The Strange Proposal (11 page)

“I’ll take the risk on Sam,” laughed Mary Elizabeth. “Besides, Boothby Farwell won’t probably be there very much. If I remember rightly, he said he was going abroad this summer.”

Mary Elizabeth’s voice was very blithe. She didn’t say that he had asked her to go along with him, but she was jubilantly remembering that she had decided not to go.

“Oh, but Betty! Europe?” said Aunt Clarice in dismay. “Surely you don’t mean he’s going this summer! Why, I thought he—I was sure you—that is—why, I supposed you were engaged!”

“Nothing of the sort!” said Mary Elizabeth in a ringing tone. “He’s just one of my friends, and as such, if he were to object to my cousin Sam, he wouldn’t be any friend of mine anymore. Really, Aunt Clarice. I mean it seriously. I’d love to have Sam stay with us this summer, and I know Dad would just be delighted.”

“Let him go,” said Sam’s father suddenly. “That is, if he wants to. Do you want to go with your cousin, Sam?”

“I sure do!” growled Sam, dropping his long lashes over his big eager eyes to hide their eagerness.

“Then let him go, Clarice. It’ll be a change for him, and you know you don’t want to bother with him up in the mountains!”

“Of course not!” said his wife firmly. “But Robert, I’ve already written and registered him at the camp where he was last summer. It’s quite too late to make a change. You know they have a long line on their waiting list, and it’s a great honor to get in.”

“That’s all right! Let somebody else take the honor then. I’d like Sam to go where he wants to this summer. And it will do him good to be with Mary Elizabeth. She’s a good girl to want him, Mother!”

“Oh, certainly,” said Aunt Clarice severely. “Betty is very good. But it’s really too late, Robert. I’ve already paid the registration fee!”

“Well, lose it then, if they aren’t honest enough to refund it. I don’t see making Sam a martyr for the summer if he doesn’t enjoy the camp. You know he didn’t like it last summer.”

“But Robert, it’s so good for him. They are such a refined set of boys that go there.”

“Refined nothing!” murmured Sam under his breath.

“And the young man who has charge is such a marvelous person!” said his mother, waxing earnest. “His mother is one of my dearest friends! I really couldn’t go back on it now, the matter has gone too far.”

“Nonsense!” said her husband. “Sam is old enough to choose where he wants to spend his summer, at least within limits. We always allowed Jeff to do that, and it seemed to work well. Look how he turned out!”

“Now, Papa,” protested his wife, “you know I always felt that that one summer he spent with those quite common friends of his in Canada did more harm! He got notions about being democratic. He seemed to think that all people were alike and one was as good as another.”

“Well, aren’t they?” snorted Papa, who always grew exasperated right at the start. “I’m sure Jeff turned out all right anyway.”

“Well, of course,” said his wife, elevating her eyebrows, “but look at all the worry I had about him while he was going with that impertinent presuming movie star, expecting him every day to announce that he was going to marry her.”

“Well, he didn’t, did he?”

“Well, Papa, you certainly don’t think he looked very high when he did marry, do you?”

“I certainly do!” snorted Papa. “Camilla is a good girl. What more could you want?”

“Oh, yes, she’s good! Of course she’s a good girl. I have nothing to say against her.”

“Well, you’d better not have, since she’s your son’s wife. And she’s beautiful! You couldn’t find a more beautiful girl than Camilla if you searched the earth over.”

“Oh, yes, she’s beautiful. I admit that! She’s good and beautiful!”

“And she loves him, doesn’t she?”

“Obviously.”

“And he loves her?”

“Quite obviously, of course. Still, you must own she hasn’t anything to boast of in money or family.”

Aunt Clarice was in her most disagreeable form, with a cold steady gaze down into her plate, and an impenetrable front.

“No, she is only the daughter of a highly respected man who lost a good fortune through the fault of others, just as nine out of ten businessmen have been doing today. And honorably, too, which isn’t the case with many of them. And as for money, hasn’t Jeff got enough for both of them?”

“Oh, yes, you Wainwrights are so openhanded about money,” sneered his wife.

“And if I mistake not,” roared the head of the house, now thoroughly aroused, “the girl that you most highly favored as eligible for Jeff was the daughter of a scoundrel who was convicted of graft and crime of the most flagrant sort and is outside of jail only because he was able to pay three hundred fifty thousand dollars to get free. Yet you shut your eyes to all that! You wanted our son to marry her and partake in the money gained through crime. I’m thoroughly ashamed of you, Mama, and I don’t want another word ever said reflecting on Camilla. She is our daughter now, and as such her name and heritage are irreproachable, in my presence at least. And I’m surprised that you will cast such insinuations on her before Sam.”

“That’s all right, Dad,” said Sam. “I think Camilla is a peach!”

“Certainly, Son,” said Robert Wainwright, “of course she is. And that’s what your mother really means, only she has got herself all wrought up over this camp business. But I’m putting my foot down, now, Clarice. Sam goes to no camp this summer, unless he wants to, and he will never go to that special camp again, no matter how much money has been paid. If Mary Beth wants him, he can go with her.”

Sam drew a breath of relief and grinned across at his cousin.

“I think you are very unwise to discuss such matters before Sam,” said his mother, offended. “And as for aspersions, I certainly didn’t cast any aspersions on Camilla. I’m exactly as fond of her as you are, and I don’t know what Betty dear will think of you.”

“That’s all right, Aunt Clarice,” Mary Elizabeth said with a smile, with a sly twinkly-wink at Sam. “I’m so glad you’re going to let me have Sam. I’ll try to look after him and make him have a good time, and we’re going to get really acquainted this summer, aren’t we, Buddie?”

“Sure thing!” said Sam and rose gallantly to help her pull back her chair as they were leaving the table.

Mary Elizabeth soon went home, wondering if it would be possible for that promised letter to have arrived yet.

M
eantime, down in Florida, a little light twinkled in the inner recesses of a small, neat house deep in an orange grove, and two people sat outside on the porch watching the great June moon come slowly up.

“Well, Mother,” said the man, “I suppose the festivities must be about over now. John’s probably marching down that church aisle with some high and mighty flibberty-jib of a bridesmaid now.”

“The maid of honor,” corrected the sweet old wife. “Yes, I’ve that about her, too. Oh, I do hope John won’t fall in love with somebody utterly unsuitable. He’s such a wonderful boy.”

“And, being a wonderful boy, of course he won’t!” said the father decidedly. “I’m sure I don’t see what you find to worry about, Mother. He’s steered himself safely through all kinds of groups of girls and isn’t scathed yet. You don’t suppose he’s going to lose his head just because he’s best man at a wealthy wedding, do you?”

“No,” said the mother with a slow little trembly sort of sigh. “I suppose not. But life is so full of pitfalls.”

“Meaning girls,” said Father.

“Yes, meaning girls. You know that yellow-haired girl that came out here one day last winter hunting for Jeffrey Wainwright after he had gone home to his Camilla. She was—unspeakable!”

“Yes,” said the father, “she was, but don’t you know John would have thought her unspeakable, too? And besides, Margaret, have you forgotten that John is under guidance? Our Father isn’t going to let our John go through anything that He doesn’t want him to meet and pass safely through!”

“I know.” The voice was very sweet and low. There was strength and sweetness in the dim outline of her cameo face, a hint of John Saxon’s seriousness and depth of character in the soft brown eyes she lifted to gaze at the moon. Her hair was soft and white. She reminded one of a delicate flower, fragile and sweet.

They were silent for a long time, watching the moon march up the heavens. At last the old man spoke. He was fine and strong himself, though a bit bent with hard work, but there was still the ring of the conqueror left in his voice.

“Isn’t it time you went in, Margaret?” he asked at last. “You know these nights are really chilly in June, after the terrible heat of the day.”

“Oh, Elam, it’s such a relief after the heat of the day. I can’t bear to leave it, this sweet coolness. I love to watch the dark shadows among the orange trees, and I love the perfume in the air. I sort of dread tomorrow again. That intermittent rain and steamy sunshine are almost unbearable sometimes.”

“You poor child!’” said the man, regarding her anxiously. “I’m almost afraid this is going to be too much for you. It will likely be another year or two before we can afford to go north for the summers. The grove is coming into bearing so nicely now, and if we just don’t have another freeze, we’ll be on our feet. But Margaret, we could have borrowed money on the grove and sent you north this summer. You ought to have gone with John. Even a few days in another climate would have done you good. You’ve been down here too long.”

“And what about you, Elam?” said the sweet old voice.

“Oh, I am all right! You know I like this hot weather! I just thrive under it. It’s you I’m thinking about. You’ve been down here too long. You ought to have gone with John. He would have found a nice quiet place for you to board cheaply—”

“I? All alone? Oh, Father! I couldn’t stand it alone. I’d just mourn for you. Nonsense! Don’t talk like that! I can’t even bear to think about it!”

“Well, I’m not so sure John won’t say something more about it when he gets back. If he gets the chance to study with that wonderful doctor he’s talked so much about, there’s no reason why he couldn’t take you with him and let you mend his socks and cook his breakfast at least.”

“No, Elam! I’d never consent to go and leave you! Never! And as for John, he needs every cent he has saved. He’s got to have these advantages he’s worked so hard for, and we ought to save everything we have to help him out.”

“Oh, John’ll do all right. Don’t you worry about him, Mother. He’s young and strong. Mother, do you realize how late it is getting? That wedding must be about over. They’ve eaten the ice cream and cut the wedding cake and maybe thrown rice, or is it old shoes they throw at the bride? And it’s time you and I went to bed.”

“We don’t go to a wedding every night, Elam,” said the old wife wistfully. “I’ve been looking down that aisle in the orange grove watching the bride walk away from the altar and thinking about our wedding, Elam. We had a nice wedding, too.”

“We certainly did, Margaret, and you were the most beautiful bride a man ever had. And you’re beautiful today. Your hair was brown then and it’s white now, but it’s just as lovely. In fact, I don’t know but you look even more beautiful to me tonight than you looked then. You were almost a child then, a bonny child, but untried. But now I can see the dear lines that time and care and pain and sickness and trouble and poverty have engraved on your face, and they have only made you more lovely. I think it’ll be like that in heaven, Margaret, we’ll see the lines that life has put upon us; in some it will have cut away all the faults and mistakes and follies, and there will be little left, but with those who have been faithful in the testings, it will show up a wondrous beauty!”

“You’re a foolish old flatterer, Elam Saxon, and you always were, but I like it of course, and I could say a great deal more about the way you’ve been true as steel, and strong and courageous and always borne me up. You’ve been a tower of strength!”

“That’s it, Margaret, that’s it! Keep it up now! I know it’s overdrawn, but I like it, too. And just to think, all those years have passed since you and I walked down that aisle together into life, and now our boy is attending a grand wedding and taking part in it. I’d like to see it, wouldn’t you? He’ll tell us all about it when he comes back.”

“Yes,” said John Saxon’s mother and drew a little fleeting sigh. “And then, someday, he’ll probably be walking down an aisle on his own account. And oh, I hope he’ll get the right girl—”

“Of course he will!”

“And that you and I can go to the wedding,” finished the sweet old breathless voice hurriedly.

“We’d go to John’s wedding if we had to cut down the orange trees and sell them bit by bit for kindling wood. We’d go if we had to walk!” said the father, rising and reaching out his hand to her. “Come, Mother, it’s time for you to be in bed. John’s finished this wedding and gone to his train. It’s midnight, and tomorrow he’s going to see the great doctor man. We’ll go in now and pray for our boy!”

Mary Elizabeth arrived at her own home, looked eagerly among the mail lying on her desk, and felt a distinct pang that there was nothing there that she could not immediately identify. It seemed reasonable to suppose that if he wrote a letter as soon as he got on the train, it might have reached here by the time she did, and her heart went down with a dull thud and seemed to touch the foundations of things.