An Unwilling Guest (Romance Classic). Grace Livingston Hill
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was murdered or buried or what not.
She had not cared for it. What were ancient battles and dead men and women to her? This was not what she had come to Europe for, she wanted some life and pleasure. Her father, doubtless, hoped she would imbibe some knowledge, but it had escaped from her like water off a duck's back. One afternoon they had taken her to visit a famous ruin. When they reached the ruin it was found that the excursion included a sail across a placid strip of water to a tiny island whereon was located something or other, Evelyn did not now know what, and was not sure that she had ever known. She had determined in her heart not to get into that leaky-looking boat, and the dirty sailor, and swelter in the hot sun while her guardians had all sorts of tiresome things pointed out and explained to them, and hunted out the items about them with slow, near-sighted vision in the volumes they carried. After the rest had embarked and the boatman essayed to help her in, she suddenly declared her intention of remaining where she was till their return, giving as her excuse a headache. There had been some demur. The boatman told her it might be some time. All the more reason why she felt she would not go. Her staying might hurry their return. Each of the party mildly offered to remain with her, but she had declined all their offers. She had longed to get away from them all for a little while. The day was sunny and the place entirely safe, with a comfortable seat under a tree by the water. At last they sailed away and left her.
She could remember now how unhappy she had been as she watched them go, and reflected that she must stay there alone until their return. She wished herself back in New York, wished her father had not come on this business trip, wished she ever could have anything but poky, commonplace happenings. She had longed for some adventure, and even looked about for some dangerous place to climb or some wild thing to do while they were gone. Suddenly in the midst of her thoughts there had come a tremendous storm.
She had not looked behind her until she heard the low rumble of thunder, and turning saw the whole mass of lowering ruins black against a blacker sky, with lurid flashes of lightning making great clefts and picking out every separate stone of the old castle with fearful distinctness.
She had been terribly frightened. She looked off to the place where her friends had but a moment before been a white speck on the quiet blue lake, and lo, there had been a transformation! The lake was no longer blue but a livid purple, with ghastly green lights over it, an ominous whirl and strange treacherous ripples blowing across it. The island seemed farther away, and the white sail had disappeared. Perhaps they had rounded the island. Perhaps they had landed. At any rate they were evidently not meditating an immediate return to her. She had sense enough to see that it would not be possible for them to do so now.
A terrible sheet of lightning blinded her eyes for an instant and sent her shivering from beneath the tree. She knew that a tree was a conductor of lightning. The rain began to fall in great plashing drops and she had fled to the ruin and wondered if that also were a place of danger. She had crept into an alcove with roof enough for protection from the rain and there, facing her in the companion alcove not three feet away stood a man, and his face she knew at once. She seemed to have seen his smile before, though that was impossible in the dark, and when he spoke, as he immediately did, she knew his voice. It all had been so strange. They had seemed good friends at once, as if they had known each other for years. He had seen that she was trembling, that she was afraid of the storm, and had led her inside to a place more sheltered, where the awful flashes that blazed through the whole sky could not be so distinctly seen and where the roar of the thunder and the sound of the dashing water in the thoroughly aroused little lake would reach but faintly through the great stone walls; and there they had talked.
She had told him how grateful her father was for his service to her a year ago, and how chagrined she was that she had not inquired his name, and how they had tried their best to find him and thank him. When he smiled and said he was glad she had not been afraid of him also, she felt that she had known him a long time.
Never once during the two hours they spent in the old hall of the castle, while the elements did their worst outside, did it occur to her to wonder if he belonged to the favored few who composed her world of society and who were eligible to talk and dance and play with such as she. It was only afterward that this question came to her, when her friends asked, "Who is he?" and "What is he?" for they came from the part of the world where these things count for much. Then she found she knew very little indeed from her three hours spent with him, as to either of these important questions, in the sense that these people meant. Afterward, when her brother Dick had been called in to help, she had been glad to know that he stood high in his profession, and could go anywhere, if he but chose. But he had not come her way again, though she had always been hoping that he would.
Their talk that afternoon had drifted to the old ruin and she suddenly found it peopled with real folks, breathing and walking before her, and she wondered why this man could make the people of history so interesting to her, when her friends had only bored her with talk of them.
Once when the lightning had been most vivid and she had shuddered involuntarily and covered her eyes with her hands, he had said, "Don't be afraid," in a quieting tone. Then she had looked up into his face and had known that he was not at all afraid.
She lay awake a long time that night after thinking the whole story over. A sudden thought had come to her. Was it, could it be because he belonged to this strange family and held peculiar beliefs, that he had not been afraid of that terrible storm? Or was it because he was a man? No, he had something more in his face than most men when they are merely brave. There was something in this whole family, some controlling, quieting force that she did not understand.
How very strange that he should have belonged to these people! And stranger still that she should be here.
CHAPTER VI.
MAURICE GREY'S VOW
There were other vigils kept that night. The mother in her own room, though she put her light out quietly enough and knelt beside her bed as usual, prayed long and earnestly for her dear boy and added a petition for "the stranger beneath our roof." Then she lay down to wonder anxiously if she had done exactly right in bringing this strange unknown quantity into the house just now, when her dear boy was coming home, and to tell herself for the thousandth time that day that it had not been her doing. She had not even known that Maurice was coming this week. Finally she laid down her burden, asking her heavenly Father to make it all work out to his glory, and fell asleep.
Allison in her room was trying to read her Bible. She was reading by course and her chapter that night brought her to the thirteenth of First Corinthians. She had read two or three verses unthinkingly, when her mind suddenly became aware of the meaning of the words. Impatiently she closed her Bible, then opened it again. She would not read in her regular order to-night. She needed special help. Her soul was weary and hungry. She needed something like "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden," or "Let not your heart be troubled." Not that sharp upbraiding, and being obliged to examine her heart again.
She had done that all day. Besides, she knew that chapter by heart, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels and have not charity." She knew all the latest expositions, had read and even learned it, substituting the word "love" for "charity." The whole thing searched her too keenly to-night, hence she turned away.
But turn as she would to find comfort, that persistent Bible would open again and again back to the chapter in Corinthians. At last, unwillingly, she read it through, piercing her soul with every verse, and lay down to weary contemplation of her mistakes and failures, having tried to throw off her burdens in prayer, but picking them up and shouldering them once more. It was very hard for poor Allison to give up. When her will decided a thing she simply could not bear to hear things go the other way. She could not see how it was right. In theory she believed that God knew what would be best for all his children. In practice she had a strong conviction that she knew pretty well what the Lord had intended in the first place and there was danger of its getting switched off the track if she did not watch the switch and worry about it.
Maurice