The Strange Proposal

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “Oh!” said the boy’s mother graciously, knowing her offspring’s dislike of correspondence. “Well, I’m sure I hope he does. It’s very rude of him not to. But what I want to say is, that I’ve already tried to get him on the phone down at the shore and failed! So he must have gone somewhere.” Her tone was suspicion itself.

  “Oh, well,” began the weary husband blandly, “I suppose, then, they’ve just gone off on some little trip or other. Mary Beth drives around a lot, you know. Come to think of it, they spoke of visiting some friend of hers sometime soon. They won’t be gone long. I wouldn’t worry. Mary Elizabeth is very careful.”

  “I’m not worrying, Papa!” snapped his wife, annoyed. “I wish you wouldn’t always think I am worrying! Though it’s a pity if you wouldn’t do a little worrying yourself sometimes. But I want Sam. I want him to come up here at once. If he won’t go to that perfectly wonderful camp where I wanted to send him, at least he’s got to have some cultural influence about him before the summer is over. And I want you to find him by telephone or telegraph or something and send him right up here. There’s a perfectly marvelous man up here teaching dancing, and all the young fellows and girls are taking lessons, and it’s high time that Sam had a little of that under circumstances that he can’t help liking. You know I simply couldn’t compel him to attend dancing classes last winter. He said it was “‘sissy.’” That’s the answer he gives to everything I want to do for his education. And it’s all your fault, Robert. You encourage him in that. And he’s going to grow up a perfect gawk if something isn’t done about it. You know Jeff used to dance so divinely, the girls were all just crazy about his dancing, and it’s high time that Sam began to get into some shape. Next winter there will be the junior dances in the schools, and it’s time he went around and got to be a little civilized. There are some charming young fellows here at the hotel, just his age, two brothers from England among them, and they are so well trained, and courteous! Just perfect little gentlemen! They wait on the girls so delightfully. It’s really quite remarkable, Robert. You would love to see them. And Sam has just got to come up here and get a little of this atmosphere, or he’ll grow perfectly wild!”

  “Well, I’ll risk it,” said Sam’s father, shutting his lips firmly after his words so he couldn’t be forced to swallow them. “I’d rather see Sam a fine, strong boy with a little horse sense than have him made into one of your imitation little gentlemen, at his age. Clarice, you let Sam alone this summer and let him grow! You’ll be surprised how much sense he’s getting. He’s going to be a lad to be proud of. And I’d rather see him with his cousin Mary Elizabeth for a little while longer before he gets to being so polite to the nice little modern imps that pass for girls today. Say, Mama, where did you put those thin old Palm Beach suits I like so much for hot days?”

  “Now, Robert! I told you I gave those away last summer! They weren’t fit for you to wear. You looked like a ragpicker in them. They never had any shape, anyway. I got you some nice light gray suits, why don’t you wear them?”

  “Because they’re too hot, Clarice, and I don’t like ’em! Anyway, I’ve given them away. I didn’t want ’em!”

  “Robert! You didn’t give away those lovely suits! Why, I paid—”

  “Never mind how much you paid for them, Clarice, I’d rather not know. I’ve given them away, and that’s that! I’ve got a conference right now, Clarice, and I’ve got to go! Good-bye!”

  “But Robert, wait! I want you to promise me that you’ll telephone Sam right away tonight and send him up to me by the first train in the morning!”

  But Robert Wainwright had hung up and gone to his conference!

  There was nothing for his wife to do but pour her heart out on paper to her youngest son and send it special delivery, care of his cousin.

  Boothby Farwell, on his way southward, having tested out the different kinds of liquors offered by the way and evaded several detours that seemed more or less casual, finally shook his fist at a perfectly plain detour, about halfway down to Florida, and plunged into forbidden roads.

  “I’m doing this at my own risk!” he snarled at a workman who rushed up to him with a red flag, trying to persuade him otherwise. And then he put his foot on the gas and dashed on, bumping up and down over ruts unspeakable, getting all messed up in some fresh cement, and arriving with a dash just in time for a nasty bit of blasting through some rocks in the roadbed. To avoid them, he swerved to the side and was stopped short, with his car in the embrace, as it were, of a great stalwart truck of the working class.

  Boothby Farwell himself was thrown forward on his knees, and cut and bruised about the face and hands annoyingly but not dangerously.

  When he recovered his wind and his senses he said a great many uncomplimentary things to the workmen who were doing their best to extricate his car from the clutches of the truck and to wash his wounds and bind them up. Silent workmen they were, angry at his bullheadedness, men who could say such things as he was expressing much better than he could, gazing at him in a kind of disgusted pity.

  They pulled him out of his trouble and sent him in a little bit of a rusty jalopy, with one of their best linguists to tell him on the way to the hospital some ten miles away just what the whole gang thought of him and to get a tow truck to bring what was left of his car after him, and then they dismissed him with contempt and washed their hands of him.

  Farwell stayed in the hospital, annoying the whole staff of nurses and doctors with his complaints, until parts could be sent for by telephone for his mutilated car. And at last, when it was patched up, he headed south again, a sadder but no wiser man. He felt that everyone he met was against him and declared the liquor was growing worse and worse the farther south he went. Of course, he could only judge by wayside inns, because he had no time to hunt hotels of distinction. He was already behind his schedule and his bird would perhaps have flown before he got there.

  This thought annoyed him more and more until he reached the next large city and found a hotel. There he telephoned to Seacrest and tried to get the caretaker. But the telephone at Seacrest did not answer. Frank and his wife had gone to prayer meeting.

  Somewhat reassured by the fact that there was no answer, but not yet relieved, he finally called up Sam’s mother, whom he happened to know was at the Mountain House where he wished himself at that moment—but only if Mary Elizabeth could be there also.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Wainwright,” he said suavely, “this is Boothby Farwell. I wonder if you could tell me just when Mary Elizabeth and your son Sam are coming back from Florida?”

  “Florida!” snorted Aunt Clarice. “What in the world do you mean? Who would go to Florida this time of year?”

  “Well, I thoroughly agree with you, but that’s where your son and Mary Elizabeth are, and I’m trying to find out how soon they are coming back!”

  “Well, they certainly will return at once, if I have anything to do with it; that is, if they are really there. I doubt it. Where did you get your information? I shall telegraph her immediately to bring Sam back.”

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Wainwright. I’m on my way down after them now. I’ll have them back within a few days. I only called you to make sure that I should not pass them on my way. You see, I have been delayed a little for repairs on my car. But all is right again, and I am on my way. I hope to make Florida tomorrow sometime. But I was afraid they might already have left. You see, I came down as a surprise, but I suppose I should have wired them I was coming.”

  “But I don’t understand!” said Sam’s mother, now thoroughly aroused. “Did Betty tell you they were going?”

  “No,” said Farwell. “You see, I was away for a few days. But it’s quite like her, don’t you think? She’s so impulsive. However, she’ll be all right, I’m sure. Don’t worry. I’ll let you know when we are starting back.”

  “Oh, that’s so sweet of you, Boothby dear. I shall feel so comfortable about Sammy in your care. And I’m certainly ashamed of Betty,
running off like that without telling anybody.”

  “But she’s quite used to doing what she likes, you know,” said Mary Elizabeth’s would-be fiancé. “What she really needs is someone to look after her.”

  “She certainly does,” agreed Mary Elizabeth’s aunt. “I’ve been hoping—”

  “Yes, so have I!” said the man gallantly. “Well, I won’t keep you, Mrs. Wainwright. I just wanted to make sure they hadn’t started home. I thought you would be sure to know.”

  “But where are you, Boothby?” asked Mrs. Wainwright, coming to her senses.

  “Oh, just in a little town in Georgia. I’m on the regular highway, you know, and I’m bound to meet them if they start before I get there. I know Elizabeth’s car, you know.”

  “Of course,” said the agitated lady. “And please tell Betty that I want her to send Sammy up by the very first train after she gets home. I need him up here now. Tell her that.”

  “I will indeed, Mrs. Wainwright. In fact, if you like, I’ll put him on the train myself when I get there and see that he goes directly up to you.”

  “Oh, that’s so good of you, Boothby dear. And if there’s any expense connected with it, his father will, of course, take care of it.”

  “Oh, that’s all right!” said Boothby Farwell, impatient to be done with the fickle lady. “I’ll wire you when I find them. Good-bye!”

  “Thank you so much! But Boothby, you didn’t tell me how you found out they were in Florida.”

  But Boothby Farwell frowned and hung up. He didn’t care to enter into that question.

  Mrs. Wainwright, however, was greatly disturbed. She went and sat down to her delicate knitting again, but her mind was on the matter of her young son and her niece. How had Betty dared take Sam off without permission? Finally, she rose and sallied forth to the telephone and spent most of the rest of the evening trying to get her husband on the wire. Failing to get him, and being told that he was still in New York, she called as a last resort Mary Elizabeth’s father and after some delay got a servant who told her that Mr. Samuel Wainwright had gone to New York with Mr. Robert Wainwright.

  Much vexed, she hung up and went to bed early to consider how she might visit retribution on all the delinquents. Her husband was not at home looking after things as he ought to be. Her brother-in-law never did look after his daughter as she thought he ought to do, and Mary Elizabeth had probably taken advantage of their absence and gone off on some wild tangent of her own. No telling but she would end up in Egypt with Sam yet. This really must be stopped. If there was no other way to do it, she would have to go home in the heat and stop it herself, much as she hated to do so. She certainly would make her Robert understand a thing or two when she once got his ear again!

  To make matters worse, the next morning she received a loving letter from her husband postmarked New York, crisp and brief, telling of his sudden business trip and saying he wasn’t just sure how soon he could get home. When she called up the hotel where the letter was written, they said both Mr. Wainwrights had checked out.

  Nothing daunted, she tried home again but received the same answer as the night before. Rebecca played off two stock phrases in her replies and got by nicely. “You don’t tell me?” when her mistress announced she had heard that Sam was in Florida, and “I couldn’t say, indeed, ma’am!” when asked if she had heard anything about it.

  Baffled but not discouraged, Mrs. Wainwright retired to her room and missed a morning of bridge to write letters to her husband and brother-in-law, setting forth her ideas of bringing up children and what she would and would not stand. But the Brothers Wainwright were taking a holiday. They were up in Maine on a rugged old farm, most of the time sitting on a rock in the shelter of great old hemlocks, where they used to sit as barefoot boys, fishing by the hour. They had stopped in Boston and bought newfangled fishing tackle and brought it along as an excuse for sitting there, but most of the time they were reminiscing, much to the annoyance of the fish, who would have liked to be biting that lovely modern bait.

  Mr. Robert Wainwright had dutifully written a nice, loving letter to his wife and mailed it from Boston and another from Portland, vaguely mentioning a business trip and giving the impression of a swift return home. His wife’s letter did not reach him for several days, and that not until he was actually back in his home city. His own letters had kept his wife from further attempt to create a campaign against Mary Elizabeth and Sam in Florida, if that was where they were.

  Mrs. Robert Wainwright, realizing that she was wasting ammunition, went back to her bridge and awaited a telegram from Boothby Farwell, which was so long in coming that one morning she awoke in genuine alarm and began to telephone again.

  But that was days later.

  Chapter 22

  Mary Elizabeth was startled from her position bowed over the kitchen table by a sudden sense of someone standing by her side, though there had been no sound.

  She looked up, and there stood Miss Noble, the nurse.

  “The doctor wants you,” she said, in that almost inaudible voice that yet could be heard so distinctly by one close at hand. “Put these on!” She handed Mary Elizabeth a long white gown and a white cap that would cover her hair entirely. “Dissolve this tablet in water and wash your hands. Be as quick as you can, and come!”

  The nurse vanished, and Mary Elizabeth rose, feeling her heart beating so hard that it seemed as if it would choke her. It was not assisting at a solemn operation that frightened her. It was that she knew she must be going into the presence of John Saxon.

  She looked up, and there stood Sam, wide-eyed, white-lipped, watching.

  She put on the garments instantly. She took the tablet the nurse had left and carefully dissolved it in a glass of water as the doctor had directed. Then she gave Sam a radiant smile. There was fright in her eyes, but there was a gallant light also. She went swiftly and silently into the sickroom and stood beside the doctor. She did not look up. She did not see John Saxon, but she knew he must be there. She fixed her attention on the doctor and did exactly according to his low-voiced directions, and whether she was receiving a bloody instrument and placing it in its antiseptic bath, or whether she was handing him another for which he asked, she kept her eyes directly on her work. She did not look up nor allow her thoughts to do so. And presently her thumping heart quieted and she was able to draw a long, still breath and go on with her little part in this tremendous business of life and death.

  She did not trust herself to look at the patient lying there so white and still, she did not let her eyes wander to the details of the work that was going on, nor to think of who was in the room and what part each was taking in this solemn scene. John Saxon might be standing close beside her for aught she knew, but she would not let her mind wander to him. There was just one person of whom she was conscious in that room, and that was John Saxon’s Christ, who seemed to be standing across from her on the other side of the bed close beside the sick woman as if she was very dear to Him, and somehow Mary Elizabeth knew that He had been very close to this woman all her life, and in the event of her death it would be only going with One she loved. Somehow she knew suddenly that this mother had been part of the reason of John Saxon, why he was so different from all other men she knew.

  Humbly she stood there and held the instruments, giving thanks that she was counted worthy for even that.

  She heard the low-spoken directions of the doctor to the nurse; she heard sometimes a word of explanation, which might have been given to John Saxon, but she would not let them lodge in her mind. She was intent on only one thing: doing what she was told to do and doing it under the eyes of John Saxon’s Christ.

  As a matter of fact John hadn’t seen Mary Elizabeth at all. It hadn’t entered his mind that she was there, or could be there. He was just at the other side of the doctor, helping now and then. He might have seen the other white-robed, white-capped woman enter and take her place to serve, but it hadn’t entered into his realization at all. The whi
te figure on the other side there was just a shadowy helper whom the doctor had brought along. He did not look up, nor see her face, and she did not look at his. For the time, she was set apart from his thoughts. John’s eyes were on his precious mother, watching the hand of skill that was guiding the knife.

  Now and again there would be almost inaudible sounds spoken between the two doctors, but it was as if they were in another sphere. Mary Elizabeth stood serving, as if she were passing the first test under the eyes of John Saxon’s Christ.

  It might have been years that she stood there. Time seemed to have stood still. But there came an end at last. And still following directions, she found herself out in the kitchen again, washing her hands, taking off the white garments and folding them up, facing Sam white-lipped and anxious, and somehow she managed a little trembling smile for him.

  “Is it over?” his eyes asked, and her own nodded.

  Mary Elizabeth felt as if she wanted to cry, and yet there was a kind of exultation in her heart.

  The door swung open silently from the front room and the nurse came in, a thermometer in her hand.

  “You’d better go over to the plane and lie down, Miss Wainwright, you look white,” she said in her professional tone.

  Mary Elizabeth took a long breath and shook her head.

  “I’m quite all right,” she said proudly. “What can I do next?”

  “Nothing just now, except to be on hand. I’ve made her as comfortable as it’s possible for her to be at present. Young Mr. Saxon is driving somewhere to bring ice and other things the doctor wants. Your cousin is with Mr. Saxon senior. If there was only something for you to lie on, it would be good for you to get a little rest now so you would be better able to help when you are needed.”

  “I know where there’s a cot,” said Sam eagerly and opening a door over in the corner, vanished up a sort of ladder into a loft, presently descending with an army cot coming on ahead of him.