THE PAST AND FUTURE MEET
Larry knocked at Ruth's door. It opened and a wan and pathetically
drooping little figure stood before him. Ever since she had been awake
Ruth, had been haunted by that unwelcome bit of memory illumination which
had come the night before. No wonder she drooped and scarcely dared to
lift her eyes to her lover's face. But in a moment he had her in his
arms, a performance which banished the droop and brought a lovely color
back into the pale cheeks.
"Larry, oh Larry, is it all right? I'm not his wife? He didn't marry me?"
Larry kissed her.
"He didn't marry you. Nobody's going to marry you but me. No, I didn't
mean to say that now. Forget it, sweetheart. You are free, and if you
want to say so I'll let you go. If you don't want--"
"But I do want," she interrupted. "I want Larry Holiday and he is all I
want. Why won't you ever, ever believe I love you? I do, more than
anything in the world."
"You darling! Will you marry me? I shouldn't have asked you that other
time. I hadn't the right. But I have now. Will you, Ruth? I want you so.
And I've waited so long."
"Listen to me, Larry Holiday." Ruth held up a small warning forefinger.
"I'll marry you if you will promise never, never to be cross to me again.
I have shed quarts of tears because you were so unkind and--faithless. I
ought to make you do some terrible penance for thinking the money or
anything but you mattered to me. Not even the wedding ring mattered. I
told you so but still you wouldn't believe."
Larry shook his head remorsefully.
"Rub it in, sweetheart, if you must. I deserve it. But don't you think I
have had purgatory enough because I didn't dare believe to punish me for
anything? As for the rest I know I've been behaving like a brute. I've a
devil of a disposition and I've been half crazy anyway. Not that that is
any excuse. But I'll behave myself in the future. Honest I will, Ruthie.
All you have to do is to lift this small finger of yours--" He indicated
the digit by a loverly kiss "and I'll be as meek and lowly as--as an ash
can," he finished prosaically.
Ruth's happy laughter rang out at this and she put up her lips for a
kiss.
"I'll remember," she said. "You're not a brute, Larry. You're a darling
and I love you--oh immensely and I'll marry you just as quick as ever I
can and we'll be so happy you won't ever remember you have a
disposition."
Another interim occurred, an interim occupied by things which are
nobody's business and which anybody who has ever been in love can supply
ad lib by exercise of memory and imagination. Then hand in hand the two
went down to where Geoffrey Annersley waited to bring back the past to
Elinor Farringdon.
"Does he know me?" queried Ruth as they descended.
"He surely does. He knows all there is to know about you, Miss Elinor
Ruth Farringdon. He ought to. He is your cousin and he married your best
friend, Nan--"
"Wait!" cried Ruth excitedly, "it's coming back. He married Nancy
Hollinger and she gave me some San Francisco addresses of some friends of
hers just before I sailed. They were in that envelope. I threw away the
addresses when I left San Francisco and tucked my tickets into it. Why,
Larry, I'm remembering--really remembering," she stopped short on the
stairs to exclaim in a startled incredulous tone.
"Of course you are remembering, sweetheart," echoed Larry happily. "Come
on down and remember the rest with Annersley's help. He is some cousin.
You'd better be prepared to be horribly proud of him. He is a captain and
wears all kinds of honorable and distinguished dingle dangles and
decorations as well as a romantic limp and a magnificent gash on his
cheek which he evidently didn't get shaving."
Larry jested because he knew Ruth was growing nervous. He could feel her
tremble against his arm. He was more than a little anxious as to the
outcome of the thing itself. The shock and the strain of meeting Geoffrey
Annersley were going to be rather an ordeal he knew.
They entered the living room and paused on the threshold, Larry's arm
still around the girl. Doctor Holiday and the captain both rose. The
latter limped gallantly toward Ruth who stared at him an instant and then
flung herself away from Larry into the other man's arms.
"Geoff! Geoff!" she cried.
For a moment nothing more was said then Ruth drew herself away.
"Geoffrey Annersley, why did you ever, ever make me wear that horrid
ring?" she demanded reproachfully. "Larry and I could have married each
other months ago if you hadn't. It was the silliest idea anyway and it's
all your fault--everything."
He laughed at that, a, big whole-souled hearty laugh that came from the
depths of him.
"That sounds natural," he said. "Every scrape you ever enticed me into as
a kid was always my fault somehow. Are you real, Elinor? I can't help
thinking I am seeing a ghost. Do you really remember me?" anxiously.
"Of course I remember you. Listen, Geoff. Listen hard."
And unexpectedly Ruth pursed her pretty lips and whistled a merry,
lilting bar of melody.
"By Jove!" exulted the captain. "That does sound like old times."
"Don't tell me I don't remember," she flashed back happy and excited
beyond measure at playing this new remembering game. "That was our
special call, yours and Rod's and mine. Oh Rod!" And at that all the joy
went out of the eager, flushed face. She went back into her cousin's
arms again, sobbing in heart breaking fashion. The turning tide of
memory had brought back wreckage of grief as well as joy. In Geoffrey
Annersley's arms Ruth mourned her brother's loss for the first time.
Larry sent his uncle a quick look and went out of the room. The older
doctor followed. Ruth and her cousin were left alone to pick up the
dropped threads of the past.
They all met again at luncheon however, Ruth rosy cheeked, excited and
red-eyed but on the whole none the worse for her journey back into the
land of forgotten things. As Larry had hoped the external stimulus of
actually seeing and hearing somebody out of that other life was enough to
start the train. What she did not yet remember Geoffrey supplied and
little by little the past took on shape and substance and Elinor Ruth
Farringdon became once more a normal human being with a past as well as a
present which was dazzlingly delightful, save for the one dark blur of
her dear Rod's unknown fate.
In the course of the conversation at table Geoffrey addressed his cousin
as Elinor and was promptly informed that she wasn't Elinor and was Ruth
and that he was to call her by that name or run the risk of being
disapproved of very heartily.
He laughed, amused at this.
"Now I know you are real," he said. "It is exactly the tone you used when
you issued the contrary command and by Jove almost the same words except
for the reversed titles. 'Don't call me Ruth, Geoff,'" he mimicked. "'I
am not going to be Ruth any more. I am going to be Elinor. It is a much
prettier name.'"
"Well, I don't think so now," retorted Ruth. "I've changed my mind again.
I think Ruth is the nicest name there is because--well--" She blushed
adorably and looked across the table at the young doctor, "because Larry
likes it," she completed half defiantly.
"Is that meant to be an official publishing of the bans?" teased her
cousin when the laugh that Ruth's naïve confession had raised subsided
leaving Larry as well as Ruth a little hot of cheek.
"If you want to call it that," said Ruth. "Larry, I think you might say
something, not leave me everything to do myself. Tell them we are engaged
and are going to be married--"
"To-morrow," put in Larry suddenly pushing back his chair and going
over to stand behind Ruth, a hand on either shoulder, facing the
others gallantly if obviously also embarrassedly over her shyly bent
blonde head.
The blonde head went up at that, and was shaken very decidedly.
"No indeed. That isn't right at all," she objected. "Don't listen to him
anybody. It isn't going to be tomorrow. I've got to have a wedding dress
and it takes at least a week to dream a wedding dress when it is the only
time you ever intend to be married. I have all the other
things--everything I need down to the last hair pin and powder puff.
That's why I went to Boston. I knew I was going to want pretty clothes
quick. I told Doctor Holiday so." She sent a charming, half merry, half
deprecating smile at the older doctor who smiled back.
"She most assuredly did," he corroborated. "I never suspected it was part
of a deep laid plot however. I thought it was just femininity cropping
out after a dull season. How was I to know it was because you were
planning to run off with my assistant that you wanted all the gay
plumage?" he teased.
Ruth made a dainty little grimace at that.
"That isn't a fair way to put it," she declared. "If I had been
planning to run away with Larry or he with me we would have done it
months ago, plumage or no plumage. I wanted to but he wouldn't anyway,"
she confessed. "I like this way much, much better though. I don't want
to be married anywhere except right here in the heart of the House on
the Hill."
She slipped out of her chair and away from Larry's hands at that and went
over to where Doctor Philip sat.
"May we?" she asked like a child asking permission to run out and play.
"It is what we all want more than anything in the world, dear child," he
said. "You belong with Larry in our hearts as well as in the heart of the
House. You know that, don't you?"
"I know you are the dearest man that ever was, not even excepting Larry.
And I am going to kiss you, Uncle Phil, so there. I can call you that
now, can't I? I've always wanted to." And fitting the deed to the word
Ruth bent over and gave Doctor Philip a fluttering little butterfly kiss.
They rose from the table at that and Ruth was bidden go off to her room
and get a long rest after her too exciting morning. Larry soberly
repaired to the office and received patients and prescribed gravely for
them just as if his inner self were not executing wild fandangoes of joy.
Perhaps his patients did get a few waves of his happiness however for
there was not one of them who did not leave the office with greater hope
and strength and courage than he brought there.
"The young doctor's getting to be a lot like his uncle," one of them said
to his wife later. "Just the very touch of his hand made me feel better
today, sort of toned up as if I had had an electrical treatment. Queer
how human beings can shoot sparks sometimes."
Not so queer. Larry Holiday had just been himself electrified by love and
joy. No wonder he had new power that day and was a better healer than he
had ever been before.
In the living room Doctor Philip and Captain Annersley held converse. The
captain expressed his opinion that Ruth should go at once to Australia.
"If her brother is dead as we have every reason to fear, Elinor--Ruth--is
the sole owner of an immense amount of property. The lawyers are about
crazy trying to keep things going without either Roderick or Ruth. They
have been begging me to come out and take charge of things for months but
I haven't been able to see my way clear owing to one thing or another.
Somebody will have to go at once and of course it should be Ruth."
"How would it do for her and Laurence both to go?"
"Magnificent. I was hoping you would think that was a feasible project.
They will be glad to have a man to represent the family. My cousin knows
nothing about the business end of the thing. She has always approached it
exclusively from the spending side. Do you think your nephew would care
to settle there?"
"Possibly," said the Doctor. "That will develop later. They will have to
work that out for themselves. I am rather sorry he is going to marry a
girl with so much money but I suppose it cannot be helped."
"Some people wouldn't look at it that way, Doctor Holiday," grinned the
captain. "But I am prepared to accept the fact that you Holidays are in a
class by yourselves. We have always been afraid that Elinor would be a
victim of some miserable fortune hunter. I can't tell you what a relief
it is to have her marry a man like your nephew. I am only sorry he had to
go through such a punishing period of suspense waiting for his happiness.
Since there wasn't really the slightest obstacle I rather wish he had cut
his scruples and married her long ago."
"I don't agreed with you, Captain Annersley.. They are neither of them
worse off for waiting and being absolutely sure that this is what they
both want. If he had taken the risk and married her when he knew he
hadn't the full right to do it he would have been miserable and made her
more so. Larry is an odd chap. There is a morbid streak in him. He
wouldn't have forgiven himself if he had done it. And losing his own
self-respect would have been the worst thing that could have happened to
him. No amount of actual legality could have made up for starting out on
a spiritually illegal basis. We Holidays have to keep on moderately good
terms with ourselves to be happy," he added with a quiet smile.
"I suppose you are right," admitted the Englishman. "Anyway the thing is
straight and clear now. He has earned every bit of happiness that is
coming to him and I hope it is going to be a great deal. My own sense of
indebtness for all you Holidays have done for Ruth is enormous. I wish
there were some way of making adequate returns for it all. But it is too
big to be repaid. I may be able to keep an eye on your other nephew when
he gets over. I certainly should like to. I don't know when I've taken
such a fancy to a lad. My word he is a ripping sort."
"Ted?" Doctor Holiday smiled a little. "Well, yes, I suppose he is what
you Britishers call ripping. It has been rather ripping in another sense
being his guardian sometimes."
"I judge so by his own account of himself. Yoxi mustn't let that smash of
his worry you. He'll find something over there that will be worth a
hundred times what any college can give him, and as for the rest half the
lads of mettle in the world come to earth with a jolt over a girl sooner
or later and they don't all rise up out of the dust as clean as he did
by, a long shot."
"So he told you about that affair? You must have gotten under his skin
rather surprisingly Ted doesn't talk much about himself and I fancy he
hasn't talked about that thing at all to any one. It went deep."
"I know. He shows that in a hundred ways. But it hasn't crushed him or
made him reckless. It simply steadied him and I infer he needed some
steadying."
Doctor Holiday nodded assent to that and asked if he thought the boy was
doing well up there.
"Not a doubt of it," said the Englishman heartily. And he added a brief
synopsis of the things that the colonel had said in regard to his
youngest corporal.
"That is rather astonishing," remarked Doctor Holiday. "Obedience
hasn't ever been one of Ted's strong points. In fact he has been a
rebel always."
"Most boys are until they perceive that there is sense instead of tyranny
in law. Your nephew has had that knocked into him rather hard and he is
all the better for it tough as it was in the process. He is making good
up there. He will make good over seas. He is a born leader--a better
leader of men than his brother would be though maybe Larry is finer
stuff. I don't know."
"They are very different but I like to think they are both rather fine
stuff. Maybe that is my partial view but I am a bit proud of them both,
Ted as well as Larry."
"You have every reason," approved the captain heartily. "I have seen a
good many splendid lads in the last four years and these two measure up
in a way which is an eye opener to me. In my stupid insular prejudice
maybe I had fallen to thinking that the particular quality that marks
them both was a distinctly British affair. Apparently you can breed it in
America too. I'm glad to see it and to own it. And may I say one other
thing, Doctor Holiday? I have the D.S.C. and a lot of other junk like
that but I'd surrender every bit of it this minute gladly if I thought
that I would ever have a son that would worship me the way those lads of
yours worship you. It is an honor any man might well covet."