Assisting Providence
Linda went to the library to see to what state of emptiness it had been
reduced by the removal of several pieces of furniture she had ordered
taken away that day. As she stood on the threshold looking over the
room as usual, a throb of loving appreciation of Katy swept through
her heart. Katy had been there before her. The room had been freshly
swept and dusted, the rugs had been relaid, the furniture re-arranged
skilfully, and the table stood at the best angle to be lighted either
by day or night. On the table and the mantel stood big bowls of lovely
fresh flowers. Linda was quite certain that anyone entering the room
for the first time would have felt it completely furnished, and she
doubted if even Marian would notice the missing pieces. Cheered in
her heart, she ran up to the billiard room, and there again Katy had
preceded her. The windows were shining. The walls and floor had been
cleaned. Everything was in readiness for the new furniture. Her heart
full of gratitude, Linda went to her room, prepared her lessons for the
next day, and then drew out her writing materials to answer Marian’s
letter. She wrote:
I have an acute attack of enlargement of the heart. So many things
have happened since your leaving. But first I must tell you about
your sketch. We just know you did not leave it here. Katy says
there was not a scrap in our bedroom when she cleaned it; and
as she knows you make plans and how precious they are to you, I
guarantee she would have saved it if she had found anything looking
like a parallelogram on a piece of paper. And I have very nearly
combed the lawn, not only the north side, but the west, south, and
east; and then I broke the laws and went over to your house and
crawled through a basement window and worked my way up, and I have
hunted every room in it, but there is nothing there. You must have
lost that sketch after you reached San Francisco. I hope to all
that’s peaceful you did not lay it down in the offices of Nicholson
and Snow, or where you take your lessons. I know nothing about
architecture, but I do know something about comfort in a home, and
I thought that was the most comfortable and convenient-looking
house I ever had seen.
Now I’ll go on and tell you all the news, and I don’t know which
is the bigger piece to burst on you first. Would you be more
interested in knowing that Peter Morrison has bought three acres
on the other side of the valley from us and up quite a way, or in
the astonishing fact that I have a new dress, a perfect love of a
dress, really too good for school? You know there was blood in my
eye when you left, and I didn’t wait long to start action. I have
managed to put the fear of God into Eileen’s heart so that she has
agreed to a reasonable allowance for me from the first of next
month; but she must have felt at least one small wave of contrition
when I told her about a peculiarly enticing dress I had seen at
The Mode. She sent it up right away, and Katy, blessed be her
loving footprints, loaned me money to buy a blouse and some shoes
to match, so I went to school to-day looking very like the Great
General Average, minus rouge, lip-stick, hair-dress, and French
heels.
I do hope you will approve of two things I have done.
Then Linda recounted the emptying of the billiard room, the inroads in
the library, the listing of the technical books, and what she proposed
to do with the money. And then, her face slightly pale and her fingers
slightly trembling, she wrote:
And, Marian dear, I hope you won’t be angry with me when I tell you
that I have put the Bear-cat into commission and driven it three
times already. It is running like the feline it is, and I am being
as careful as I can. I know exactly how you will feel. It is the
same feeling that has held me all these months, when I wouldn’t
even let myself think of it. But something happened at school one
day, Marian. You know the Whitings? Mary Louise Whiting’s brother
is in the senior class. He is a six-footer, and while he is not
handsome he is going to be a real man when he is fully developed,
and steadied down to work. One day last week he made it his
business to stop me in the hall and twit me about my shoes, and
incidentally to ask me why I didn’t dress like the other girls; and
some way it came rougher than if it had been one of the girls. The
more I thought about it the more wronged I felt, so I ended in a
young revolution that is to bring me an income, a suitable place
to work in and has brought me such a pretty dress. I think it has
brought Eileen to a sense of at least partial justice about money,
and it brought me back the Bear-cat. You know the proudest moment
of my life was when Father would let me drive the little beast,
and it all came back as natural as breathing. Please don’t worry,
Marian. Nothing shall happen, I promise you.
It won’t be necessary to tell you that Katy is her darling old
self, loyal and steadfast as the sun, and quite as necessary and as
comforting to me. And I have a couple of other interests in life
that are going to—I won’t say make up for your absence, because
nothing could do that—but they are going to give me something
interesting to think about, something agreeable to work at, while
you are gone. But, oh, Marian, do hurry. Work all day and part of
the night. Be Saturday’s child yourself if you must, just so you
get home quick, and where your white head makes a beacon light for
the truest, lovingest pal you will ever have,
Linda.
Linda laid down the pen, slid down in her chair, and looked from the
window across the valley, and she wondered if in her view lay the
location that had been purchased by Peter Morrison. She glanced back at
her letter and sat looking at the closing lines and the signature.
“Much good that will do her,” she commented. “When a woman loves a man
and loves him with all her heart, as Marian loved John, and when she
loses him, not because she has done a single unworthy thing herself,
but because he is so rubber spined that he will let another woman
successfully intrigue him, a lot of comfort she is going to get from
the love of a schoolgirl!”
Linda’s eyes strayed to the window again, and traveled down to the
city and up the coast, all the way to San Francisco, and out of the
thousands of homes there they pictured a small, neat room, full of
Marian’s belongings, and Marian herself bending over a work table,
absorbed in the final draft of her precious plans. Linda could see
Marian as plainly as she ever had seen her, but she let her imagination
run, and she fancied that when Marian was among strangers and where no
one knew of John Gilman’s defection, that hers might be a very heavy
heart, that hers might be a very sad face. Then she went to planning.
She had been desolate, heart hungry, and isolated herself. First she
had endured, then she had fought; the dawn of a new life was breaking
over her hill. She had found work she was eager to do. She could put
the best of her brain, the skill of her fingers, the creative impulse
of her heart, into it.
She was almost sure that she had found a friend. She had a feeling
that when the coming Saturday had been lived Donald Whiting would be
her friend. He would want her advice and her help in his work. She
would want his companionship and the stimulus of his mind, in hers.
What Linda had craved was a dear friend among the girls, but no girl
had offered her friendship. This boy had, so she would accept what the
gods of time and circumstance provided. It was a very wonderful thing
that had happened to her. Now why could not something equally wonderful
happen to Marian? Linda wrinkled her brows and thought deeply.
“It’s the worst thing in all this world to work and work with nobody to
know about it and nobody to care,” thought Linda. “Marian could break a
record if she thought John Gilman cared now as he used to. It’s almost
a necessary element to her success. If he doesn’t care, she ought to be
made to feel that somebody cares. This thing of standing alone, since
I have found a friend, appeals to me as almost insupportable. Let me
think.”
It was not long until she had worked out a scheme for putting an
interest in Marian’s life and giving her something for which to work,
until a more vital reality supplanted it. The result was that she took
some paper, went down to the library, and opening the typewriter,
wrote a letter. She read it over, making many changes and corrections,
and then she copied it carefully. When she came to addressing it she
was uncertain, but at last she hit upon a scheme of sending it in the
care of Nicholson and Snow because Marian had told her that she meant
to enter their contest immediately she reached San Francisco, and she
would have left them her address. On the last reading of the letter
she had written, she decided that it was a manly, straightforward
production, which should interest and attract any girl. But how was she
to sign it? After thinking deeply for a long time, she wrote “Philip
Sanders, General Delivery,” and below she added a postscript:
To save you the trouble of inquiring among your friends as to who
Philip Sanders is, I might as well tell you in the beginning that
he isn’t. He is merely an assumption under which I shall hide my
personality until you let me know whether it is possible that you
could become even slightly interested in me, as a small return for
the very deep and wholesome interest abiding in my heart for you.
“Abiding,” said Linda aloud. “It seems to me that there is nothing
in all the world quite so fine as a word. Isn’t ‘abiding’ a good
word? Doesn’t it mean a lot? Where could you find one other word
that means being with you and also means comforting you and loving
you and sympathizing with you and surrounding you with firm walls
and a cushioned floor and a starry roof? I love that word. I hope it
impresses Marian with all its wonderful meaning.”
She went back to her room, put both letters into her Geometry, and in
the morning mailed them. She stood a long time hesitating with the
typewritten letter in her hand, but finally dropped it in the letter
box also.
“It will just be something,” she said, “to make her think that some man
appreciates her lovely face and doesn’t care if her hair is white, and
sees how steadfast and fine she is.”
And then she slowly repeated, “‘steadfast,’ that is another fine word.
It has pearls and rubies all over it.”
After school that evening she visited James Brothers’ and was paid the
full amount of the appraisement of her furniture. Then she went to an
art store and laid in a full supply of the materials she needed for the
work she was trying to do. Her fingers were trembling as she handled
the boxes of water colours and selected the brushes and pencils for
her work, and sheets of drawing paper upon which she could do herself
justice. When the transaction was finished, she had a few dollars
remaining. As she put them in her pocket she said softly:
“That’s gasolene. Poor Katy! I’m glad she doesn’t need her money,
because she is going to have to wait for the allowance or the sale of
the books or on Jane Meredith. But it’s only a few days now, so that’ll
be all right.”