Blue Ruin (25 page)

She wandered off to a far corner of the deck where few people were about and where she could stand by the railing and look off at the wide, glittering sea upon which they were gliding along so smoothly it seemed as if they were on wheels.

Problems, problems, on land or sea! Was the fault her own? Had she grown narrow? Had she grown sharp and argumentative? Perhaps Dana had seen that in her, too. Perhaps he had had reason to feel she was as much changed as she felt him to be. She must pray for sweetness and strength. She must keep quiet and let the Lord lead her. She must not grow narrow or critical or hard. She must not try to impose her own beliefs on others and make herself disagreeable, of course. But she must not yield an iota of what she believed to be right, nor lower her own standard in any degree! That was settled! For the rest, she was here and must stay for a time at least, and her business was to witness. That was all, just witness, witness for the right, not preach. Let everybody see what Christ could do with a surrendered soul. She could leave the rest with God. She need not worry whether she was accomplishing anything or not. She did not have to accomplish. That was God’s part. She was just a witness!

She did not know what a pleasant picture she made as she stood with her hand on the rail, her soft hair blown a little around her face, her simple dark-blue tailored dress that was neither too short nor too tight and yet was lovely in its outline, her slim silken ankles braced against the breeze. Yet off across a pile of steamer chairs a young man who had seen her when they first came on board was watching her and was hoping he might meet her. She looked like a girl who would be worth meeting. There were not many like that in the world anymore. He doubted if this one would be what she seemed if he knew her better. Perhaps it would be better not to know, just watch her from afar and have the pleasure of thinking she was as lovely in her character as in her face. Very likely she was like all the rest, though, for there came that other girl again, the tall one with the boyish hair and form, and the pouting, discontented lips that were too hideously red—the girl that took her away before. She was putting her arm around her now and drawing her away with her again. It was just as well! They were probably all alike. Some hours ago when they first came on board he had seen the tall one out behind a pile of life preservers puffing away at a cigarette with frantic earnestness as if she were in a hurry and trying to hide. Likely they were friends or sisters, and what one did so did the other. What a pity the girls were all going that way. No sacred womanhood anymore. He turned away and paced the deck and tried to think of other things.

“Come, Lynnie,” Dorothy was saying. “I was cross I know. I was a fool. Forgive me. I didn’t quite mean all that bunk I handed you. I just wanted to try you out, I guess. Come on back and let’s make up. You needn’t dance, you needn’t smoke, and you may preach at me if you like, but let’s get out the trunk and try on the dresses. I’m bored stiff, and it isn’t time to dress for dinner yet. Come on back.”

Lynette went back and plunged into the beauties of Cousin Marta’s wardrobe.

It was a gorgeous array as Dorothy had said. There were satins and silks of every hue in the rainbow, and cut in the most fantastic styles. There were sports clothes galore, with loud dashes of color in curious combination. There was a silver cloth as soft as a kitten’s ear and a golden gauze that looked like spun sunshine. But there was nothing there save a smart little black dinner frock and a white wool jersey that Lynette really fancied for herself, and in the end, after she had admired to Dorothy’s full satisfaction, she folded them all carefully again and locked them away in the steamer trunk. Then she put on her own little blue crepe frock that she had made herself and worn at home that last evening in the sunset when Dana had walked away with another girl and left her life blank. The memory of it almost spoiled her evening, but she put it on bravely and went down to dinner.

“You’re odd!” said Dorothy. “You might have had all those gorgeous things, and you don’t want them. But you do look better in your own. You look sort of different—and more—well—like yourself. I guess there’s something I don’t understand. I wish I did. You’re lovely anyway, and I’m glad you are you.”

Lynette smiled wistfully and wound her arm around the slim waist of her cousin’s attractive but brief little dance frock of rose color and went into the dining room. She wondered if perhaps life wasn’t going to be even more complicated here than if she had stayed at home and worked out her problem with Dana and the little flapper girl.

Oh, how was she going to stand it alone? How was she to know which way to turn in all the maze of paths?

“I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” rang a verse in her memory. She was not alone! It was all right. On water or land! She would just trust!

Chapter 18

T
he stranger was at a table not far from where the Reamers sat. He was so placed that he could watch Lynette’s profile, but Dorothy was sitting so that she was straight across from him, and their lifted eyes frequently met.

“There’s a perfectly stunning man over at the second table, Dad,” said Dorothy. “He has blue plush eyes and a nice smile.”

“Don’t tell me he’s smiled at you already, kitten. I’ll have to put him overboard if he has!” declared her father, smiling at her indulgently.

“Oh, no, nothing like that yet,” declared the wild child. “I only saw him smile at the man he is talking to at the table. But I’m dying to dance with him. I just know he dances like a breeze. You’ve got to chase him down and introduce him to me, Dad. I simply can’t wait to meet him!”

“What if I don’t like him, Dottie?”

“That’s nothing in my young life!” chanted the spoiled infant. “You’ll have to bring him or I’ll get him myself you know.”

“And what am I to do, baby? Go trotting around the deck asking for a man with blue plush eyes and an enchanting smile? There might be more than one applicant for the position, you know. Especially if I told him I had more than one beautiful daughter,” and he cast a loving glance toward Lynette. “How do you know, now, but Lynette will cut you out, Dot? What will you do then? You’ve never had to compete with so beautiful a rival before.”

“Oh, that’s all right! Lynn doesn’t dance. She’s going to be stuffy just as Mamma said she would be. Oh, you needn’t look that way, we’ve had it all out and shaken hands over it, haven’t we, Lynn? We’ve agreed to be friends and each go our different ways, but it’s going to be awfully dull not having Lynn to go to dances, and I’ve simply got to be amused or I’ll be horrid. So it’s up to you, Dad! Go to it. You can get the names of the men at that table. You won’t have any trouble. The others are only ordinary. One is old with white hair, and one is red and fat, and one needs a haircut. My man has blue plush eyes and faces this way, yes, the tall one, you can’t mistake him.”

“All right, kitten, I’ll do my best,” said Uncle Reamer. “But what are we going to do to make Lynette have a good time? If she doesn’t like the dancing we must get some nice young folks to walk the deck with her.”

“Oh, Uncle Roth, I’d much rather walk with you!” protested Lynette in distress. “I don’t really like to meet strangers, and I came on the trip to be with you. Don’t you want to take a walk with me, and you and Aunt Hilda?”

Aunt Hilda smiled comfortably.

“I think I’ll just stay inside tonight, dear. I really ought to keep Dorothy in sight, at least, you know. You and your uncle take your walk. I’m just too tired to move.”

“Oh, stuffy again!” complained Dorothy. “You don’t have to tag me around as if I were a Victorian maiden. That’s old stuff, and I won’t stand for it!”

“Well, I like to watch you dance, dear,” said her mother gently. “I won’t be in your way.”

“It’s rotten!” said Dorothy unfilially. “If I’m going to be continually shadowed on this trip, I’ll take the next boat and do as I please!”

“There, there, kitten!” pacified her father. “Just ease down on Mamma. She’s tired, you know, and she likes to think that you are her little girl yet.”

“Well, I’m not!” pouted the rebel, “and I’ll do something outrageous if you don’t let up on this chaperoning business. Nobody else has to stand it and I won’t!”

“Look here, young woman,” said her father, a more determined yet still indulgent note in his voice, “if you keep on that strain, I won’t go hunt your plush man for you.”

“Oh, yes, Dad, you’re just kidding me along now. But I mean it. I’m grown up and it’s time you knew it.”

They hushed her up playfully and turned the talk in another strain, but Lynette was left with the impression of unrest that brooded in the hearts of her aunt and uncle about their pretty, wayward daughter. It perhaps was not going to be so pleasant in their company as she had anticipated. Was there always a trouble in every family, always a fly in every ointment?

She glanced at the two boys farther down the table, sturdy school boys, interested in their own affairs, discoursing about engines and propellers and powers and knots and various other matters of the sea. They had not yet reached the stage of rebellion where their sister had arrived, but they seemed as much aloof as if they belonged to strangers. They were a couple of wild young boys who were engaged in getting as much out of their parents as they could comfortably extract. Of course, they were nice and pleasant and funny about it, but they showed already that their interests were their own and they felt no loyalty toward their family. Lynette wondered if here was a place where she might work. Could she win the boys and make them her companions? They seemed so much like Elim in some ways, and it would be less lonely if she had someone to depend upon. It was plain that Dorothy was a bird of passage and contact with her could only be established at intervals when she had nothing else to do. A great loneliness swept over her in the midst of the happy room full of people. She wished again that she had not come and felt that she had been wrong to run away in a fit just because she was disappointed in Dana. There were other things in her home besides Dana, other interests in life even if Dana failed her altogether.

But there was little time for such thoughts.

People began to drift over to their table and stop to talk. New York friends of the family, and they all went on deck.

Uncle Roth went off in search of his man but came back unsuccessful.

“His name is Alexander Douglas. That’s all I could find out,” he said, sitting down between his wife and daughter and giving them a smile that included Lynette and made her feel less homesick.

“I don’t know whether he is Alexander the coppersmith or Alexander the Great, but anyhow he’s Alexander Douglas, though nobody seemed to describe his eyes like that. But they said he was tall, very tall. He wasn’t in the cabins and he wasn’t playing cards, nor in the smoking room, and I walked the decks over pretty well and couldn’t see anything like him anywhere, so I guess you’ll have to cut him out, kitten.”

“Cut him out, nothing!” pouted the child. “You keep your eyes open and bring him to me as soon as you find him. I’m just crazy about him. Is he married? Because I can’t help it if he is. I’m simply dead in love with him!”

“Dorothy!” said Aunt Hilda in a shocked voice.

“Oh, Mamma, now don’t be stuffy! That doesn’t mean a thing in these days! Don’t forget, Daddy, you’ve promised. Bye-bye Lynn! Too bad you won’t come. I’d let you dance with him, just once, if you would. Oh, those dear plush eyes!”

Dorothy tripped away, blowing a butterfly kiss as she posed in the doorway.

Lynette went to get a wrap, and she and her uncle took a promenade around the decks, talking of many pleasant things. Of her college life, of home and mother, and what she intended to do next. She was shy about that, however. Her expectations had been so turned upside down in the last two days. She said not a word about Dana till her uncle asked.

“And what’s become of that nice boy neighbor? Wasn’t he studying to be a lawyer or something? Anything serious between you yet? I think your mother spoke of him once. His father used to be something.”

Lynette summoned a laugh.

“You mean Dana Whipple, I guess. We’ve always been good friends,” she said evasively. “Dana was studying for the ministry. He’s through now, and I believe has a very good prospect for the future. He has a brilliant mind and seems to be in line for a city church. That will please his mother and grandmother who have great ambitions for him.”

Uncle Rothwell eyed her intently as they passed in the brighter light of the open doorway. Was there something hidden here? Some hurt? Was her voice just the least bit formal in talking so freely about this lifelong friend? Uncle Rothwell was a keen man and gifted with an insight into character.

“I was afraid he might get in the way of our plans,” he said, watching her. “Your Aunt Hilda seemed to think he would.”

“Oh, no!” said Lynette, trying to speak naturally but aware of the heightened color in her cheeks, thankful that color did not show by moonlight.

“Look!” she said eagerly, “the moon is coming up! Oh, isn’t that the most wonderful sight!” And her eagerness turned her uncle’s attention away from herself and Dana Whipple. Yet the brief passage had left its sting, and after they had walked a little longer, her uncle left her at her own request to watch the moonlight on the water while he went back to see if her aunt would not like to come out and sit with her awhile in that sheltered end of the boat, which seemed to be deserted for the time being.

She stood still by the rail looking up into the face of the full moon, ignoring the chair her uncle had placed for her, lost in a profound wonder at the sight spread before her. The majesty of that brightness seemed to envelop and thrill her, and lift her out of the gloom of life. What did other things matter when there was light like this in the world? She longed to drink it in and fill her soul with this illumination. She almost felt as if she had wings and could spread them and fly when she looked across the twinkling water and saw that radiance. It was as if the light were tangible and if she were only near enough she could reach out and touch it.