The Strange Proposal

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “Gosh, yes!” said Sam with a look of delight in his face.

  “Then I would advise you to go home early, boy, and get your fishing tackle and your bathing suit together. You might need them in between helping.” Uncle Robert gave a wink toward Mary Elizabeth. “How long are you staying, Mary Beth?”

  “Probably only two or three days now. It depends on how I find things and what needs to be done. Are you still willing I should take Sam down with me if we decide to stay there this summer? Dad thinks he’d like it. He’ll come down weekends anyway. Perhaps you’d come with him sometimes?”

  “Sure, I’ll come. I’d love to. It gets rather dull here in the city when your aunt is in the mountains. Yes, Sam can come if he likes. There won’t be so much for him to do here in the office during the hot weather. I think he can finish the lists he’s making between trips.” He gave his niece another broad wink and a curious twist of his kind, pleasant mouth that looked sometimes so much like his son Jeffrey’s mouth.

  “That’s great! Then he doesn’t have to go to camp?”

  “No!” said his father. “I’ve put my foot down about that.”

  So Mary Elizabeth carried Sam off in her car and landed him at home to pack and went back to her own preparations as gleeful as if she were only thirteen herself.

  The next morning they started like two children on a picnic, Mary Elizabeth reflecting wickedly that she would be away when Boothby Farwell called that morning, according to a note she had received the night before, and her maid was instructed to say only that she was away for a few days. So she would not be followed, and she would have time to examine herself and find out just where she stood. For Mary Elizabeth had not yet answered John Saxon’s letter, and that was one of the things she meant to do when she got to the shore. It had seemed to her that there, in the stillness and beauty and freedom from her world, she could more properly answer that letter, and her soul was impatient to find out just what she was going to allow it to say.

  The day was fair and lovely, neither too cool nor too hot, a rare day, a June day at its best. The roads were good, and the way open with little traffic.

  By common consent the two travelers talked but little till they were out in the open country with only a little clean village by the way now and then.

  “I had a letter from Mr. Saxon,” volunteered Sam at last, settling comfortably back with his eyes peeled for a startled rabbit that might spring out of the scrub oak along the way.

  “Did you?” answered Mary Elizabeth coolly, with no sign of the start the announcement had given her senses. “How is he? Did he say?”

  “Naw! He doesn’t talk about things like that. He doesn’t talk about himself. He was talking about us fellas. He’s writing to us every little while, every week, maybe. If we do the work he sets us and answer him, then we get another letter.”

  “Work? What work are you doing for him?”

  “Why, the Bible lessons he sends. We’re taking a course, see? He sends us a new one as soon as we get the first one worked out.”

  “That sounds interesting,” chirruped Mary Elizabeth. “I’d like to see them. Has he sent you any yet?”

  “Oh, sure! This is the second one I have.”

  “Did you bring them along?”

  “Course! I expect to do a lotta studying while I’m down here—that is, if you think I’ll have time.”

  “Why, of course,” said Mary Elizabeth. “There’ll be heaps of time. We just have to give orders to men and things like that and then wait around and see that they do it. I’d like to do some studying myself, if you think I’m not too stupid. I never knew much about the Bible.”

  “Aw, quit yer kidding!” said the boy.

  “I mean it,” said Mary Elizabeth. “I’ve never studied the Bible at all. I’d like to see if I could understand it. You see, I’ve never had a scoutmaster to teach me.”

  “Well, ya can read my papers. I guess you can understand ’em if I can.”

  “All right, we’ll try. Now, how soon do you think we’d better stop for lunch? I asked the cook to pack us a lunch. I didn’t seem to remember any very inviting place to stop along this road. She put some lemonade in one Thermos bottle and some milk in the other so we can have cold drinks without stopping, and Father says there’s a nice place to eat when we get there, so we’re sure of a good dinner tonight.”

  “Gee! Aren’t we having fun?” said Sam.

  The old Wainwright summer place stood up a little from the shore, a fine old colonial house, spacious yet simple, and lovely of line. Its lawn ran down incredibly near to the sea, and its outlook was clear to the skyline, though it was partly surrounded by great pines and other imported trees, which in the time of the house’s greatness had been the wonder of the resort. The white fluted columns, which had been kept painted every year, still gleamed out among the dark pines, almost like marble, and the stately piazza across the front, the lovely fantail window over the front door, and the high iron grille that surrounded the place were in perfect repair, and the lawn kept trimmed as if it were in use. The place stood out among the quieter, smaller homes as a great estate of a bygone day, quaint and restful and almost awe-inspiring in contrast to its rows of bungalow neighbors, which had crept up nearer and nearer to its greatness as fashion receded from the resort and tales of its wealthy owner became a mere tradition in a quiet, comfortable, but straggling town. Thus early in the season, there were few summer residents, only the winter inhabitants who stayed there because they had no other place to go and because it was cheaper to stay there and vegetate than to migrate. It was almost like visiting a deserted village, as they drove down the wide main highway that wound around behind the Wainwright estate, locked in behind its massive iron grille.

  “Oh, boy! Isn’t this great!” sighed Sam in delight. “No boardwalk! No dolled-up people cluttering the beach. We gotta beach all to ourselves! I was never down here. Why didn’t we come before? Why don’t all of our family come down ta this place and stay all summer?”

  “Well, I’ll bite, why?” asked Mary Elizabeth boyishly, her eyes taking in the beauty of the sea spread before her, the plumy pines, the gleaming of the white, white mansion set up on a slight eminence.

  “I guess it’s because there wouldn’t be any chance ta dress up and show off!” said Sam thoughtfully, studying the scattered humble cottages in the near distance.

  “Well,” said Mary Elizabeth, “perhaps you may have hit the nail on the head. But how would you like to get out, Sam, and see if you can open our gate with this great big old funny key?”

  Sam accepted the key with delight and scrambled out to try the well-oiled lock, which the caretaker kept always in order, and presently they were driving along the graveled winding way, skirting the house till they came to the front, where the trees were cut away to show the sea in all its broad blue and gold beauty, under a perfect sky.

  Mary Elizabeth stopped the car and sat looking off at the wonder of it all, and even Sam kept still and took it all in.

  “Gosh, I don’t know what they’d want of any prettier place than this!” he said at last with a sigh—“they” meaning his mother, who was the general that managed all of their family migrations.

  “Yes,” said Mary Elizabeth, “I’ve been almost around the world, Sam, and I don’t remember anything prettier than this. And listen to those pines, boy, they are whispering in perfect rhythm with the waves down on the shore! I suppose they’ve got used to it, being together so much all these years. Especially in winter they’ve nothing else to do but practice, and it must be magnificent to listen to their harmony. There must be some grand music in a storm. Sometime I’m coming here in a storm just to hear it!”

  “Oh, boy! Say, I’ll come, too, then!”

  “All right! That’ll be a compact. Now, shall we go in?”

  But just then there appeared a man walking around the path that skirted the house, his cap in his hand deferentially.

  “Is this Miss Wainwright?” h
e asked. “I had a wire this morning from Mr. Wainwright saying you was coming. I hope you’ll find everything in order, miss. We’ve always tried to keep it as though the family might come in any minute!”

  “Why, that’s wonderful!” said Mary Elizabeth, beaming at him. “I wish we had come before! You’re Mr. Bateman, aren’t you? Father said you would be here. You have the keys?”

  “Yes, miss, and you can call me Frank. It’s easier to remember.”

  “All right, Frank, and this is Sam Wainwright, my cousin. You’ll be showing him all around and telling him about everything, I know.”

  “I had the windows open, miss, all morning. And you’ll find everything all right. My wife, Susan, was over getting out fresh linen. She thought you might want her to get you a bit of dinner tonight. She’s a fine cook, if you think she can please you.”

  “Why, that would be lovely,” said Mary Elizabeth, interested at once. “If you think she would. Sam and I had our lunch by the way, so we wouldn’t want anything before six, I should think.” She glanced at her watch. “Tell her just something simple will do. We don’t want anything elaborate. And how about a place to stay tonight? Is there a hotel open yet?”

  “Not any hotel in Seacrest, not yet. We haven’t but one in the town left now, and it went broke last fall. I don’t know if it will open at all. The rest are all standing idle, with their shutters down like so many of the dead. But we thought, Susan and I, that perhaps you’d be staying here in the house. We could make you comfortable. We’ve been using the servant’s quarters ourselves you know, so the house isn’t to say closed, nor damp. We’ve had some part open to air most every day.”

  “Well, I should say there wouldn’t be anything better than that,” said Mary Elizabeth, looking around with delighted eyes. “I would rather stay here than anywhere else, wouldn’t you, Sam?”

  “Sure thing!” said the boy, grinning his delight.

  “Well, we thought you might, so Susan made up two of the rooms, and she’ll be glad to be of service in any way. She used ta be the lady’s maid to a senator’s wife before I married her, so she ain’t to say ignorant exactly.”

  “Well, that’s wonderful,” said Mary Elizabeth, her eyes dancing, “but I don’t need a maid. We’re going to live simply here. I’m quite sure everything is going to be lovely. Father said you would tell me about things, and whether any repairs were needed.”

  “I shouldn’t say so, miss. I’ve tinkered with anything that was out of the way myself. But you can see when you look around.”

  So Mary Elizabeth entered the large, old rooms shrouded in memories of a bygone generation.

  Big, wide rooms with fine white matting on the floors and many comfortable willow chairs, and couches with cushions of faded but fine texture. Quaint old pictures on the walls, some of them very fine, done by artists of renown. Long sheer curtains at the windows, floating in the breeze. Mary Elizabeth looked at them in wonder.

  “Are these the old curtains? I would have thought they would have dropped to pieces.”

  “Yes, they are the original curtains that were up when we came here to take care o’ the place. But Susan, she took care o’ them. She kept them washed and folded away where they wouldn’t mold nor rot, and now and again she’s done them up to have them ready in case some o’ the family came back. She wanted it to look like home for them.”

  “And now we’ve come,” said Mary Elizabeth. “I’m glad! And it looks so nice. It seems just as it was when I was a child.”

  “Well, we figured you might like it,” said the man with a pleased grin. “We didn’t get all the curtains hung yet, of course, but we went to work as soon as the wire came this morning, and we got all downstairs and two bedrooms done. I’m glad you like it. Now, I’ll call Susan.”

  Susan came in a clean blue gingham dress, with her hands wrapped embarrassedly in her white apron and her face shining with welcome.

  “It’s wonderful, Susan,” said Mary Elizabeth. “I came down here expecting to find things all run down and needing a lot of repairs before we could be comfortable here, but it seems everything is perfectly all right and doesn’t need a thing done to it.”

  “I’m glad yer pleased!” said Susan, her face shining with pleasure. “I been hoping ye’d come some summer. It seems such a nice, pretty old house.”

  “It is!” said the girl, looking around with loving eyes. “I love it here! I don’t know why we never came before. But we’re staying here this summer. My father will be down weekends sometimes, and as often between as he can spare the time.”

  They went over the house eagerly, Sam as interested as anybody.

  “Say, this is a swell joint!” he said.

  But Sam didn’t waste much time in the house. He took possession of the room allotted to him, hung up the things he had brought with him, jammed himself into his bathing suit, and was off down to the beach.

  Mary Elizabeth went about in a daze of bliss. It seemed somehow, as she trod the old halls and went into the rooms that had once been dear and familiar, as if her own mother had left the impress of her sweet spirit there, and by and by when Susan left to prepare the evening meal, Mary Elizabeth took out the letter from her stranger-beloved and went to her mother’s own room to read it over again. It gave her a sense of confiding in her mother, reading it there where she could remember sitting on a little footstool beside her mother, playing with her dolls.

  Somehow the letter took on new sanctity, read there. She could fancy telling her mother all about it, what the stranger-best-man had said going down that aisle, what had happened all the evening, and his farewell at the station. It seemed, read in the light of a mother’s eyes, as if John Saxon would bear the scrutiny and have a loving mother’s approval.

  Sometime she would tell her father all about him, but not yet. Not just yet!

  The summons to dinner came while she was still sitting in her mother’s big chair by the window, looking out between the pines to the sea, dreaming.

  She had seen Sam come dripping up from the sea and vanish into the house, and now she could hear him clattering down the stairs, hungry from his swim. So she tucked her letter away into safety and went down. Tomorrow, or perhaps the next day, she must answer that letter. She hadn’t yet felt ready to answer a letter like that. There were so many things to be considered about it. But soon she must answer it. She must not wait too long! It was as if the content and wonder into which his letter had led her were a spell too precious to be broken, a dream from which she was not ready yet to wake. And she felt instinctively that to answer that letter was to make more definite one way or the other this marvelous thing that had come so unexpectedly into her life. For the time, she was so lifted out of the conventions of life that she feared to get back into them by the formalities of correspondence, lest she might lose some part of the wonder that had touched her soul. Afraid, lest facing facts, Wisdom might step in and forbid the joy that was welling up inside her.

  So she put it off, the writing of that letter, from day to day for three days more, going about as in a lovely dream, allowing her mind to frame tender phrases that hovered on her lips in a smile and made her so lovely that even Sam looked at her and wondered.

  The second morning there came a letter for Sam, forwarded from home. And there were also letters from her father and uncle for Mary Elizabeth, her father giving directions for certain modern improvements in the way of plumbing to be installed in the house, for renovation of the old stable into a garage, and for several minor repairs and changes to be made in the house before he came down.

  From her uncle came a brief note telling Mary Elizabeth that her Aunt Clarice had gone to the mountains with a friend and that therefore Sam was at her service as long as she wanted him, but that she was to return him to his home whenever she grew tired of his company. Sam could be in the office with him a good deal and would get along well enough if he grew troublesome to her, or she was bored with having a child about.

  She looked u
p from these letters to find Sam at her feet sprawled on the upper step of the piazza, absorbed in a letter of his own. She watched him for a moment, for there was an eagerness in his quietness that interested her.

  “Did you get a letter from your mother?” she asked, wondering if the matter of camp were still hovering in the offing.

  “Gosh, no!” he said. “It’s from Mr. Saxon! He’s sent the new Bible lesson for this week! Gee! I gotta get ta work!”

  “Oh,” said Mary Elizabeth with a heightened color in her cheeks, “is he—back at home—again—yet?”

  “Oh, sure!” said Sam. “He’s back. He’d been working in the orange grove all day the night he wrote this. Wantta read it?” And Sam handed up the letter into her hungry hand.

  It was just a brief, simple letter, as if an older brother were writing to a beloved younger one, yet the girl’s eyes lingered on every pleasant word.

  Dear Sam:

  I got back home last night late and have been working in the grove all day, so haven’t had much time to write, but I made out the lesson for this week on the way down and enclose it. Am anxious to know how you got on with the first two lessons, and I shall hope to hear from you soon. If you find the work too hard, let me know. I’m hoping it interests you as much as it has me to get it ready for you.

  Your friend in Christ,

  John Saxon

  What a friend for a boy to have! What a tie to claim, “in Christ”! Mary Elizabeth felt a passing pang at the sure, strong bond that bound them and gave a half-envious smile at the boy as she handed it back. There was no disturbing separation between those two; it was all settled. It was a friendship, a fellowship, that nothing could break. There were no disturbing questions to settle.

  “This looks like a corker!” said the boy, lifting his eyes from the other paper he held. “Wantta see it?”

  Mary Elizabeth accepted the other sheet and ran her eyes down at the startling questions, the strange symbolic abbreviations, and her eyes grew large with earnestness.

  “It looks,” said Mary Elizabeth searching for the right word, “it looks rather startling! I’m afraid I wouldn’t know how to go to work to answer those questions.”