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- Herausgeber: Musaicum Books
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Grace Livingston Hill's novel 'By the Way of the Silverthorns' is a heartwarming tale of love, forgiveness, and redemption set in a quaint countryside. The story follows the Silverthorn family as they navigate through the challenges of life, learning the importance of faith and perseverance along the way. Hill's engaging writing style draws readers in with vivid descriptions and memorable characters, making it a standout example of early 20th-century romance fiction. The novel's themes of family bonds and moral values are timeless, appealing to a wide audience. As part of the Musaicum Romance Classics collection, 'By the Way of the Silverthorns' continues to captivate readers with its moving narrative and relatable characters. Grace Livingston Hill's ability to weave together a compelling story with important life lessons makes this novel a must-read for fans of classic romance literature.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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By the Way of the Silverthorns (Musaicum Romance Classics)
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Table of Contents
CHAPTER I
McRae Silverthorn arrived at the bride’s home in the middle of the afternoon on the day before the wedding and was met at the door by the maid, Thelma.
“No, Miss Sydney isn’t here just now,” she said calmly. “Her mother took her off up to the farm early this morning to make her take a good rest. It couldn’t be had here no matter how hard she tried. The telephone and the doorbell and all just made it impossible. Anyway, Miss Rae, she said you were the only one who would come before six, and I was to explain to you. She was sure you’d understand.”
“Why yes, of course,” said Rae with a pleasant smile. “I’m glad she had so much sense. I’ll just get a good nap myself and then I’ll have time to read awhile. I was sorry to have to come so early but Sydney knows there was no other train that would get me here in time for the dinner. Where are you going to put me, Thelma? Not my old room, surely, when you are having so many guests? You know it doesn’t matter where I go this time.”
“Yes, your old room, Miss Rae. Miss Sydney said she wouldn’t be happy to have you anywhere else. And there’s plenty of room without it. They’ve got it all fixed. Miss Sydney said she wanted you just where you always had been when you visited her. She wanted to be able to run in on you at the last minute if she needed to ask you something. And Mrs. Hollis said, ‘Yes, of course!’”
“Well, that’s nice. I’ll go right up, then. I’m rather tired. You see, I had a bit of shopping to do for mother before I came up here. Mother’s staying in town at Aunt Harriet’s, on the north side, you know, and she wanted some doodads sent up there for tomorrow.”
“Well then, we’ll go up, and I’ll send Sanders up with your bags. I can come and unpack for you in a minute or two when I finish something I was doing in the dining room.”
“No, Thelma, I don’t want you to. I’ve nothing in the world to do but unpack, and I really want to do it myself. I want to be sure my dress for tonight came through all right without crushing.”
“Well, all right, if you say so, but if your dress needs any pressing you just ring and I’ll be up pretty soon and get it.”
“Oh, it won’t need pressing, I’m sure. I packed it very carefully myself. Now you run along, Thelma. I know the way to my room without your help. And I know you’ve got plenty to do without running after me.”
Thelma thanked her and departed, and Rae let herself into the big airy room next to the bride’s own room, where she had spent so many pleasant weekends and holidays for years back almost into her childhood.
For a little while she busied herself unpacking and hanging her things in accustomed places. Not so many things this time as she usually brought, for the maid of honor’s outfit was already here, hanging in the closet of the sewing room like a great confection, shrouded in a protecting cover, ready to put on tomorrow night for the wedding.
Sydney Hollis had been her most intimate friend since Rae had stayed one winter in the city with her aunt and started high school. Sydney had been her classmate. Then they went to college together and were roommates. If only Sydney were not going so far away! California seemed the other side of the world.
Why couldn’t Sydney have fallen in love with some of the boys here at home? How grand it would have been! There was Curlin Grant, and his handsome brother Steve; or her own beloved brother. They were splendid boys, and more than once she had suspected all of them of being half in love with Sydney. Why couldn’t she have cared for one of them? Or Paul Redfern, or Reeves Leighton? But she hadn’t, so what was the use of thinking that all over again?
She took out the pretty new dinner dress and admired it and hung it up on one of the lovely pink satin hangers with which the closet abounded. She patted it, and smoothed out the frills and shook out a fold in the skirt, and then just stood and admired it. It was new and a great surprise, a present from her brother Lincoln. For since her expensive college course was completed there hadn’t been quite so many new dresses in Rae Silverthorn’s wardrobe as there used to be when she was in college and needed them for so many functions. And she hadn’t expected them either. She had planned to wear her last year’s evening dress for the dinner tonight, and not go to any expense at all for this wedding. Nobody in the city had seen it, for she had been saving the lovely mulberry velvet for some formal occasion that hadn’t materialized all winter, so it was almost as good as new and quite in style. Only of course it was a trifle late in the season for velvet. But “Well, what difference?” she had said to her mother with her cheerful little smile. “The top part will just look like one of those luscious velvet dinner jackets that everybody is wearing, the skirt will be under the table anyway, and who will see it afterwards when I’m just standing around in a crowd talking?”
“But, my dear! Aren’t you rehearsing in the church after dinner? You’ll have to walk up the aisle in the procession!”
“Well, I’ll be only one of the procession, and you know that dress is becoming all right! Who’s to notice what I have on? And when the wedding comes off I’ll be so grandly dressed nobody will remember what I had on at rehearsal. I’m certainly glad Sydney insisted on furnishing all the dresses for her bridesmaids.”
“But you’re the maid of honor, dear. Your dresses should be all right on both occasions. We don’t want your friends to think we couldn’t see that you are dressed suitably.”
“Now, mother!” Rae had said. “This thing is decided, I tell you. I simply won’t have a cent spent on me for this wedding. I’m saving up for a lot of things when the present set are worn out. So there! Don’t you try to cross me, mother, for it won’t do a bit of good. Besides, I’ve talked it all over with Sydney, and she thinks I’m right, and says the mulberry velvet will be lovely!”
Rae saw the whole scene in her mind’s eye as she stood there patting the new dark blue taffeta. She saw that troubled look in her mother’s face, the premonition of giving in to her arguments and then her brother Link’s face as he looked up.
“Hi! What’s all this economy talk, I’d like to know? Don’t you women know that there are times to economize and times when it’s all wrong, as the woman said who paid ten cents carfare to run down to a cheaper market and buy three pounds of meat at a cent less a pound than she could have got it next door. Say, McRae, I’ve got a job, didn’t you know it? Hadn’t you heard that yet? I’m going to buy you a new dress. Size fourteen, isn’t it? I heard you say so the other night. Now, don’t let’s hear another word about this. I’ll attend to that dress. I guess I’m not going to let my sister go to a party in a lousy dress when everybody knows I’ve got a well-paying job. Now, stop all this chatter. I want to read the paper!”
They had laughed cheerfully and Link had returned to the paper. Nothing more had been said about the dress and Rae thought Link had been just fooling, and everybody was satisfied. She hadn’t thought about it again herself either, for she was quite satisfied to wear the velvet dress.
And then the very next day the delivery man from one of the most exclusive stores in the city had delivered a great white box for Miss McRae Silverthorn, and there had been the dress, the lovely dark blue taffeta, with a long sweeping skirt, cut in the very latest lines, with a darling fluffy little ruching edged with a minute line of real lace. It was just perfect! And to think of a young man selecting it! Dear old Link! He must have paid a whole month’s salary for it!
Wear it? Of course she would. It was wonderful of Link, and she loved the dress doubly because he had bought it for her. He oughtn’t to have done it of course, but she mustn’t discount it even by reproaching him for spending so much money.
And her mother was as pleased as Link was, and so was her father.
Rae had tried on the lovely garment and it had been voted a perfect fit.
“Look who bought it!” swelled Link with satisfaction. They couldn’t make him tell who had helped him.
“Nobody!” he said. “I just told the gal I wanted the latest thing in dinner gowns for my sister who was just out of college, and had blue eyes and a pink complexion all her own, no lipstick, and she wore size fourteen, and I wanted a pretty nice one for a swell event, and that’s what she brought me! I don’t see why women make so much fuss about shopping! It didn’t take me fifteen minutes to get that dress!”
They had laughed a good deal about it, and Rae had cried in secret over the dear funny way her brother talked about it. He had always been that way about her, doing nice funny things on the sly in his boyish way. She loved the way he looked at her with that comical twinkle in his eyes, just the way father looked at mother sometimes, only a lot more condescending.
So Rae Silverthorn stood and looked at her lovely new dress with a smile on her lips and tears in her eyes, and loved her dear family.
Then suddenly there came a tap at the door. That would be Thelma of course, come to insist that she would press her dress. But her dress didn’t need pressing.
“Come in,” she said with a smile, still holding the closet door with one hand. Thelma would like to see her dress. Thelma would admire it and love it.
But the girl who entered was not Thelma. It was Minnie Lazarelle, a quasi third or fourth cousin of Sydney’s whom Sydney had never liked. They had never been very close, but occasionally she had been at the Hollis home when Rae had been there, and back in their younger days she had gone to high school with them for a few weeks before her family moved to another state. She was always an annoyance wherever she turned up and somehow she seemed to have uncanny ways of turning up. Even when everybody thought the Lazarelles had moved to a distant city, Minnie would arrive whenever there was anything unusual going on and say she had come to stay for the weekend. And somehow there was never an adequate reason for sending her away.
But Sydney had rejoiced several days ago at the fact that Minnie had moved to the far west and would not be at her wedding. “For of course we shall not invite her. There would be no reason to invite her, you know, even if she were in this part of the country, for we have never been close at all, and I’m only inviting my dearest most intimate friends. The relationship between us is so very slight, only by marriage, and a ‘step’ at that. Yet I’m positive if Minnie were in this neighborhood she would be certain to appear. She always has.”
So it was with a startled face that Rae greeted the newcomer.
“Oh! Is that you, Minnie! Why I thought they said you were in the west.”
“Yes, I was,” drawled the girl coming in and closing the door behind her, “but you couldn’t think that I would stay there and let dear Cousin Sydney get married without me, as close as we’ve always been, could you? Not I. I would have come home from Europe to be at this function.”
“Oh!” said Rae looking blankly at the girl, and noticing for the first time that Minnie was wearing an elaborate though rather shabby kimono of scarlet satin embroidered in fuzzy dragons that were much the worse for wear, and her hair was adorned with metal curlers. “When did you arrive? This morning? Does Sydney know you’re here?”
“Oh, no, I just came in about five minutes ago, and I’m such a wreck I came in search of a bath. I’ve traveled day and night to get here in time. There was an accident on the road ahead of my train and we had all kinds of delays. I’m simply filthy. I came over here to see if anyone was in this room. I can’t abide the room that dumb Thelma put me in, the little old nursery at the end of the hall. The bathroom is across the hall, and the tub is so short one can’t lie down in it and thoroughly relax. I like this bathroom so much better. You won’t mind if I come in and take a scrub, will you?”
“Why—of course—come,” said Rae trying to be pleasant. She didn’t enjoy the prospect because Minnie wasn’t at all neat and was apt to leave smears of face cream and lipstick around in the most unexpected places, but of course she couldn’t say no, and really it wasn’t in Rae’s sunny nature to be cool or disagreeable to anyone, much as she might dislike them. “I was just about to lie down and take a little nap, so help yourself.”
“How sweet of you,” said Minnie condescendingly. “Nice you got here in time to choose the best room!” Minnie smiled her old catty smile.
“Oh,” said Rae laughing, “I didn’t choose my room. This is where Thelma brought me. This is where she said Sydney wanted me to be.”
“Yes,” said Minnie with a toss of her head, “you always were one of her favorites! Well, it’s all right of course, even if I am a relative. A relative always expects to take second place! And of course she didn’t know I was coming. She’ll be awfully surprised when she finds it out. Say, do you happen to know who is to be here tonight?”
Minnie dropped nonchalantly down on the edge of the bed, one shabby slipper clacking against the hardwood floor as she swung her foot idly.
“Why, no, I don’t know that I do,” said Rae, standing by the bureau and arranging some handkerchiefs and gloves and ribbons in the top drawer. “I suppose just the bridesmaids and ushers, don’t you?”
“Well, likely,” said Minnie, as if she were conversant with all of the bride’s plans. “But I was wondering who they all are. Really I did feel a bit hurt that she didn’t ask me, as close as we’ve always been. Who are the ushers? I suppose they’re friends of the groom. I don’t know him very well. Syd was awfully secret about it all. She never dropped a hint. I was simply amazed when I found she was marrying a western man. So silly of her when she has such a nice group of friends in the east, and some of the boys were just dandy, don’t you think? But who are these people tonight? Do I know them all? I suppose the girls are just the old crowd, aren’t they? Carey Carewe, Sue Richards, Lou McHale, Bets Patterson, Fran Ferrin and Pat Nicholson. What she ever saw in them I never understood, but Syd was always that way, whom she liked she liked, no matter who or what they were. But who are the fellows? I’m simply dying to know.”
Rae looked thoughtful. She didn’t exactly like the role she was being forced to play, telling about arrangements to this girl whom she knew Sydney did not want to take into her confidence. But what could she do?
“Well, I’m not sure about them all,” she said slowly. “There’ll be Steve and Curlin Grant, I suppose——”
“Steve’s all right,” conceded Minnie with a kind of contempt in her tone, “but that Curlin I can’t abide!”
“What’s the matter with Curlin?” asked Rae in an amused tone.
“Why, he has simply no appreciation of us girls. No female consciousness, perhaps I should say.”
Suddenly Rae laughed an amused little ripple.
“What on earth do you mean by that, Minnie? It sounds rather horrid to me. Remember the Grants are among our best friends.”
“Oh, well, I didn’t mean anything disparaging exactly,” said Minnie with a shrug. “I simply meant that Curlin never senses that a girl is any different from a man. You happen to get Curlin to talk to and he never even looks at you, nor notices what you have on nor anything, just discusses any old topic as if you were a fella.”
“Why, I think that’s lovely!” said Rae. “I always feel honored to talk to Curlin. He never tries to be frivolous the way some men do. He acts as if you had a brain and as if you were a real person.”
“Well I can’t be bothered talking politics and what I think of the situation in Europe. If I happen to have to talk to him tonight, ten to one he’ll ask me about which side I think is going to win, and if he does I shall simply shriek, I know I shall. Say, Rae, what is that dress I saw hanging in the closet? Is it yours? Why did you close the door so quickly? I want to see it. Say, that’s a cute little number. I’m quite taken with that. A bit somber, don’t you think, but that’s the style today. Say, I think I’ll wear that tonight. You don’t mind, do you? I have an idea a dress like that might please the masculine sensibility. I think I’ll try it.”
“Sorry!” said Rae Silverthorn, shutting the closet door with a snap. “I shall need it myself.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” laughed Minnie, “I’ve got plenty of gorgeous things along. You can have your choice!”
“Thank you,” said Rae coolly, “I was brought up not to borrow garments. Besides my brother picked this out for me and I wouldn’t care to have anybody else wear it.”
Rae flung herself down on the bed wearily and yawned wishing with all her heart she hadn’t come so early.
Minnie laughed mockingly.
“Try and stop me!” she said brightly. “Now, I’m going in and take a hot bath. I just adore lying in hot water, don’t you? And then I’ll come out and we’ll get dressed together. Take you nap and when you wake up I’ll bring an armful of my things and you can have your choice. There’s a duck of an orange tulle, only one sleeve is torn out. You’d have to mend it, but it’s adorable. Ta-ta till I get my bath!” and Minnie slid into the bathroom and snapped the bolt.
McRae Silverthorn lay on the bed filled with wrathy indignation and for an instant couldn’t get her brain to function rightly. Her dress, her lovely dress! To have it defamed by that girl’s touch! To have it handled and discussed, and tried on perhaps! She could not bear it! She would not! But what could she do? Minnie, when she started out to do a thing, generally succeeded in doing it, all the more when she saw it was distasteful to someone. Rae knew Minnie had always been jealous of her friendship with Sydney.
Suddenly she heart the bolt of the bathroom slide back with a snap and the door was opened a crack.
“How old is your brother?” Minnie asked through the crack.
Rae’s mouth twinkled with quick amusement, but she put on a lazy voice as she answered, “How old? Oh, a few years older than I am!”
“And he picked out a dress for you? Well, he must have a girl somewhere who works in a store and he hired her to do it. No man has that good taste!”
Then she slammed the door shut again and shot the bolt.
By this time Rae was on her feet, her eyes blazing angrily.
“I won’t stand it!” she said to herself. “I won’t!”
Then she went into action. Softly she opened the bureau drawers and swept into a bundle the neat piles of garments she had just laid in them so carefully. She stepped to the closet, opening the door most cautiously. She opened her suitcase quietly and laid the garments in swiftly and noiselessly, and then as soon as she heard the water beginning to run in the tub she slipped that taffeta dress of its silken hanger, and onto the hanger in her new suitcase. Then the other dresses, a pastel pink sports dress, a skirt and sweater and white silk blouse, and a little printed silk affair, bright as the springtime. It was the work of but a moment to slip them on the hangers that belonged in the suitcase, to smooth down the skirts, and press the spring that folded them neatly and safely into place! Then her slippers, another pair of shoes. There wouldn’t be anything safe if Minnie got started being disagreeable, and she had seen Minnie disagreeable several times in her life. She surveyed the closet carefully, conscious that the moments were going by rapidly. The water had stopped running in the bathroom. Minnie might appear on the scene at any moment now if she suspected in the least what was going on.
Rae took off her robe and folded it hastily, sweeping her comb and brush in at the last. She snapped the suitcase shut, locking it, and slipped the key into her handbag that lay on the bureau.
Then very noiselessly and swiftly she slid into her dress that she had worn when arriving, put on her hat and jacket, slipped over to the door with her suitcase and set it outside in the hall.
While she had been working she had been thinking, evolving a plan that would be perfectly natural, and yet foil her enemy.
She gave one swift glance about the room to see if she had left anything behind, a regretful glance because she had anticipated a quiet hour or two by herself to read in that pleasant luxury. Then she closed the door silently and gathering up her suitcase when tiptoe down the velvet shod stairs.
A glance through the dining room door showed Thelma arranging dishes on the long table, placing forks and spoons and knives. Could she possibly get out the front door without being seen? Hardly!
Swiftly she walked over to the dining room door and spoke in a subdued tone.
“Thelma,” she said, “I’ve just remembered something I didn’t give to mother, and I’m going to run over to Aunt Harriet’s and give it to her. I’ve plenty of time. It won’t take an hour. I’ll be back as soon as Sydney is. And Thelma,” she added on second thought, “did you know Minnie Lazarelle is upstairs? She’s taking a bath in my bathroom now, and I slipped out. She doesn’t know I’ve gone!”
“The huzzy!” said Thelma with a vexed look. “Miss Sydney will be that angry! Isn’t she the limit! I had the new maid take her up to the old nursery. Now what’ll I do? I better telephone the madam.”
“Yes,” said Rae with a knowing smile. “Meantime I’m going. Don’t worry about me. I’ll take any place that’s left if that’s any easier for you, Thelma.”
“Bless your heart, Miss Rae, yer like sunshine on a dark day. But you mustn’t’ carry yer own suitcase. Why don’t ye leave it here? I’ll put it away safe.”
“No, I need it, Thelma, to carry some things, and it isn’t the least heavy. Nothing much in it. Now, I’m going!” and Rae slipped out and shut the door quickly, hurrying to the corner to catch the next bus to her aunt’s house, her whole being trembling with excitement.
And now she had to think what she should do next.
It was true what she had told Thelma that she had just remembered something she had meant to give her mother. It was a fine little handkerchief that had been forgotten and she had tucked into her own suitcase. But it wasn’t necessary. Well, she would stop on the way and get her mother—what should she get her mother? Some flowers perhaps? And what should she tell of the reason why she had come all the way over to the north side of the city? She would have to think that out as best she could on the way.
CHAPTER II
The ushers were getting ready for the dinner. They were housed in the home of Paul Redfern, one of their number, whose family were traveling abroad, and who was keeping bachelor’s hall with a couple of servants to keep things in order. There was plenty of space and they were having a grand time scattered through three or four palatial rooms, shouting conversation back and forth. They were all friends, three of them having gone to the same college, and the rest had been more or less intimate friends childhood. For the bridegroom from afar had left the matter of ushers to his bride as the simplest way of solving the problem, since all of his friends were on the west coast.
“Say, fellas, you’d better begin to rustle yourselves into battle array pretty quick! We ought to be starting in half an hour,” called Paul, who as host had suddenly become aware of the time.
“You don’t say! Is it that late?” said Reeves Leighton, starting up from a sleepy hollow chair into which he had dropped when he came in. “What unearthly hour is this dinner anyway? Man, do you know what time it is?”
“Sure I know,” said Paul, “and the dinner’s at six thirty. That’s not an unearthly hour. We have rehearsal in the church at eight, and they particularly asked us to be on time, because rehearsals always take forever and a day, and Mrs. Hollis said she wanted Sydney to get to sleep early so she would be all right for tomorrow. Syd hasn’t been very well lately, and her mother’s worried about her.”
“Yes, I guess she’s been going a pretty fast pace the last month or two,” said Steve Grant. “I see her everywhere I go. It beats me why when a girl gets engaged everybody in the neighborhood has to begin to torment her with parties and things. Say, we’re going to miss that gal a lot when she goes away.”
“Yes, Steve, you ought to have thought of that before. Why ever did you let a strange bridegroom from afar capture her?”
“I did my best,” said Steve jauntily with a handsome grin. “I couldn’t help it, could I, if she preferred the stranger from afar to my manly beauty?”
“Sure you could have helped it, Stevie,” teased Paul Redfern. “You never fail to get what you want, do you? The trouble was you were indolent. You should have begun sooner, and made hay while the sun shone! If we hadn’t counted on you to keep Syd in this part of the country some of the rest of us might have got going in time to save her!”
“Well, at that I hear she’s doing rather well for herself,” said Curlin Grant with a comical grin. “A million dollars is not to be sneezed at, and everybody knows you can’t scare up one of those from any of us poor country guys.”
Then the doorbell was heard in the distance, and they all came to attention.
“That’s bound to be Link!” said Paul. “He’s always right on the dot for time. Lincoln Silverthorn is a hound for doing everything on the dotted line. But that means, fellas, that we’ve got to hustle!”
“But where’s Luther Waite?” they called out as they scattered in search of their various garments.
“Oh, have you forgotten? ‘Luther Waite, he’s always late’?” yelled out Steve as he made a dash for the room that had been assigned him. “He’ll turn up after we’re seated at the table. That’s Lute.”
“Or maybe as we’re marching up the aisle,” added Curlin under his breath.
Lincoln Silverthorn came upstairs gloved, overcoated, his hat in his hand to see how near ready they were. He stood in the hall where he could get a fairly good view of each of the four rooms where the young men were hurrying into their garments.
“Hello, Link! Early as usual I see!”
“Late as usual, I see,” said Link grinning.
“Say, Link, seen anything of Lute Waite?”
“Ho! You wouldn’t expect those two to meet up with each other, not beforehand, anyway!” called out Curlin comically.
“No,” said Link. “I haven’t seen him. In fact I wasn’t looking for him. It wouldn’t occur to me to expect him so soon.”
But while they were laughing at that the doorbell rang again and Luther Waite came pounding up the stairs, his hat in his hand, his hair awry, and a look of distress on his face.
“Hi, there, Lute, you aren’t ill or anything are you, appearing on the scene so early?” called Steve wickedly, leaning over the stair railing.
“No, I’m not yet,” said Luther panting as he hurried up, “but I don’t know but I’m gonna be! Say, Link, you ought ta know, who are the girls in this show? Do you know them all?”
Link smiled at his serious face.
“Why, yes, I guess I can name them all. There’s Frannie Ferrin, Lou McHale—you know her, Lutie. Then there’s Carey Carewe, Patricia Nicholson, and Betty Patterson and Sue Richards—those I don’t know so well—and my sister Rae!”
A look of relief passed over your Waite’s face.
“Is that all? Are you sure?” he asked anxiously.
“Isn’t that enough?” groaned Reeves Leighton. “Just think of all those girls, and we don’t know which one we get yet,” said Reeves.
“Calm yourself, brother,” said Paul. “They’re all a pretty decent lot if you ask me. I should think one might manage a little thing like walking down the aisle with any one of them. It isn’t as if it was to last for a lifetime. What’s eating you, Waite? You look all worried and jittery.”
Waite dropped down on the top step of the stairs and leaned back against the stair railing.
“Well, you see, I’ve had a shock!” he said with a heavy sigh of relief. “I was waiting for my bus to come along, and the bus came from the other direction, and who should I sight but that goofy cousin of Sydney Hollis’, that girl they call ‘Min’ something, and I thought if she was going to be one of the wedding party I was going to beat it! They’d be sure to put her with me. I am always a sucker for the leftovers that nobody else wants, but this would be the third time in the last year or so that I’ve served in that capacity, and I’m not up to it again. I just can’t take it! You know it’s not merely a matter of walking down the aisle with her, Paul my friend, it’s the matter of a whole evening more or less, generally more. She’s the kind that freezes onto you fast in the course of the amble down the aisle, and boy! I defy you to get away from her again while the ceremony lasts! And even after, she has ways of hinting that she wants you to take her places the next day and the next week and so on. The first time I met her it took me a week to make her forget me so she couldn’t reach me by telephone. And the next time it was all winter I hadta keep dodging her.”
Luther Waite had a mop of deep mahogany curls, and gray eyes that had a hint of brown in them. He was rugged, with a lean face and build and a peppering of freckles across the bridge of a nice nose.
“But look her, Lutie,” said Reeves Leighton, “didn’t you know that the lady in question had moved far away to the west and isn’t in these parts at all? You must have been imagining!”
“Imagining? Me? I tell you I saw her with my own eyes, and I don’t imagine things. I got the very lowest marks always in school for anything that required an imagination, like a composition. I never had any imagination at all! No sir! Boy, I saw that baby, and she was burrowing in her hand bag for change to pay her bus fare, just like she used to do. No, sir, I wasn’t imagining. It was too lifelike. Believe me I dashed across the street and took the first bus I saw going the other way, and I’ve just got back. I meant to be here an hour ago. I really did. But you know how it was, fellas. I hadta get calm before I could think what to do. And I almost went back to my office and decided to telephone I had been taken with typhoid or smallpox or something and couldn’t come at all. But finally I thought I’d come and see if you fellas knew whether she was in the procession. If she was I was gonta beat it again so fast you wouldn’t know I had been here.”
He broke off and bowed his head in his hands, his whole big frame stooping dejectedly.
Then they all came by and gave him a good pounding on his broad shoulders.
“Get up, Lutie!” they shouted. “Can’t you see how you’re hindering us all? Get up and put your marcel in order. It’s streaming out all over the place. Powder your nose, wipe the tears away from your eyes, and cheer up! We won’t let old Min bother the poor little fellow! Not that we’re not sympathetic, you know, for we’ve all had our taste of Cousin Min Lazarelle, but don’t be worried any more. Min is far far away, and can’t spoil the joy of the evening for you any more!”
They pulled Waite up on his feet and sat him down in one of the hall chairs, and then they told him to hurry, that it was time to start to the dinner and they mustn’t be late.
He sat for a moment staring at them sadly.
“But I saw her!” he reiterated. “I sure did!”
“Okay,” they cried, laughing. “We’ll protect you! Get up and navigate. We’ll ask Mrs. Hollis to put you beside that cute little McHale number, Lou McHale. Now, brush your marcel and come along!”
And so at last they were on their way.
But as they piled into the big Redfern limousine, Link, in the back seat with Reeves Leighton, heart Lute Waite say in an uneasy undertone to Curlin Grant:
“Say, Curly, you don’t suppose Syd’s mother could have made her invite Minnie Lazarelle to the wedding, do you? Because I know I saw her! And if she’s here I tell you I won’t go near the place. She gets my goat!”
Link leaned forward and said distinctly, so they all could hear:
“You’re all haywire, Waite. Just last night Syd was talking to my sister over the phone and she said she was thankful that this was one time her would-be cousin wouldn’t walk in unexpectedly. So I’m sure she’s not invited. But what’s the matter with that baby anyway? I never had any experience with her. I never took particular notice of her. Is she fierce-looking? Has she got a wooden leg or halitosis, or is she just a fool?”
“She’s just a clinging vine, my lad,” said Reeves Leighton amusedly. “Once stuck with her you can’t get rid of her by any rule that ever was tried. Short of throwing pepper in her eyes and running away I can’t think of anything that would work. She’s one of those girls who has been made to believe that a girl’s chief business in life is to acquire a man, and she means to make good and not let a chance run by her.”
“I’ll say she does!” said Luther sighing deeply.
“Hey! Quit that sighing!” said Link giving the big red head a shaking. “You act as if you were going to a funeral instead of a wedding. Snap out of it or they will all think you were in love with the bride!”
“I was!” said Lutie. “Definitely! Ever since we used to slide down the cellar door together when we were kids. I never thought this could happen that she would select somebody else in my place and go off to California.” Waite got out his handkerchief and pretended to weep, while they all roared with laughter.
“Between losing Syd, and that vision I had of her cousin Min, I’m a wreck!” he announced with a well-simulated sob, mopping his face despairingly.
“There she is, Lutie!” called out Steve suddenly. “That’s Min down there by that next corner, isn’t it? That woman with the green coat and the small sized wedding cake for a hat? Or isn’t it? I’m positive she must be it. You’d better hide, Lutie. Put your head down under this coat, and we’ll hide you!”
Waite crowded his big shoulders down, and allowed them to cover his bulk with the coat.
“Hey, there! You’re mussing his marcel!” cried out Curlin. “He won’t be fit to be seen when he gets there!”
“I don’t want to be seen!” wailed Lutie. “I just know Min has come here for the wedding, and if she has she’ll get me. There’s nothing I can do about it! I’m depending on you, Link, to protect me!”
They rollicked and bantered all the way from the Redfern house to the Hollis place, for all the world as if they were children, and not grown young men with a serious outlook on life.
Arrived at the Hollis home they marched gravely up the steps and waited with charming dignity and only a few covert grins. When the door was opened, they left their coats and hats in the commodious coat room to the right of the hall door, and then filed into the reception room with the easy familiarity of old friends of the family.
A ripple of laughter from upstairs made it plain that the girls were already on the scene.
“That’s Carey Carewe’s musical giggle,” asserted Luther Waite with relief in his voice. “Now, if I can only get next to her the day will be saved!”
“It’s night, not day, fella! You’ve mixed your signals! Take it calmly, Waite. A few more hours and it will all be over!” advised Paul Redfern gravely.
Upstairs Mrs. Hollis, attired in black lace and smiling composure, about to go down to meet her guests, had just been informed of the presence of Minnie Lazarelle. She retired hastily to the back hall to tap at the nursery door and have a talk with her.
“Oh, my dear Minnie!” she said in a shocked tone as the door opened readily and the smiling and triumphant face of the uninvited guest appeared, nothing daunted.
“My dear!” she reproved in a tone that told Minnie that she certainly was anything but dear just then. “How in the world did this happen? I had no idea that you were in this part of the world, or could possibly come at the present time. And of course it’s quite impossible for you to stay here now, we are full up to overflowing.”
“Oh, that’s quite all right, Aunt Jessica,” laughed Minnie brightly. “I don’t mind sleeping in the old nursery at all. And of course being a relative it’s quite the right thing to put me here. Though I would have enjoyed being over next to Sydney. In fact I did go over there and found that little stick of a college mate of Syd’s had preempted the best room, so I decided I’d better room with her. But when I had had my bath and came out into the room I found she had gone, and your officious maid ordered me back here, so I came. But it’s all right. I don’t mind in the least, Aunt Jessica.”
Minnie seldom called the Hollises aunt and cousin unless she had some axe to grind, but she was using the strained relationship for all it was worth now, and smiling blandly into the desperate eyes of the bride’s mother.
