Substitute Guest (15 page)

They had a grand time opening the presents. Alan couldn’t remember ever enjoying an occasion so much since he was a child, and every moment increased his liking and respect and admiration for every member of the group.

They sat around the fire in a semicircle, each one in an easy chair, and took down their stockings first. It was all cozy and lovely, with the lights of the Christmas tree brightening the room that would otherwise have been a bit gloomy with no sunshine, and that great white blanket of snow obscuring the light from the windows. Father Devereaux, just before they began, had lit two tall candles in the sconces over the mantel so that the room glowed with candles and tree and firelight. It was pleasant to feel shut in from the world, with nobody likely to interrupt them. It was like being shut in on a desert island for a time with the very nicest people in the world for companions, and plenty of stores to last indefinitely. It seemed to Alan Monteith like a little bit of heaven below.

Lance handed out the stockings to their owners and they took turns taking out something. Mother Devereaux came first. There was a box with a lovely collar of fine lace in the top of her stocking, so she opened that first. It was from Daryl, and she made her put it on at once around the neck of her gray wool dress, where it dignified her outfit, and made her look a bit more fragile and delicate than she really was. Father Devereaux said he really would have to kiss her she looked so sweet. There was a charming bit of verse on a card that Daryl had written for her mother. It was better than reading a story or looking at a picture to be thus let in on the happy intimacies of this charming family life. Alan almost wished he might take notes so that he could treasure always everything that was said and done.

And Daryl was so pleased with her scarf when she opened it first of her presents because it was too large a box to go into the stocking and had to be tied on the hook. She exclaimed over its softness and said she had always wanted one of those lovely things, but she never could afford it. Her cheeks grew pink with pleasure as she threw it around her shoulders, and her eyes, Alan saw, matched it exactly. They all noticed that, too, and spoke of it. “Why, Daryl, it’s made out of one of the glances from your own eyes!” her brother said. Alan was delighted. He could see they were all pleased at the present.

A minute later Ruth opened her box and flung her crimson scarf around her where it matched her glowing cheeks and brought a sparkle of pleasure into her dark eyes, as she thanked him shyly.

“Say, now, old man,” said Lance, when he found his wallet and key case. “I’m beginning to suspect you. This is a put-up job. You pretended you were stalled in front of our house yesterday, but it is becoming more and more evident that you had this all planned and meant to spend Christmas with us, else why would you have selected these gorgeous gifts that are each just what we wanted? See, Dad, you’ve got one, too! The package is just the same size as mine. Open it quick! Say, this is great! But you needn’t try to tell me you didn’t plan to come here from the start. Only what gets me is how you found out just what we wanted?”

Alan sat there grinning and sheepish and happy, and the packages multiplied until they were all over the floor around their chairs, and on the little tables that were near at hand; and wrapping paper and ribbon made a bright confusion everywhere.

Alan had not been forgotten by any means. The truth was the family had been so uncertain about, and rather afraid of, the new element Daryl seemed about to introduce into the family, that each had secretly provided more than one article that
might
serve as a gift to him. They had intended to select the most appropriate one when he arrived and they saw how well they liked him. Their one desire had been to please Daryl by what they gave him, and not to disappoint her. So they had a stock from which to draw when the stranger came among them. But the strangest thing about it was that not one of them shrank from giving any of the things they had bought to Alan Monteith. They felt as if they could not give him enough. And whereas they had been most troubled about Harold’s acceptance of some of the things they had chosen, there wasn’t a thing they had that they felt wouldn’t be appreciated by this stranger.

Lance gave him a strange little gadget to fasten to his windshield by suction which would give him the points of the compass; the father, a quaint old book of Scotch sayings and witticisms in a rare binding, a book that had been handed down to him from his forebears. He hadn’t consulted his children about it apparently, for they seemed surprised, and Daryl silently commented to herself that her father would never have ventured to give that to Harold. And if he had, Harold would have cast is aside as worthless. As she watched Alan handle and open the little old book with deference as if he understood its value and turn the pages interestedly, she could not help contrasting him with the other guest who was to have been there. She could fairly see the bored look on Harold Warner’s face even though he was not present. He probably would not even have bothered to open a page. Reading of that type would never have appealed to him, and the ancient rare binding would have been to him as so much outworn trash. She tried to get away from the thought, but it lingered and hurt her, even while she was telling herself that she was not being fair to Harold. He was a different type, young and fun-loving. But then would come back his laugh over the telephone last night, his jumbled incoherent talk, and she shuddered.

“Are you cold, dear?” her mother asked, noticing the quiver of her shoulders.

“Oh no, indeed!” she answered lightly and the quick color stole into her white cheeks. Alan, happening to look her way, thought how lovely she was, and yet marked the faint blue lines under her eyes, and wondered if he knew what made them.

Ruth had made several hand-hemstitched handkerchiefs of lovely sheer linen in preparation for the festivity, and during the long, anxious waiting for the two pilgrims to return, she had tucked handsome initials in one corner of each with her skillful needle. There were two of those in Alan’s stocking.

Daryl’s gift to the stranger had cost her quite a struggle. She like the rest had been a little uncertain about Harold, and had provided more than one possibility. Among other things she had bought a handsome leather case for collars and a matching one for handkerchiefs which she had been sure he would like, not only because it was obviously the best of its kind and therefore costly, but because it was something she had heard him covet. Yet her heart had wanted to give him something finer, more poetic, something that would appeal to heart and brain, rather than just to the material senses. She had even indulged this longing so far as to purchase an exquisite etching of the wise men and the star. She had spent much care on its framing and had taken joy in it when she brought it home, but then she found she could not bring herself to give it to Harold. She wasn’t even sure he believed in that star. When she thought it over she was afraid he would not be able to see even the beauty of line and thought in the picture, and so she had hid it away. There had been a book of poems also, beautifully bound in soft blue leather, tooled delicately in gold. They were poems that she loved, and would so enjoy reading with the ideal Harold whom she had set up in her mind. But those, too, she had hidden away.

It was only at the last moment that she had made her quick decision, feeling strong gratitude to the stranger-guest for his help in the saving of her brother. She had brought out the picture and stood it up under his stocking. Later, when he came to unwrap it, the last of his things around the fireplace, she liked the look on his face. Harold would scarcely have glanced at the etching. Art and religion did not interest him. But Alan’s face lit up with a glow of real appreciation.

During the morning there was an intermission when Mother went out to the kitchen a few minutes. Daryl had been thinking over the lovely gifts Alan had given to her and her family—that exquisite little crystal bottle of costly perfume for her, the tiny enamel pencil, the wonderful pin he had given her mother. Now she realized that her simple etching seemed far too little to give to the stranger who had poured out his treasures upon them. So with her lovely blue scarf around her shoulders and a dab of the perfume on one cheek, she slipped away upstairs and got the blue leather poems to put under the tree for him. But just as she was hurrying down again she met her brother on the stairs.

“Daryl!” he said softly, “haven’t you got something else I could give to Alan? I’d like to give him something really nice, and I don’t quite like the other things I bought. They don’t seem to fit him. He’s such a wonderful fellow!”

Daryl gave Lance one startled look, and then she went back into her room and brought out the leather cases. After all, she might as well make a clean sweep of everything.

Lance was delighted and promised to replace them as soon as the snow would let him get into town, but Daryl said no sharply. “There won’t be any need,” she said with finality. “I shouldn’t use them now under any consideration!”

Lance gave her a quick searching look and went downstairs, wondering if that wasn’t being a little hard on even Harold, just because he did not come to spend Christmas in a storm like this. But he thanked his sister and made no further comments.

“I’ll pay you for them, anyway,” he said, smiling brightly, “and no end of thanks for helping me out.”

So the opening of gifts went on, and Daryl’s fair plans for the lover who did not come broke harmlessly on the shore of the family pleasure and obliterated some of the sore hurt feeling, enabling her to enter into the Christmas fun without too much agony. Her mother looked on with much surprise and gradual relief as one by one these gifts came forth that she knew her daughter had bought with Harold in mind. Well, at least there would not be a lot of offerings ready for the repentant prodigal when he came, as he undoubtedly would. And it was right that there should not be. If the young man didn’t come when he had said he would, he did not deserve Christmas gifts. It would have been different if he had felt the storm prevented his getting there! But to frankly say he had gone somewhere else at the last minute was unforgivable. Anybody, even a cruel boss, would have understood if Harold had said he had a previous engagement. Especially when it was with the girl whom he seemed to be expecting to marry.

But it was Mother Devereaux who brought out the crowning gift for the guest, just as he had given his loveliest gift to her.

Early in November she had been to the city with Daryl, and had purchased among other things a beautifully bound Bible, soft real leather in a very dark blue, with a trim, neat fine binding that made the mere handling of the book a pleasure. It was quite distinctive and had been rather expensive. Daryl had wondered when her mother bought it, but when she found out that she had thoughts of giving it to Harold, Daryl gave her a startled look, opened her lips to protest, and then closed them again. Nevertheless, the mother had sensed that Daryl was not pleased and at the last minute had delegated her daughter to select two very handsome neckties for the young man. It was these neckties that had been among the first things that Alan had found sticking out of his capacious stocking.

But when Mother Devereaux found her gorgeous brooch, she was so overwhelmed with shy delight that she, too, during the turkey’s interruption, slipped up to her room and brought the Bible down, sliding it furtively under the other gifts beneath the tree. And so it was the last gift opened. Alan was almost embarrassed when it was handed to him. He felt that he had already received more than was his due as a casual intruder.

But when the package was opened and Daryl recognized the box, she gave her mother a quick startled look, and then shot a keen, almost defiant look at the stranger. How would he take the gift of a Bible? If he took it as a joke she was ready to defend her mother with fire in her eyes, but she secretly wished that her mother hadn’t done it! And then she saw the look on his face as he took out the Bible and her fearful heart was flooded with admiration for this stranger man, for there was what seemed to be genuine pleasure in his eyes as he looked toward her mother.

“I thank you,” he said, almost reverently, as he opened the flexible covers and touched the pages gently. “Mrs. Devereaux, this is the crowning gift of all. It is not only a Bible de luxe, but I guess it is something I really needed. Do you know, I haven’t any Bible except a tiny copy I acquired in Sunday school as a child. It is very fine print and I haven’t ever read it. In fact, the only Bible reading I ever got was when my mother read me Bible stories when I was a little kid. But now, I’m going to read this one! I’ll promise you that I will read it through!”

Then deliberately he got up with the Bible in his hand, and coming over to her he stooped and very reverently kissed her forehead just at the parting of her pretty silver hair.

Sudden tears came smarting into Daryl’s eyes and her heart leaped up with longing and dull ache. If only Harold had been one like this! But Harold would never have taken it this way. He would likely have roared out with laughter at the idea of his receiving a Bible, and told some silly joke that would have hurt Mother. Was that really the kind of man she had chosen for a friend? Did this stranger have to come to them just now in his absence to show her the contrast? She gave a little shiver and turned away quickly, springing up to pretend to fix a log in the fire that had fallen down. Then of course Alan sprang up, too, and took the tongs from her to fix it. Did he also catch the glint of tears as she tried to wink them away and ignore them? If he did he gave no sign, and the pleasant morning went on, breaking up now into a clatter of thanks and admiration for the various gifts. Everybody hurried around picking up tissue and bright wrappings, and rolling up red ribbons for Ruth, who said she wanted them for her kindergarten plays. They were a happy family, and the two outsiders did not feel in the least like strangers. They were having a grand time. It seemed like home to them both who no longer had any real homes of their own. And the family felt that they really belonged, too. Even Daryl thought, as she went about setting the living room to rights again after the bounty of gifts, how amazingly well the stranger fitted into their life. Almost as if he had been born to it. And there was none of the stiffness and anxiety she had expected to feel if Harold had come. It was heartbreaking to have to own that, but it was true. Harold just wouldn’t have fit. He wouldn’t
ever
have fit. And it wasn’t Mother’s fault either. It was Harold himself. He
was
different!