he drove his horse reluctantly away, turning his head back as far as he could see, hoping Christie would come to the door. He wanted to see what happened. For half a mile down the road, he laughed to the blackjacks and occasionally exclaimed: “No, she ain’t just to say purty! But she’s good. I might ‘a’ told ’em she was good.”

  This was the driver’s tribute to Christie.

  Chapter 9

  The Disco
very

  Hazel walked up to the door of the cabin in a dream of anticipation realized. The periwinkles nodded their bright eyes along the border of the path, and the chickens stood there on one kid foot of yellow, just as Christie had described.

  She could almost have found the way here alone, from the letters. She drank in the air and felt it give new life to her. And she thought of the pleasant hours she would spend with Christie during the weeks that were to follow and of her secret plan to take Christie back home with her for the winter.

  They knocked at the door, which was open, and, stepping in, stood surrounded by the familiar things. All three felt the delight of giving these few simple gifts, which were so little to them when they were given.

  Then a merry whistle sounded from the backyard and heavy steps on the board path at the back door, and Christie walked in from the barn with the frying pan in one hand and a dishpan in the other. He had gone out to scrape some scraps from his table to the chickens in the yard.

  The blood rushed to his cheeks at the sight of his three elegant visitors. He put the cooking utensils down on the stove with a thud and pulled off his old straw hat, revealing his garnet-tinted hair in all its glory against the sunshine of a Florida sky in the doorway behind him.

  “Is Christie Bailey at home?” questioned Victoria Landis, who seemed the natural spokesperson for the three.

  “I am Christie Bailey,” said the young man seriously, looking from one to another. “Won’t you sit down?”

  There was a moment’s pause before the tension broke, and then a pained, sweet voice, the voice of Christie’s dreams, spoke.

  “But Christie Bailey is a young woman.”

  Christie looked at Hazel and knew his hour had come.

  “No, I am Christie Bailey,” he said once more, his big, honest eyes pleading for forgiveness.

  “Do you really mean it?” said Victoria, with amusement growing in her eyes as she noted his every fine point, noted the broad shoulders and the way he had of carrying his head up, noted the flash of his eyes and the toss of rich waves from his forehead.

  “And you’re not a girl, after all?” questioned Ruth Summers in a frightened tone, looking with troubled eyes from Christie to Hazel, who had turned quite white.

  But Christie was looking straight at Hazel, his soul come to judgment before her, his mouth closed, unable to plead his own cause.

  “Evidently not!” remarked Victoria dryly. “What extremely self-evident facts you find to remark upon, Ruth!”

  But the others didn’t hear them. They were facing one another, these two who held communion of soul for so many months and who, now that they were face-to-face, were suddenly cut asunder by an insurmountable wall of a composition known as truth.

  Hazel’s dark eyes burned wide and deep from her white face. The enthusiasm that could make her love an unseen, unlovely woman could also glow with scorn for one she despised. The firm little mouth he had admired was set and stern. Her lips were pallid as her cheeks, while the light of truth fairly scintillated from her countenance.

  “Then you have been deceiving me all this time!” Her voice was high and clear, tempered by her late illness, and sharp with pain. Her whole alert, graceful body expressed the utmost scorn. She could have posed as a model of the figure of Retribution.

  And in that awful minute, Christie met her eye for eye and saw the judgment of “Guilty” pronounced upon him, could only acknowledge it as just, and saw before him the blankness of the punishment that was to be his. Yet, he had time to think with a thrill of delight that Hazel was all and more than he dreamed of her as being. He had time to be glad she was as she was. He would not have her changed one whit, retribution and all.

  It was over in a minute; with the sentence issued, the girl turned and marched with stately step out of the door down the white path to the road. But the little ripples of air she swept by in passing rolled back upon the culprit a knowledge of her disappointment, chagrin, and humiliation.

  Christie bowed his head in acceptance of his sentence and looked at his other two visitors, his eyes beseeching them to go and leave him to endure what had come upon him. Ruth was clinging to Victoria’s arm, frightened. She had seen the delicate white of Hazel’s cheek as she went out the door. But Victoria’s eyes were dancing with fun.

  “Why didn’t you say something?” she demanded of Christie. “Go out and stop her before she gets away! See, she’s out there by the hedge. You can make it all right with her.” Pity was in her voice. She liked the honest eyes and fine bearing of the young man. Besides, she loved fun and didn’t like to see this most enticing situation spoiled at the climax.

  A light of hope sprang into Christie’s eyes as he turned to follow her suggestion. It didn’t take him long to overtake Hazel’s slow step on the soft, sandy ground.

  “I must tell you how sorry I am—” he began before he quite caught up to her.

  But she turned and faced him with her hand lifted in protest.

  “If you’re sorry, then please don’t say another word. I will forgive you, of course, because I’m a Christian. But don’t speak to me again. I hate deceit!” Then she turned and sped down the road like a flash, in spite of her weakness.

  Christie stood in the road where she left him, his head bared to the winter’s sunshine, looking as if he’d been struck in the face by a loved hand, his whole strong body trembling.

  Victoria meanwhile was taking in the situation. She noticed Hazel’s photograph framed in a delicate tracery of Florida moss. Then she frowned. Hazel would never permit that to stay here now, and her instinct told her it would be missed by its present owner and that he had the kind of honor that would not keep it if it were demanded.

  “This mustn’t be in sight when Hazel comes back,” she whispered softly, disengaging herself from Ruth’s clinging hand and going vigorously to work. She took down the photograph, slipped off the moss and, looking around for a place of concealment, hid it in the breast pocket of an old coat lying on a chair nearby. Then, going to the door, she watched for developments. But, as she perceived that Hazel had fled and Christie was dazed, she decided she was needed elsewhere and, calling Ruth, hurried down the road.

  “If you miss anything, look in your coat pocket for it,” she said as she passed Christie in the road. But Christie was too much overcome to take in what she meant.

  He went back to his cabin. The light of the world seemed crushed out for him. Even the organ and the couch and the various pleasing touches that entered his home through these Northern friends a year ago seemed to withdraw themselves from him. It was as if they had discovered the mistake in his identity and were frowning their disapproval and letting him know he was holding property under false pretenses. Only the loving eyes of the pictured Christ looked tenderly at him, and with a leap of his heart, Christie realized that Hazel gave him one thing she could never take away.

  With something almost like a sob, he threw himself on his knees before the picture and cried out in anguish, “My Father!”

  Christie didn’t eat supper that night. He forgot there was any need for anything but comfort and forgiveness in the world. He knelt there, praying sometimes, but most of the time just letting his heart lie bleeding and open before his Father’s eyes.

  The night fell, and still he knelt.

  Eventually he felt a kind of comfort in remembering the little black girl’s words, “You all’s fathah’s not dead.” He was not cut off from his Father. Something like peace settled upon him, a resignation and a strength to bear.

  To think the situation over clearly and see whether he could do anything was beyond him. His rebuke had come. He could not justify himself. He had done wrong, though without intention. Besides, it was too late to do anything now. He had been turned out of Eden. The angel with the flaming sword had bidden him think no more to enter. He must go forth and labor, but God was not dead.

  The days after that passed slowly and dully. Christie hardly took account of time. He w
as like one laden with a heavy burden and made to pull it on a long road. He had started and was plodding his best every day, knowing an end would come sometime; but it would be hard and long.

  Gradually he came out of the daze Hazel’s words had put upon him. Gradually he felt himself forgiven by God for his deceit. But he wouldn’t discuss even with his own heart the possibility of forgiveness from Hazel. She was right, of course. He knew from the first that her friendship did not belong to him. He would keep the memory of it safe; and in time, when he could bear to think it over, it would be a precious treasure. At least he could prove himself worthy of the year of her friendship he had enjoyed.

  But thinking his sad thoughts and going about the hardest work he could find, he avoided the public road as much as possible, taking to the little by-paths when he went out from his own grove. Thus one morning Christie emerged from a tangle of hummock land where the live oaks arched high above him, the wild grape and jasmine snarled themselves from magnolia to bay tree in exquisite patterns, and rare orchids defied the world of fashion to find their hidden lofty homes. There he heard voices near and the soft footfalls of well-shod horses on the rich, rooty earth of the bridle path.

  He stepped to one side to let the riders pass, for the way was narrow. Just where a ray of sunlight came through a clearing he stood. And the light fell around him, on his bared head, for he held his hat in his hand, making his head look like one from a painting of an old master, all the copper tints shining above the clear depths of his eyes.

  He knew who was coming. It was for this he had removed his hat. His forehead shone white in the shadowed road, where the hat had kept off the sunburn, and about his face had come a sadness and a dignity that glorified his plainness.

  Hazel rode the forward horse. She looked weary, and the flush in her cheeks was not altogether one of health. She was controlling herself wonderfully, but her strength was not what they had hoped it would be when they brought her to the South. The long walk she took under pressure of excitement almost wore her out. She’d been unable to go out since, until this afternoon, when with the sudden willfulness of the convalescent she insisted on a horseback ride. She’d gone much farther than her two faithful friends thought wise and then suddenly turned toward home, too weary to ride rapidly.