The Strange Proposal

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “Aunt Clarice, you said your car was rather full. Why can’t I take Sam with me? I haven’t seen him much since he is growing up, and I’d like to renew my acquaintance with him.”

  “Oh, would you want to bother?” asked her aunt thoughtfully. “I don’t know but that might be as good a solution of the problem as any. Sam is always so restless in a car that he makes me nervous. He is always teasing to drive, and of course he can’t. I certainly shall be glad when Sam grows up.”

  So Mary Elizabeth finished her breakfast and hastily went in search of her young cousin Sam.

  Chapter 6

  John Saxon in his upper berth—because it was cheaper and he felt that he should save every penny—tossed about uncomfortably, trying to keep his thoughts on something he had read in a medical journal during his long evening in the railroad station. Finally he threw discretion to the wind and let his thoughts drift back as they would to last evening. Was that perfume, borne to his mind above the stuffiness of sleeper curtains and the rank tobacco fumes from the smoking room? Perfume! Yes, the perfume of her hair as he held her in his arms when they said good-bye. It didn’t assert itself as perfume, just the fragrance of flowers. She seemed a lovely flower herself.

  And there he was off thinking about her again! Fool that he was. A rich, worldly Wainwright. Well, at least a Wainwright, and likely worldly, too, in spite of her delicacy and sweetness. And who was he to have presumed? He ought never to have mailed that letter, of course. Very likely she didn’t expect him to write any of the time. Very likely it was just a game with her for the evening, and she would think him an innocent that he kept it up.

  Well, the letter was gone, he told his persistent soul that would keep defending her and hurling the lovely thrills of memory at him to prove it. The letter could not be recalled, and he would have had to send one eventually. It was gone, and if she never answered it, it would serve him right and would probably be the best dose of medicine to cure his madness that he could take.

  And then he went to calculating how long it would be at the shortest that he could possibly expect an answer. He just hadn’t been himself last night. Well, probably when he got home and got down to good hard work again, he would settle down to sanity as well, and he would take good care never to let himself get caught in social life again. Here he had been always sneering at the follies of the social set and then had fallen as far and as hard as anybody he knew. Fallen in love at first sight and committed himself without knowing a thing about her except her lovely face and manner!

  He would get so far and then falter. The memory of that face and manner, even if there had been no words, even if she had not yielded those exquisite lips to his, disarmed every one of his efforts to put her away from his thoughts. She hovered quietly about him, like a lovely, precious atmosphere that breathed balm and healing. And here was he who had always controlled himself, body, soul, and spirit, utterly unable to keep his thoughts away from the dear memory of her!

  Well, perhaps in future years the time would come when he could think of her calmly, remember the sweetness of her, without that hungry longing for her, without that fierce desire to possess her for his own. It might be that in the ages to come he would even be glad that he had her safe in his memory, a lovely picture to look back upon, a picture that could never be sullied by human faults and frailties, because he had known her only one brief evening. Even that was more than some men had—an eternal ideal never shattered by everyday living. At least, that much was his if nothing else ever came. Almost he felt like praying that nothing would, that she would somehow be prevented from destroying his beautiful vision of her, that she might never answer his letter rather than answer it with mockery, or worse still, with gentle pity and kindly refusal.

  He groaned aloud and rejoiced that the train made so much noise that he might groan again and again and nobody hear but God.

  And then suddenly he remembered that he was God’s child in God’s care, and this affair belonged to God—he had put it in the will of God to do with as was best and right. He must not meddle further.

  Then softly there came a peace upon him, and he sank to sleep with that breath of fragrance drifting about him, soft arms clinging about his neck, soft lips, sweet lips on his. The memory of her smile! How lovely she had been! How wonderful that it had fallen to his lot to know her even for one brief evening!

  Young Sam Wainwright, when approached by his cousin Mary Elizabeth, scowled. He did not take kindly at all to the idea of being shunted off from the general party. He had hoped to ride with his father and bully him into letting him drive perhaps, or into giving him money for a motorcycle in case the driving was beyond a possibility.

  “You’re riding with me, did you know it, Mr. Wainwright!” said Mary Elizabeth.

  Sam’s experience with older cousins, any older relatives, especially of the fairer sex, was that if they noticed him at all, they wanted something of him.

  “Aw, heck!” he answered ungraciously. “What’s that for?”

  “Well, you see,” confided Mary Elizabeth in a low tone, with a furtive glance about, as if the family en masse were spying about to hear what she was saying, “I was just thinking there might be a bit of a crowd, and I was afraid they’d expect me to take Cousin Eliza Froud, so I thought I’d forestall that. I’d so much rather have you to buddy with. You know, I haven’t seen you for so long, I’d just like to get acquainted with you over again and have you tell me all about your school and your sports. They tell me you’re a great sportsman.”

  “Aw, they’re kidding you,” said Sam, still with his unbending frown. “You can’t get anywhere in sports with the family I’ve got. Mother thinks I’m a kid, and she puts her foot down on every blessed thing I want to do.”

  “Say, that’s a shame!” said Mary Elizabeth sympathetically. “I wonder if she couldn’t be made to understand? Suppose you tell me all about it, and I’ll use my influence.”

  Sam eyed her doubtfully.

  “Nothing can influence my mother,” he said sadly, shaking his head. “She thinks for herself.”

  “Yes,” said Mary Elizabeth crisply, “but there are ways. We’ll see what can be done. In the meantime, you’re going to help me.”

  “Oh, yeah?” said the incredulous youth. He thought the crux of the matter had arrived, and he didn’t intend to be tricked into anything by a smooth-tongued cousin, even if she had been round the world.

  “Yes,” said Mary Elizabeth, “I need a man today to travel with me. A girl doesn’t like to travel alone. Besides, my car has been behaving badly. I might need you. Can you help change a tire?”

  “I can change a tire all by myself!” said Sam with contempt. “I’ve done it in our garage when the chauffeur was out for the day, and he never knew it.”

  “Did you really?” whispered Mary Elizabeth, like a fellow conspirator. “How perfectly spiffy! Didn’t he ever find it out?”

  “Not yet. It was last week, and he was too busy doing errands before the wedding to notice. He will, though. He has eyes like a ferret’s.”

  “Well, he certainly won’t know who did it, will he? You were careful to wipe off the fingerprints I suppose?”

  Sam laughed. He exploded at first as if it came unexpectedly, and then he looked at her a minute and bent double laughing.

  “Okay!” he said when he’d recovered. “I’ll go with you. I wasn’t going to, but you’ve got a sense of humor. So many relatives haven’t. Jeff’s the only other one that has, and now he’s gone.”

  “Oh, no, he’s not gone. He’ll be back sound as a nut pretty soon, and you’ll like your new sister Camilla, too. She’s a peach!”

  “Oh, she’s awright I guess,” said Sam with a grimace. “But I don’t see Jeff’s getting married. Why couldn’t he have stayed at home?”

  “Well, it is strange, isn’t it?” said Mary Elizabeth. “However, I guess we can’t do anything about that now. Now, partner, how much luggage have you got? Is it all packed? When do we g
et started? Or do we have to wait for the rest of the crowd? Because you know, we might have some of our plans upset if we did.”

  “That’s right,” said Sam with another frown.

  “Had your breakfast?” asked Mary Elizabeth.

  “Sure thing!” said Sam contemptuously. “Had my breakfast an hour ago and been down to the wharf watching the boats. You didn’t think I was goin’ ta stick around till the family got up and then go in the dining room and have ’em all telling me what I was to eat, did you? It makes me sick the way they treat me, just like a baby.”

  “Well, that is hard lines, isn’t it? Then suppose you hustle up and get your bags and bring them down to that side door over there, and I’ll go and tell your mother we’re starting ahead because I have a place I want to stop a few minutes on the way. There’s a place I saw on the way down where they have the darlingest wire-haired terriers for sale, puppies, the cutest ever. Like wire-haired terriers?”

  “Betcher life I do,” said Sam, now wholly won over, his eyes shining with a great relief. “Gee, we’re gonta have fun, aren’t we?”

  “Sure thing!” said Mary Elizabeth boyishly, giving him a grin that endeared him to her, even as many an older youth had been endeared in the past.

  So Mary Elizabeth ordered the porter to bring down her luggage and went on her way to the dining room to let the uncles and aunts—principally the aunts—know that she was starting.

  “But we wanted you to go along with us,” said Aunt Fannie, buttering and syruping her waffles.

  “Sorry, Aunt Fan,” said Mary Elizabeth sweetly. “I’ve promised to get home as soon as possible. I’m expecting some mail that is very important. And we couldn’t see each other very much, anyway, on the road. You know it’s terribly hard to follow a car and try to keep together in traffic.”

  “You’ll drive carefully, won’t you, Betty dear?” said Aunt Clarice.

  “Oh, I’m the world’s best, Aunt Clarrie, don’t you know that?” the girl said, smiling.

  “Well, be sure to see that Sam washes his hands and combs his hair before he leaves. I declare that child can acquire more dirt in a given time than any other of the human species. Where he’s been this morning, I can’t think! I went in to wake him up and found him gone. I don’t know what he’s going to grow up to be! A tramp, I’m afraid. Well, I hope you won’t regret your bargain taking him along, but it’s real charity, he makes us all so nervous. He gets restless you know, wants to get out and chase butterflies and dig up plants. Since he went on that camping trip in the winter, he’s simply impossible! You don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for, Betty dear!”

  “Oh, I don’t mind,” said the girl, with a happy smile. “We’ll have a good time. Good-bye. See you tonight sometime.”

  “Well, if you get tired of Sam, just stop at that place where we took lunch on the way here and wait for us. We’ll take him over and let you have Miss Petty, or Cousin Eliza Froud, you know.”

  “All right,” said Mary Elizabeth. “I’ll remember, but I won’t get tired of my bargain, so don’t look for us.” And she hurried out of the dining room.

  She found young Sam with a suitcase, standing uncertainly by the door, an anxious eye on the dining room entrance.

  “Didn’t they can it?” he asked eagerly. “There must be some reason then. They likely wantta talk over the wedding and say how they hate somebody, or they would.”

  “You uncanny child!” laughed Mary Elizabeth. “What made you think of that?”

  “Oh, I’ve heard ’em when they didn’t know I was listening. They’ve made me like a lot of folks different times, talking against ’em.”

  “You’re a scream!” said Mary Elizabeth. “I foresee we’re going to have the time of our lives. Now, put your baggage in behind and hop in. Let’s get started, or somebody will try to go along with us.”

  “You said it!” said Sam, jamming his suitcase into the back of the car and letting down the cover carefully. “This is a peach of a car, isn’t it?”

  “It is rather nice,” said his cousin, settling down to her wheel as Sam sprang in, slamming the door proudly, as if he were the owner.

  They rolled away from the hotel and around the little circle park in front, and two blocks farther on came to a halt before a candy shop.

  “Like chocolates?” asked Mary Elizabeth, fishing around in her handbag for her billfold.

  “Sure thing!” said Sam, with shining eyes.

  She handed him a five-dollar bill.

  “Well, slide in there and buy as much as you want of anything that appeals to you. Get several kinds.”

  Sam took the money and crammed it into his pocket with the studied indifference toward money he had noticed in all male persons when they were attending a young lady.

  He came out so eager, he had almost lost his grown-up manner.

  “I got several kinds, because I wasn’t sure which you’d like best,” he explained as he climbed in and shut the door importantly again. He felt it was great, her using him this way, as any lady would send a young man on her errands. And she hadn’t limited him as to how much to buy. He almost forgot that he wasn’t driving the car.

  “That’s fine,” said the lady, curving smoothly into traffic again. “I like them all. We’re going to have a good time!”

  “I’ll say!’” said the young cavalier. “Here’s yer change!”

  He almost felt that she was another boy, and he dropped easily into his own natural talk.

  “Oh, you’d better keep the change for any expenses we have. There is at least one ferry to cross, if I remember rightly, and there’ll be gas. You’ll need more than that. Just put it into your pocket and look after things for me, won’t you? It’s such a relief not to have to bother. It’s so nice to have a man along.”

  He gave her an appreciative grin and after a minute said, “Say, d’ya know, you remind me an awful lot of my scoutmaster, Mary Beth?”

  “Your scoutmaster?” said Mary Elizabeth, with keen interest in her eyes. “Who is he? I hope he’s nice.”

  “He is! He’s a peach of a man. Why, he’s Mr. Saxon, the one that was the best man last night at the wedding. You know him. You were talking to him a lot last night. Only he didn’t look a bit like himself in those glad rags.”

  “Glad rags?” said Mary Elizabeth. “Doesn’t he usually wear glad rags?”

  “Naw, he wears khaki mostly, and flannel shirts and leggings. He’s a crackerjack in the woods.”

  “He was rather nice, wasn’t he?” said Mary Elizabeth with dreamy eyes, as she guided her car out of traffic and onto a lovely country road. “I should think he would be good company in the woods. Tell me about it.”

  The boy’s eyes grew dreamy, too, and he stared off into a maple grove and saw live oak trees and palms instead. His thoughts were back in Florida with his idol.

  “I don’t know as it’ll tell,” he murmured. “You’d have to be there.”

  “I’ll try,” said Mary Elizabeth. “How does it look, the morning we start, or do we start at all? Do we just be there?”

  Sam grinned.

  “We start!” he said, entering into the game that his cousin was making. “We get up very early, before it’s light.”

  “I see,” said the girl, her eyes half closed. “It gets light all of a sudden in Florida, just as it gets dark all of a sudden at night. I know. I’ve been there. I only wish I could have been along with you. We wear old clothes, don’t we, and don’t take along a trunk, or even a suitcase?”

  The boy chuckled again.

  “That’s right. Just a pack. And we meet on the beach when the sky and the sea are all together and look like Mother’s big opal.”

  “But that’s very pretty,” said Mary Elizabeth looking at him appreciatively. “Did anybody else notice it?”

  “Aw, no, I don’t even know as I did, but it was there if you wanted ta notice it. Mr. Saxon looked off at it a good deal. But he didn’t say anything much. He doesn’t. He o
nly talks when it’s necessary, except sometimes.”

  “What times?”

  “Well, at night when we’re sitting round the fire.”

  Mary Elizabeth thought that over while they were passing a series of trucks carrying a lot of new automobiles fresh from the factory.

  “Well,” she said, “what comes next? We don’t just walk by the sea all the time.”

  Sam grinned.

  “Next we have lunch. We boys rustle a fire. We were divided into squads, you know, and each man had his duty. Jeff cut the bread and handed out butter. Mr. Saxon did most of the cooking at first, but afterward we boys learned how.”

  Mary Elizabeth took in the picture.

  “I certainly would have liked to be there. So Jeff was along, too. That must have been grand.”

  “He was, all right,” boasted the proud brother. “He took care of the little kids. You know, Mother had him go along because she didn’t know Mr. Saxon, and I don’t think Mr. Saxon liked it much at first, but afterward they got to be buddies. And Jeff was fine, especially when the kids got scared of the snakes and things. There was one little kid hadn’t any father and mother, or at least they didn’t have any home together, and he was scared of snakes something awful. He just froze on to Jeff for a while till he got more brave.”

  “Snakes?” said Mary Elizabeth. “I don’t know that I should care for them myself. You weren’t afraid of them, of course?”

  “Naw, I don’t mind snakes. There’s nothing in snakes! Mr. Saxon told us a lot about their habits and things. He knows a lot about them. He isn’t afraid of them. When he was a boy he used to have them for pets sometimes. His mother let him. He’s got a swell mother! Mine would never stand for that! And once on the way we found a big red moccasin as big around as his arm and more than two yards long, and Mr. Saxon just picked him up by the tail quick and swung him around his head several times and flung him off, just like that!” Sam demonstrated the manner vividly with his arms. “And Mister Snake, he just lay still for a second, and then he wabbled off all crooked, as if he was drunk. Mr. Saxon said it made him dizzy.”