Bright Arrows (12 page)

The telephone rang as the lawyer went back to the library to get a paper Mr. Worden wanted, and Eden went herself to answer it, for Janet was busy. When she returned, Lorrimer was standing in the hall waiting for Mr. Worden to answer some question of Tabor's.

Eden had come back with her face shining.

"This is wonderful," she said. "I didn't want those girlfriends of mine to come to see me right away while all this excitement is so new. They would just talk and talk about it, and I don't know how to keep them from asking questions that I've been told not to answer. And now they called it off themselves. They have been asked to help out getting ready for some servicemen's party, and they have to spend the whole afternoon making favors. So now by the time they do come, perhaps a lot of my perplexities will be straightened out and I won't find it hard to answer their questions. Besides, they will have forgotten a lot of it and won't be so interested by that time."

The young man's eyes shone.

"That's it," he said. "You'll be surprised. I've had many experiences like that. Some of my friends, when I told them about it, have laughed and said it was my imagination, but you'll find it doesn't work out to be imagination. It is real. The Lord cares for His own, even in little things."

"Do you mean nothing ever happens against your wishes and prayers?" asked Eden almost breathlessly.

"Oh, no, but I mean that when you leave it all to Him, He works it out marvelously. I don't mean it always comes the way you have planned it, or want it even, but that if it doesn't, you know it will work out in the end to be even better than you wanted, if you are patient and rest in Him. The condition, of course, is that you leave it all to Him and rest. You know His wish for you is that you shall become like the Lord Jesus. Whatever hinders that, He does not allow."

"I see," said Eden slowly, trying to think it out. "But that is almost unbelievable. It is like living a charmed life."

"Yes, isn't it? But it is true. It is the kind of life He wants His own to live if they are willing."

When he was gone, Eden spent much time thinking over what he had said and went shyly up to her room to pray. She had never before felt shy in approaching God, but now it seemed she had really just been introduced to Him and was so filled with wonder and gratitude that her natural self-assurance seemed to desert her.

By and by Janet came up to tell her that the doctor had come and that he found Tabor's condition much improved. The wound was not deep and was doing nicely. Tabor had roused to ask once what had happened and why he was in the servants' dining room, and then he dozed off again. The doctor had said the concussion was clearing up. He hoped it would not be a long siege for him.

Eden asked if she might go to him, and the doctor said yes, if he waked again and seemed to want to see her. So toward evening when he woke and was being given nourishment, she went and sat by his bed and put her small smooth hand in the old faithful one that had served her so many years, since she was a mere baby.

At her touch old Tabor opened his eyes and smiled, perhaps thinking he might have died and this was an angel coming to meet him. But when he saw her, comprehension dawned in his glance, and he smiled again and pressed her soft fingers respectfully. "Miss Eden!" he said. "My lady!" And smiled again and closed his eyes, sinking away to sleep with an expression of content on his old lips.

Then Eden went up to her room again, this time to pray for Tabor.

Just after dinner a neighboring woman came in for a few minutes and brought some lively flowers, and Eden felt she should see her for a few minutes, so she came down to the little reception room near the door and thanked the woman for the flowers.

"But, my dear," purred the neighbor, "I was so horrified when I found out what you had been going through, and right after the sorrow of your father's death, too. It was cruel! Now isn't there something we could do to cheer you up? Wouldn't you like to come over to our house to stay a few days until the excitement is over? It will be quite convenient really, and it must be so horrid to have policemen coming and going all the time. I've seen them come in, you know."

"Oh, thank you! That wouldn't be at all necessary," she said quietly. "The policemen do not bother me. It just seems pleasant to think they have been protecting us at night. And most of them have been friends of mine since I was a little girl. They used to direct traffic when I was on the way to kindergarten, you know, and always took my hand and led me across the street, so I know them all quite well. And besides, of course, I couldn't be away anywhere till Tabor is well and up and about again. I couldn't think of leaving for anything just now."

"But, my dear! You don't mean to tell me that servant is still here? Why didn't you have him sent to the hospital at once? That would have been the natural thing to do. Surely he is well enough to be removed now! Would you like me to call for an ambulance and arrange about his being moved?"

"Oh, no, Mrs. Mattox," said Eden with horror. "Why! Tabor is a part of our family. He has been with us since I was born. I wouldn't think of letting him be taken away. It would grieve him terribly. He has cared for us for years, and he is very dear to me and was to my father. He is being cared for quite well as if he were in the hospital. We have a nurse, and Janet and the other servants are much attached to him. They are all anxious to do all they can for him. Besides, the doctor feels he is getting on very well, and I know he'll be happier here than anywhere else."

"Oh, but, my dear, don't be silly! He is only a servant. He would be very well cared for in the hospital, you know. That's what hospitals are for. And it must be so very gloomy to have someone so ill in the house. You have to keep so still, and it must react on you. You're looking pale, my dear. I'm sure your father would want us all to take better care of you than to let you harbor an old worn-out servant in your home, when you must be having a hard enough time without anything more."

Eden sat up with more than her usual dignity and lifted her pretty chin.

"Thank you, Mrs. Mattox, but I couldn't think of having Tabor taken away, and my household arrangements are very comfortably settled. We have a good doctor, you know, our old physician, and a fine nurse. No one need feel any responsibility about me. I am quite well taken care of, and I should feel very unhappy to have Tabor away."

"But that is just sentiment, my dear child! Don't be silly."

Eden looked up with a smile of dignity.

"Sentiment is what we feel for the people who are near and dear to us, isn't it? But it really doesn't matter what you call it. Tabor stays here in his home, or what has been his home ever since I was born. But it certainly was kind of you to bring these lovely flowers to me, Mrs. Mattox. They are beautiful."

"Well, I'm glad you like them," said the lady stiffly. "But I do wish you could come over, my dear. It wouldn't be like going out. Of course, I know you don't feel like being cheerful with your father just gone, but this would be just our family and my niece, Rilla Wattrous. She is about your age, you know, and you certainly would have things to talk over in common. It would be better than being alone with just servants."

"Thank you, Mrs. Mattox," said Eden, relieved that the lady had arisen as if about to leave. "You are most kind, but I'm sure you will excuse me. I really don't feel like going anywhere just now. I prefer to be at home for the present."

The woman studied her quiet pose for an instant before she finally left, and when she got back to her home she remarked to her husband, "Poor child! She seems utterly crushed. She's just determined to sit down in the dust and be gloomy. Imagine a young girl being willing to stay at home with just servants!"

But it was with a sigh of relief Eden went upstairs to pray for Tabor and his swift recovery.

 

The next day some of Eden's girlfriends barged in without warning, and Eden took them to the living room because it was farther away from the room where Tabor was, and he need not be disturbed by their chatter.

But at the doorway Celia Thaxter paused and looked across at the great vase of flowers on the table under the opposite window.

"Oh! Funeral flowers!" she exclaimed with a shudder. "Have they kept all this time? Why on earth don't you throw them out? I just hate the thought of flowers in connection with a funeral, don't you? I think it would be so much better if they could completely break down that idea of sending flowers to a funeral. I always appreciate it when the death notices have the request 'No flowers, please.' Flowers seem so out of place when one is in trouble, don't you think?"

Eden gave Celia a wondering look and caught her breath. How could she talk that way?

"Why, no," she said brightly. "I think flowers are the most wonderful conveyors of sympathy, and I'm always grateful for them. But, Celia, those aren't funeral flowers. Those are some roses that Mrs. Mattox, my neighbor, brought over to me last night. Aren't they lovely? Come in, won't you? Take that chair over by the desk, Celia. It's my favorite chair."

"No, thanks," said Celia, shivering a trifle. "I'll sit right here by the door. Wasn't this the room you had the funeral in? I thought so. Why don't we go into the library? I always loved that room."

"I'm sorry," said Eden coolly, "but it's right across from the servants' dining room where we had to take Tabor when he was brought in, and I'm afraid our talking might annoy him. He's still in a very critical state."

"Tabor!" exclaimed the visitor. "You don't mean to tell me you kept him here? After he was stabbed? He was stabbed, wasn't he? How perfectly dreadful! Why, Eden, who suggested that? The doctor? He ought to know better. Tabor's just a servant, isn't he? The very idea of your keeping him in the living part of your house where your friends have to come. Hospitals are for such cases! That's what we give all those fairs and teas for, to get money to have free beds for the poor. You could have paid his way yourself if you felt all that obligation to a mere servant."

"I
preferred
to have Tabor here," said Eden haughtily. "This is his home, and he has been our faithful friend through the years. Would you like a cushion, Celia? That chair is rather deep."

"No, thanks! I'll make out. But you certainly are keeping up on your old college character of being peculiar! The idea! A servant having all the attention a member of the family would have!"

"Tabor is a member of the family," said Eden definitely.

"But who takes care of him? Not you, I hope. I should think it would take too much time for the rest of the servants to look after him, and I shouldn't suppose they would be willing to do it anyway."

"Any one of our servants would be entirely willing to go out of their way and work overtime if they could help Tabor. They all honor and love him greatly. But, of course, we have a nurse."

"A nurse? Oh! That's different, of course, but it must make a lot more work for the other servants. Who pays for the nurse?"

"Celia, for heaven's sake, mind your own business, can't you?" protested Mary Carter.

"I am minding my business. I think it's our business to protect Eden from imposition!"

But Eden did not answer. Instead, she turned toward the other girls.

"Is your aunt any better, Carolyn?" she asked.

"Oh, I guess so," said Carolyn Caton indifferently. "She doesn't whine around quite so much. I certainly do think if a person is sick they oughtn't to bother other people with it. It isn't our fault she has asthma. My dad has kept us all poor, sending her around from one doctor to another, and I don't think it's fair to the rest of us."

Eden turned to Mary Carter.

"Has your brother come home yet from the Philippines?" she asked brightly.

"Not yet. He stopped on the way to visit his fiancée. They're going to be married at Christmas. Just think of it. We're all going out there to the wedding. I think it is horrid. Spoils Christmas for me all right. In fact, I'm not even sure I'm going. There are seven parties here at home, and I'm invited to every one of them. Can you beat that, girls? And what they want to have their old wedding at Christmas for I don't understand. They're just cutting themselves out of a whole holiday every year. They can't celebrate a wedding and Christmas at the same time without losing out. Well, I may decide to take the midnight train home after the wedding and get back in time for three of the parties, anyway. Though if I do that, I'll miss out on the Western trip Dad was going to take us all on. I am not sure what I'm going to do."

Then the whole group began to advise Mary, one said come home, and one said take the Western trip.

"Oh, but you'd better come home, Mary. You don't know who's going to be here, perhaps Caspar Carvel! Imagine that! His buddy in the army wrote my cousin Catharine about it. They say he's perfectly striking looking, and he looks swell in his uniform. I think it's horrid they are going to have to give up their uniforms when they are discharged from service, don't you? They look so much handsomer in them than in civilian clothes."

They chattered on in the old way about their friends, and the service boys, and parties, but Eden caught her breath and began to look troubled. Was Caspar coming back to make her trouble? Till suddenly she remembered her new life and that this was something more she could trust to her Guide. A quick prayer in her heart,
Please take over, Lord!
and her brightness returned.

"I suppose you know all about Caspar, of course, Eden," said the fourth girl. "You always did. But I imagine you'll have some competition from now on. They say he's much improved and simply stunningly handsome. Looks swell in his uniform and all that, and is perfectly spiffy in his manner. They say the army has done him all kinds of good. Taken away that goody-goody attitude he had. He isn't a sissy anymore. He used to be such a lily, but he's all over that. I can testify that he can swear in a regular way now, just like the toughest guy in the camp."

"I suppose," said Eden quietly, "that a thing like war has either one effect or the other on those who take part in it."