LOVE’S YOUNG DREAM
“We are lucky. This is the very kind of night we most wish for our
stroll and sail.” Marjorie was rejoicing in the beauty of the night as
she and Hal walked slowly along over the white sands.
“How could the night be anything but perfect with you home again,
Marjorie?” Hal Macy glanced down at the white-clad girl walking beside
him as though he contemplated stopping and gathering her in his arms.
“It might be raining torrents, and still I’d have just come home,”
Marjorie answered in the matter-of-fact tone which had once been Hal’s
despair. She cast a swift roguish upward glance at her adoring fiancé
from under her long curling lashes.
“But it isn’t. It couldn’t be,” Hal tenderly asserted “Say it again,
dear. That you are glad to see me; to be walking this old beach again
with me. That——”
“I do love to walk this old beach with you—but not too far behind the
others. That’s the way Connie and Laurie used to do, and then we used to
laugh at them,” Marjorie gaily assured. “Come on, let’s hurry.” She ran
playfully ahead of Hal, a radiantly pretty figure in the white
moonlight.
Hal overtook her in a few long, purposeful strides, saying: “You can’t
escape me, beautiful moonbeam girl. You are all in white just as you
were on that other night last year when you wouldn’t let me tell you
that I loved you. You’ve the same kind of soft white scarf over your
shoulders, and two stars for eyes. It’s you instead of the moonlight who
lures my poor heartstrings out of me.”
“You have never forgotten that moonlight verse, have you?” Marjorie said
lightly. She refused to say that she was pleased to know he had not
forgotten it.
“How could I forget it? You quoted it to me on the unhappiest night of
my life. Afterward I quoted it you on the happiest night. Is it a
wonder—”
“You’d better hurry up if you expect to go sailing this evening,”
admonished a cheerful, interrupting voice. Unnoticed by the lovers Danny
Seabrooke had come up behind them, bent on teasing the absorbed couple.
“You’d better run ahead, Dan-yell, and untie the boat,” Hal advised in
an anything but sentimental tone.
“You are miles behind the times. Our gallant ship floats free. Only
Armitage is getting peeved because he has to hang on to the straining
galleon’s rope,” Danny added with grinning significance.
“Run along and tell him that patience is a virtue,” retorted Hal with
pleasant irony.
“Tell him yourself when you see him. That will be some time during the
evening—we hope. I’ve run till I’m out of breath. I’m going to poke
along with you two. It will be restful—and interesting.”
“You may find cause to change your mind,” Hal warned darkly.
“Never. Marjorie will protect me.” Danny beamed trusting faith at
Marjorie. He prudently ranged himself upon her other side, peering
timidly forward at Hal, his freckled features alive with ludicrous
anxiety.
In the midst of a merry argument between him and Hal the trio arrived at
the little pier to which the Oriole, Hal’s motor launch, was tied. On
the dock three smiling-faced young people awaited Hal and Marjorie. The
happiness which Jerry Macy, Constance and Lawrence Armitage felt over
the beautiful culmination of Marjorie’s and Hal’s comradeship was as
deep and abiding in its own way as was the love between the newly
betrothed pair.
“Such a lovely evening.” Jerry greeted them with effusive politeness.
“So glad you managed to get here after all.”
“You may give _me_ credit for rushing ’em to the pier,” put in Danny
modestly.
“There’s plenty of room for an argument, but who wants to argue on a
night like this?” Hal returned equably, fixing laughing blue eyes upon
Danny.
“You are right, Mr. Macy.” Danny made Hal a derisively respectful bow.
“I hope others here besides us cherish the same opinion. _You_ do, I am
sure. _Don’t_ you, Geraldine?” He turned hopefully to Jerry.
“I don’t cherish anything,” Jerry returned crushingly.
“Ha-a-a! How sad!” Danny heaved a loud sigh. “What a dreary life you
must lead!”
“It suits me,” Jerry asserted, with a cheerful smile. “Who’s going to
take the wheel on the run seaward?” she inquired generally. “Don’t all
speak at once. Don’t speak at all, if you’re not crazy for the pilot
job. I’d like it, if no one else wants it.”
“Oh, if you insist.” Laurie Armitage willingly accorded Jerry the wheel.
He stood steadying the boat at the little pier while Hal helped the
three girls over the side and into the launch.
Constance and Laurie Armitage had lately returned from another year’s
study of music in Europe. They had not reached Sanford in time to see
Marjorie before she had gone West with her father and mother to visit
Ronny. In consequence they had looked forward to her sunny presence at
Severn Beach with an affectionate impatience second only to Hal’s.
“So glad you brought the guitar, Laurie,” Marjorie said as Laurie picked
it up from the pier floor, where he had laid it briefly, and passed it
over the side of the launch to Constance. “Do you know any Spanish
songs? I heard such beautiful ones at Manaña.”
“Only two or three. We are going to Spain next winter to study the
Spanish music and find a very old Spanish opera for Connie, if we can.
We found an old music folio in Paris in a queer little odds and ends
shop that had three numbers in it from an old Spanish opera called ‘_la
Encantadora_’; the enchantress. Next time we go abroad it will be on the
trail of _la Encantadora_,” Laurie declared lightly as he stepped into
the launch behind the trio of girls.
“Sometime you and Connie must go to Mexico and hunt up some Spanish
Mexican music,” Marjorie said with enthusiasm. She went on to tell them
of how she and Ronny had been serenaded by Teresa’s sons and of the
tender beauty of the old Spanish song “_Las Estrellas_.”
Presently the Oriole was darting seaward in the white moonlight with
Jerry at the wheel and Danny beside her entertaining her with his ever
ready flow of nonsense. Laurie was lightly strumming the guitar as he
waited for Constance to decide upon a song. Marjorie and Hal sat side by
side on a long cushioned bench looking like two contented children.
Hal would have been far better content, however, to hold one of
Marjorie’s hands in his own. He allowed them to lie loosely in her lap
because he knew she preferred them to be thus. His Violet Girl did not
wear her heart on her sleeve. She treated him with her old-time friendly
gaiety, showing only occasional flashes of deeper feeling for him. Hal
was confident that Marjorie loved him. Unless she had been very sure of
her own heart she would never have given him her promise. Yet the
reserve which he had for so long schooled himself to maintain when with
her still clung to him.
Constance began the impromptu concert with an old French harvest song
which was one of the vocal gems the Armitages had brought to light
during the past winter. Laurie accompanied her softly on the guitar, the
rhythmic beat of the music blending with the faint wash of the water
against the boat’s sides. From that she drifted to “Hark, the gentle
lark!” and from it to one and another of Brahms’ songs, already
favorites of the little company.
“The next number of our program will be a touching sentimental song by
Dan-yell Seabrooke,” Laurie banteringly announced. After singing their
old Brahms’ favorite, “The Sapphio Ode,” Constance had laughingly gone
on a strike, declaring that it was time for someone else to sing.
“What reason have you to suspect that it will be?” Danny fixed a severe
gaze upon Laurie. “Do I _look_ sentimental? Do I _act_ sentimental? Do I
_seem_ sentimental?”
“Nothing like trying.” Laurie ignored the forceful interrogations. “If
you try, and don’t succeed—” He made a motion as of pitching something
over the boat’s side into the water.
“Nev-vur! I shall succeed; if not in singing, then in dodging,” Danny
averred with great resolution. “Hand me the guitar. I wouldn’t trust you
with it in such an emergency. You might play off the key and spoil my
song.”
“Is that so? What about my risk in handing you the guitar and having it
spoiled?”
“About fifty-fifty, I should say.” Danny grinned amiably and reached for
the guitar. He pretended to tune it, grumbling. Presently in the midst
of his pretense of disfavor he surprised his smiling companions with the
charming prelude of “What does your heart say?” a popular baritone solo
from “The Orchid,” a New York musical success.
It was the first time that any of the five listeners to Danny had ever
heard him seriously attempt a sentimental song. Possessed of a tuneful
baritone voice Danny had earned a reputation among his friends as a
singer of comic songs. Hal and Laurie regarded the departure merely as a
decidedly successful attempt upon Danny’s part to make good. Into
Marjorie’s and Constance’s minds, however, the thought sprang instantly
that Danny was deeply in love—with Jerry, of course.
As for Jerry! She was hoping no one could see the added color in her
cheeks by the bright moonlight. During Danny’s rendition of the song she
had occupied herself industriously with the wheel, her round, babyish
face as nearly a blank as she could make it. Danny hardly ended the solo
when she began clapping her hands in light applause.
“Bravo! You win!” she called out. “You certainly gave a fine imitation
of a sentimental warbler, Dan-yell. Laurie didn’t think you could do
it.”
“Oh, I have nerve enough for anything,” Danny retorted. “What does Mr.
Lawrence Armitage know of my talents and capabilities?”
“Not a thing, thank fortune,” asserted Laurie with stress.
“You may have your guitar. I wouldn’t sing you another song if you
begged me to. I am going to devote myself to Geraldine. She never treats
me kindly, but she’s an improvement upon you.” Danny wisely produced
this plea as an excuse to seat himself close to the wheel and Jerry.
She received him without comment, pretending to be listening to the buzz
of conversation going on among the others. Laurie was running a series
of chords up and down the guitar strings which had an oddly familiar
sound both to her ears and Marjorie’s. He continued sounding them a
moment or two, then glanced at Hal, nodding.
Suddenly Hal’s sweet echoing tenor voice lifted itself on the moonlit
air in a lilting melody that Marjorie had good cause to remember.
“Down the center, little one,
Life for us has just begun!”
Hal was singing the quaint words of the Irish Minuet. To Marjorie it
would ever be the song of songs. Like the prince’s kiss which had
wakened the sleeping beauty from her enchanted sleep, sound of it had
awakened her dreaming heart and opened her ears to the voice of love.
Involuntarily she stretched forth a hand until it rested lightly upon
one of the singer’s. Instantly Hal had caught it, holding it in his own.
He bent an adoring glance upon her, and sang on.
“This was what I was wishing for,” he declared fondly the moment he had
finished the song. He gathered her slim hand more closely in his own. “I
hardly dared take it with everybody looking on, for fear you’d not wish
it.”
“It was dear in you to sing that, Hal.” The eyes of the pair met in a
long fond glance of affection. “You know I shall always love it best of
all songs. You understand why.”
“Yes, dear.” There was quiet rapture in the response. “I forgot to send
back the music to it to Leila last spring. So I brought it to the Beach
for Laurie to play. I thought you’d like to hear it again.”
“I love it. Think how much of happiness we owe Leila Greatheart. If it
had not been for her Irish play you would never have come to Hamilton.
You’d probably have gone to Alaska, as you had planned to do.”
“I had begun to feel that I couldn’t bear to see you for a while,
knowing you didn’t love me,” Hal confessed. “I knew I’d never stop
caring for you. I was sure it was the only thing for me to do.”
“I’m so glad you didn’t go. You see, Hal, I should have known later—that
I cared—perhaps too late.” Marjorie’s lovely features shadowed. “I had
begun to know that I missed you, and I’d read Brooke Hamilton’s journal
and had felt a kind of terrible despair over it. He hadn’t understood
Angela’s love for him until after her serious illness. Just when he was
beginning to be happy he lost her. I couldn’t help wondering if it would
be so with me. Brooke Hamilton helped us to our happiness. On that
account there is something I’d like to do—I know it would please Miss
Susanna. It’s about—about our wedding.”
“Our wedding.” Hal repeated the two magic words in a kind of beatified
daze. “What about our wedding, dearest. Are you going to tell me that
you’ve changed your mind and are going to marry me in the fall instead
of next June?” There was a suppressed, hopeful note in the question.
“Not in the fall, or next June, either.” Marjorie’s up-flashing smile
did not match her negative answer. “I can’t desert Hamilton until the
dormitory is finished and dedicated and the biography completed. And
there’s the Leila Harper Playhouse, too. So it couldn’t possibly be in
the fall. But”—Marjorie made a tiny pause—“I think my work at Hamilton
will have been completed by the last of next April.” She made another
brief pause, then said with direct simplicity: “I’d like our wedding to
take place on the evening of May Day, at Hamilton Arms. May Day was
Brooke Hamilton’s birthday.”
“Marjorie!” Hal exclaimed very softly. He caught Marjorie’s free hand,
then prisoned both her hands between his own. “My heart went down when
you said ‘not next June.’ But the first of May! That is sooner than I
had hoped for. You can depend upon Miss Susanna to back that plan.
She’ll be delighted. How about General and Captain? Have you told them
yet?”
“No.” Marjorie shook her curly head. “Not yet. There is to be a grand
Dean confab tomorrow morning right after breakfast. Oh, I know they will
be willing to give up having the wedding at Castle Dean. In some ways
I’d love to be married from my dear pretty home in Sanford where our old
crowd had such good times. But the Arms has an even stronger claim upon
me. I want to make Miss Susanna happy. She has been so wonderful to
Hamilton College, and to me,” Marjorie ended eloquently.
Hal’s approval of her idea was not expressed in words. It came in the
tightening of his hands on Marjorie’s and the glance of unutterable
devotion which he bent upon her.
“You see, Hal,” Marjorie said after a short interval of rapt silence
between them, “Hamilton Arms has become like a second home to me. I’m
not afraid Miss Susanna would object to the fuss and decorating that
must naturally go with a house wedding. She’d love it, because she loves
us. I thought it all out when I was at Manaña. That is, the main points.
Violets were Brooke Hamilton’s favorite flowers, and you call me your
Violet girl. So I am going to have a violet wedding in the spring when
there are loads of double, sweet-scented violets in bloom at the Arms.”
Completely absorbed in each other, Hal and Marjorie had drifted far away
from the amused quartette of friends who were considerately ignoring
their presence. While their friends kept up a lively murmur of
conversation the lovers floated far and free upon the boundless sea of
romance with love for their pilot.
“If they should come back this evening I’ll see that Macy takes his
trick at the wheel,” Danny said to Jerry in a purposeful undertone.
“Oh, they won’t be back until someone leads them off the Oriole onto the
pier.” Jerry’s reply was full of deep satisfaction. Marjorie’s final
awakening to love for Hal would ever be a blessed marvel to Jerry.
“What’s the matter with my steering? Don’t you like it?” she demanded of
Danny.
“I have a high opinion of it,” Danny hastily assured. “Only I hate to
see you so overworked. I should enjoy having you sit beside me on that
bench over there, and holding your hand. I should enjoy——”
“I shouldn’t enjoy having you,” Jerry interrupted cruelly.
“Say not so. You have never trusted me with your nice plump little hand.
I would be very careful of it,” he added ingratiatingly.
“No thank you. I’d rather be excused.”
“Why would you?” Danny persisted with an interested inquiring grin.
Jerry had to laugh. “How can I tell?” she countered. She felt the color
rise to her cheeks, and was glad Danny couldn’t detect it by moonlight.
“You can’t—not until you’ve tried holding hands with me,” Danny asserted
with a wise air.
“Some other time,” Jerry made indefinite, careless promise.
“No time like the present.” One of Danny’s hands suddenly covered one of
Jerry’s as it rested on the wheel. “You wouldn’t be so mean as to leave
me out of this hand-holding party, would you?” he asked, an undercurrent
of seriousness in his bantering tones.
“No,” replied Jerry with sudden shy brevity. And for the remainder of
the ride the Oriole had the advantage of double handpower at the wheel.
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