So he went on with his preparations for his marriage.
He did not write to Revel at once. Let the boy realize that he had meant what he said. And since he didn’t come home, and he didn’t reply immediately, let him take the consequences.
So Revel was left in doubt as to what was to happen to him next. But indeed, he was so anxious for his grandfather that his mind did not dwell much on what was going to happen to himself. He only hoped that no police officer would arrive to remand him home while his grandfather was lying so low. What he would do in such a case, he didn’t know. When the law came in, it was no longer his to decide. But he prayed continually that nothing would happen to hurt his grandfather.
One day he was going through his coat pockets looking for his pen, which he was sure he had had with him on the train on the journey, and he suddenly came on the two letters, the nurse’s and the other one that arrived at the same time, and that he now remembered stuffing into his side pocket that terrible rushing day he came. He pulled the letter out now and looked at it. Yes, strange writing. That must be from the woman his father was marrying next week, and he might as well read it now and get it over with.
So he opened it and began to read.
Dear Revel:
“Dear Revel:”
But—Revel! Why did she call him that? Surely she wouldn’t know that name! Or would she? Was she somebody from the hometown who already knew him?
With a heavy frown on his brow he turned to the end and saw the name signed, “Margaret Weldon,” and suddenly his heart leaped up with a glad thrill. This was Margaret, his friend. This was the lovely girl who had come to him in the woods when he was in despair, the girl for whom he had gotten the flowers! He hadn’t expected ever to hear of her again, and so many things had happened since the evening in the woods that he had almost put her out of his thoughts, but now a great glad peace came to him, like a gentle hand on his brow. Margaret!
Then he read the letter, a flush coming on his cheek, his eyes shining. This was one friend he had to whom he could tell what had happened and who would be glad for him, and sympathize. She would not find fault with him for coming to his grandfather. She had practically suggested it herself. Of course, she didn’t know God was going to send him. She didn’t know that he had followed her suggestion and taken his trouble to God and that God had answered in this way. She didn’t know anything about all this, and he must write and tell her. That would be one person in whom he could confide. His grandfather wasn’t well enough to hear anything of the details of his coming or his life. His natural reticence made it impossible for him to confide in the nurse, but he could write to Margaret! He would do it right away! The doctor was with the patient now and he was not needed for a few minutes, so he sat down at the desk that used to be his mother’s girlhood desk, and wrote.
Dear Margaret:
I was all kinds of glad to get your letter and to know you liked the flowers. I hope they keep for you, but if they don’t, perhaps I can get some more for you later.
A lot of things have happened since I saw you. I prayed as you told me to, and right away the next day God answered. I got a letter on my way home from school, a special delivery, from a nurse who has been taking care of my grandfather. He is very sick and is not expected to live, but he had asked for me to come to him before he dies. He wanted to talk with me. It seems he had written me a lot of letters before he was sick, but I never got them. I guess my father didn’t want me to have them. The nurse begged me to come at once as Grand might not live but a few hours. So I started right away on the first train. My dad was in New York, so I packed up and left. I wrote him a note explaining and left it for him. I knew he wouldn’t like it, but I couldn’t help it, I had to go.
When I got here Grand was very short of breath. He couldn’t speak much, but he let me know how glad he was. His eyes shine with joy when he looks at me, and he has frail hands, soft and warm like my mother’s. Like yours when I touched them. I sit and hold Grand’s hands a great deal. He has an odd thing the matter with him, a clot in the heart, and he has to lie very still. They won’t even let him speak to me anymore, so I just sit and hold his hand. Sometimes I pray. I was wishing you knew about it and would pray, too, for my Grand. He’s a swell person, and I’d like to keep him here if I might.
I don’t know what Dad is going to do about all this. He has ordered me home, but I didn’t go. Grand was too sick to leave. The doctor said my being here was doing a lot for him, and he maybe might get better if I stayed. So I’m staying.
Dad will probably do something about this, maybe send the police after me. Won’t you pray that nothing will come that will hurt my dear Grand?
Please forgive this long letter. I have no one else to talk to about it. It is a comfort to call you a friend, but don’t let me bother you. If you get time, write me a little letter sometime.
Your friend of the woods,
Revel Radcliffe
After that letter was started on its way, the boy thought much about the girl to whom it had gone. It seemed as if a long time had passed since he had seen her, so much had happened to him in between. Perhaps she had almost forgotten him. Perhaps she would think he was presuming to write to her, a stranger. And yet she had been so kind!
And that night when he was sitting by the sleeping invalid to let the nurse rest, he was startled into realizing that he had been remembering Margaret Weldon’s sweet lips against his when he had kissed her good-bye. Would he ever feel them there again?
The next morning he thought it over and decided that he was a sap and that it was time he did some real work of some kind instead of just sitting around mooning.
His father’s next communication was a brief note.
Very well. Have your own way. But you’ll have to expect to take the consequences.
This communication filled the boy with great relief and a kind of exhilaration. Whatever “the consequences” might mean, at least he was free from that terrible dread that the law might appear in some form and snatch him from his grandfather’s side while he still needed him. And then the next day there came a formal engraved announcement of the wedding of Mrs. Natalie Temple and Mr. Hiram Radcliffe.
It was over, then, and he had not had to attend. He felt unspeakably relieved.
It was a few days later that the doctor told him he had hope that his grandfather might be going to get better, and Revel sat hour after hour holding the feeble hand, and smiling when the old man smiled, and just being happy. In fact, he was happier than he had been since his mother died. His grandfather might get better, and then he would have somebody to care for him. Of course, his father might rise up and make trouble again, after the wedding was over and he was back at home settled down to living. He knew his father well enough to realize he didn’t ever give up his will easily, and he would surely pursue this subject of college, for he had always been very determined about that. But why worry now? It would be enough if Grand got better and they could have a good talk.
But through those long hours that Revel sat patiently watching with the invalid, sometimes reading a few paragraphs to him when the doctor said he might, Revel was thinking out a future for himself, trying to plan so that he wouldn’t ever have to go back to his home and watch an alien mother take the place of his own.
He found among his mother’s things in her desk in the room he occupied, a lot of papers and catalogs, and some bits of diary records about her own college life, in a college quite near Linwood. He knew from the stories she had told him of her college life that there had been men as well as girls in that college. Why couldn’t he go to that college, if it was still in existence? He would ask Grand about that when he got well enough to really talk with. If there was a college nearby, any kind of college, he would go there if he could get in, at least until Grand was well and able to be left. But oh, how great if it was near enough for him to stay here with Grand and walk to college every day, or maybe get another bicycle and ride there! Well, that was
something to put aside and think about. Perhaps that was another thing he ought to ask God about before he decided. This idea of living as God guided, that Margaret Weldon had suggested, had taken great hold upon him, because the first prayer had worked out so wonderfully well. Even his father seemed to have subsided for the time being, though of course that couldn’t be expected to last long.
How he wished that Margaret Weldon lived in this part of the world and that he could talk things over with her sometimes.
When he got to feeling that way he would go to his room for a few minutes and read Margaret’s letter over, and wonder if she would ever write to him again.
Then one day another letter came from her.
Dear Revel:
It was grand to get your news about going to your grandfather’s, and I hope your father will let you stay there. And I hope so much God will let your grandfather get well. Both of my grandfathers and grandmothers are gone to heaven, and sometimes I feel very much alone, not having any. I only knew two of them, my Grandmother and Grandfather Weldon, for the others died when I was very small, but I loved Grandmother Weldon especially, for she lived longest and used to read to me and play games with me when I was little. I am certainly glad your grandfather wants you. It is so nice to be wanted. Sometimes I feel terribly depressed that nobody really needs me, nor wants me so awfully much, although everybody is very nice to me.
Of course I am praying for your grandfather to get well. I began right away as soon as I read your letter. What a splendid name you have for him! Grand! It just expresses what he means to you, doesn’t it?
I think it is so sad that you never got the letters your grandfather wrote you. It was nice that the nurse’s letter came as an answer to your prayer. I am glad you have found out that God does answer.
I do hope the police will not have to get into your affairs. But if they do, keep on praying. If God is with you, you will not mind what happens, will you?
I want to tell you about my flowers. In the first place I had a sort of a fight with your Mrs. Martin to keep them. She pried right into things when they came, and wanted to know who sent them and how I came to know you, and she was true to form. She threatened to tell all around the town that you had insulted a guest of hers by scraping acquaintance and daring to give a strange girl flowers. I just couldn’t make her understand.
Well, you know how she can talk, and I’m only telling you this because if you should go home, she might carry out her threat. I don’t want you to think I had anything to do with the story.
I still love my flowers very much. They speak to me of my precious mother. And they remind me of you, my friend of the woods. I have planted them in a little shady corner under some trees, so they will think they are in the woods, and they are growing beautifully. I wish you could see them.
This is a very noisy place to which I have come. I don’t feel at all at home here. Maybe it will seem better when I get really acquainted.
Please write me again soon, for I’m honestly quite homesick, and somehow you seem like “home folks,” perhaps because we’ve both lost our mothers. Besides, I shall want to know how things come out, whether your “Grand” is getting better and if you are being allowed to stay with him. I shall be hoping and praying. May God keep you.
Your friend,
Margaret
When that letter came, Grand was really getting much better, and Revel, as he read it over many times, thought how he would someday show it to his grandfather, if he got well enough to read it.
The letter gave Revel great comfort, as he read it over every time he got sad and discouraged. It was like a pleasant talk with a friend. And it often comforted him that the little flowers that he had arisen so early to get for Margaret were really growing, and pleasing her.
Chapter 10
It was at breakfast that first morning after her arrival at her aunt’s home that Margaret broached the subject of the flowers.
“Aunt Carlotta, I’ve brought some flowers with me from a place where my mother used to gather them in her old hometown. They have roots, and I’ve been wondering if there is a little shady spot in the yard or garden, where I could plant them. Do you mind?”
Aunt Carlotta looked up from her morning mail and smiled.
“Flowers?” she said absently. “You mean you carted plants all the way across the continent? Oh, my dear! How very silly! As if we didn’t have flowers enough in California, without bringing little uncultivated weeds from a country woods! Yes, of course, if you want to, put them out, but they’ll never live. It isn’t their native climate, you know, and you can’t expect them to survive here, especially after a journey like that. Packed up tight. No air!”
“Oh, but they weren’t packed tight! They were lying comfortably in a nice tin box, their roots wrapped around with wet moss, and I kept the cover of the box open most of the way, so they had air nearly all day, and of course I set the open box in the window at night. They look quite sprightly this morning, and I would so love to set them out somewhere, where I can attend to them and keep them growing.”
“Why, my dear, of course, if that will give you pleasure. Go out and look around till you find a suitable place. Would you like the gardener to set them out for you?”
“Oh, thank you, no, Aunt Carlotta. I’ll enjoy doing that myself. I’ll find some little place under a tree where it is woodsy, and maybe they won’t know they’ve moved.” She laughed shyly.
“Dear me!” said the aunt amusedly. “How quaint of you! But what are these flowers, that they are so unusual and demand such personal care?”
“Oh, they are just spring blossoms, anemones and hepaticas and spring beauties. Just the common little wildflowers of mother’s hometown. She used to tell me about them, how she loved to go to the woods for them, and she described the place to me so well that I went by myself and found them.”
Margaret didn’t mention the nice boy who had got up early and dug them for her and then packed them so carefully. She had learned her lesson from Mrs. Martin about telling such things.
“How extraordinary!” said the aunt, smiling. “You’re a romantic child, aren’t you? As I remember it, that is like your mother. She used to get me out of all patience when she was a child, being so romantic about things. Birds and squirrels and flowers, you know. Insisting that they had feelings and would be hurt if we were thoughtless with them.”
“Yes?” said Margaret, smiling dreamily. “Mother always had such beautiful imaginings. That was why I wanted just these flowers from the very place where she used to pick them.”
“I see!” said the aunt indulgently. “Well, that is a harmless little hobby to follow. Suit yourself about where you want them put, and if you find you need the gardener’s help, just tell him I told you to ask him. But you know, my dear, soon you’ll be so engrossed in swimming and boating and dancing parties, that you’ll have little time for fussing with plants, and the poor little mites will die a natural death. However, put them where you like and let the poor things have a fighting chance, if you think they can weather it.”
Margaret gave her aunt a startled, wide-eyed glance, and the young eagerness was quietly subdued in her eyes. She was quick to sense the lack of understanding and sympathy in her aunt, and it was a great disappointment. Didn’t her aunt used to love her mother dearly? She couldn’t quite make it out.
She went out into the yard, searching for a place to plant her flowers. She couldn’t bear to put them where they would be trampled down or carelessly uprooted, and finally she found a shady little nook in a corner behind some wide-spreading trees, and planted them carefully. It was not a place where others would likely notice them, and she went and asked the gardener if it would be all right to put them there. He was very helpful, suggesting some rich woods earth he had, and he spaded up a place for her. So the little wild plants found a quiet place where they would not be disturbed, and sometimes their young owner sought refuge among them, when the constant crowd of noisy young peopl
e wore upon her nerves, and she was sore perplexed about the right and wrong of things.
Somehow in this new world to which she had come, there seemed to be no such thing as right and wrong. If you suggested that it wasn’t right to do something the only answer would be, “Who says so? I guess we can do it if we please to. Anyway, I’m going to.”
This was the general code of Bailey Wicke, who continued to infest the house at times, until Margaret wished she could run away. It wasn’t that she did not like him, so much as that he went against all her inborn principles, and it troubled her greatly to be always saying no to his propositions. He wanted to do such crazy things. Apparently the whole crowd was ready to do anything that occurred to any one of their wild brains.
But these troubles came slowly, one at a time.
The first clash came just after lunch that first day. Aunt Carlotta had spent most of the morning with her secretary, going through the mailing list of her club, calling out names of those she wanted invited to a certain social event she was planning in the near future, dictating a few letters, and writing the menu lists out for the next week. Meantime, Margaret fluttered about the lovely house, examining beautiful pictures, statuary, fine old furniture, and best of all, the wonderful old books in the soft-toned rare leather bindings.
Then the delicious lunch was served, and as they were getting up from the table Aunt Carlotta remarked, “Well, now, Margaret, suppose you and I get to work. First, what do you like to be called, Mag, or Margo, or Marge, or just plain Peggy?”
Margaret looked at her aunt in astonishment, thinking this was some new kind of a joke.
“Why, I like my own name, Aunt Carlotta. I prefer to be called Margaret, the name my mother gave me. I’ve always loved it.”
“Yes?” said the aunt with a lifting of her eyebrows. “Well that’s odd! A girl that’s satisfied with her name! Most of the girls I know have chosen some outlandish nickname.”
Margaret smiled wistfully.
The Girl of the Woods Page 10