Stranger within the Gates (11 page)

Paul swallowed the last bite of pie that Selma had brought, glancing at his watch, and then announced, "I'm going to call up the college. It's time that kid was here, and if he doesn't come pretty soon and I can't find out any good reason for his delay, I sure will wallop him when he does get here." So he strode across the hall to the telephone.

The family slipped one by one into the living room and waited for him.

It took a long time, but Mary Garland understood that. She had had experience of how unsatisfactory it was to call that college, especially out of hours when the regular operator was not supposed to be on duty. So they sat patiently, like those who wait for life-and-death crises at the hospital where dear friends are in critical situations. But at last Paul came into the room.

"I can't get much satisfaction there," he announced with an artificial cheeriness that did not deceive his mother. "Almost everybody has gone home for Christmas, or else doesn't know anything. At last I got the office boy, and he says Rex left early this morning in a car. He says he's sure. He says he saw him, and he was with another fellow, one of the college boys, he thinks; but he didn't look very closely, and they were some distance away, so he couldn't be sure which boy."

Mary Garland gave him a hopeless look and remained pitifully silent.

"Well," said Stan with a note of relief in his voice, "if he didn't see any girl around, then that settles that somewhat, doesn't it?"

"He might have picked her up later," said Fae keenly.

A look flashed over Paul's face.

"I'll try something else," he said and went back to the telephone. But he didn't tell them he had called up the pie shop and asked for Florimel, neither did he tell them that the owner of the pie shop had told him that Florimel was off for the holidays. They said she drove off that morning in a hired car with a couple of college boys. But Paul didn't come right back to the living room after he heard that. He called up two or three other fellows who he knew were staying at college and asked them if they had seen Rex, and one of them said Rex told him that morning he was off for home. He hadn't seen him around since, so he guessed he was gone. Then Paul tried several other calls but got no satisfaction. And presently he came back and told them that everybody agreed that Rex had gone home, so it was probably true that he had started off with somebody in the car, and very likely the other guy had sidetracked him for a while and he had to wait to be brought on, or maybe the other fellow wasn't coming all the way and Rex had to wait for a train. Or they'd had a flat tire or something. And why didn't Mother go to bed now? He was here and could keep watch for his brother. But he said not one word about Florimel.

But no, Mary Garland would not go to bed. She wanted to sit up and wait. Surely Rex would come pretty soon. And anyway, Paul was here, after the long months without him, and she wanted to be with him and hear all about everything.

So Paul talked. He told them all about his examinations. He described his teachers and some of his classmates and made a pretty good job of keeping the atmosphere lively, as if nothing had happened and they were just waiting for Rex to come, sure that he would come pretty soon.

But by this time Paul wasn't at all easy in his mind. He was trying to rack his memory and think if he had ever seen Rex with Florimel, but try as hard as he would he couldn't remember.

He wouldn't ever have connected Rex with Florimel in any way. He wouldn't have thought she was his type. In fact, Rex had never been a ladies' man. But somehow he didn't trust a girl like Florimel. His impression of her was, from the few times he had noticed her, that she was ready with her smiles and her sly eyes to make up to any lad who would notice her. He hadn't liked her type, and he had never joked with her when she waited upon him at the pie shop as some of the rest of the fellows did. But surely,
surely
, Rex, with his fine upbringing, his high ideals, and his love for mother and sisters, would never get in the toils of a girl like that! It couldn't be.

But yet as he talked on, passing time, trying in some other way to account for Rex's strange behavior, the idea of Florimel kept gnawing like some little beast of prey in the back of his mind and worrying him to the last degree. Florimel and Rex! What an impossible combination! How were they ever to endure, if it was true?

The hour was growing late, and Fae, curled up on the floor beside her mother's couch, was almost asleep. Sylvia, under the big lamp, was hemstitching a handkerchief that was to be one of her Christmas gifts for an aunt up in New York. She wore a dejected look. Stan was sitting over by the front window where he could watch the drive and see the first minute a car turned into it. Stan was looking suddenly grown up and as if he were carrying great burdens. He hadn't even brightened up much at the very elaborate account of the basketball game in Buffalo, in which Rex had starred so wonderfully. Paul had made the account last as long as possible, but he realized as he went on that perhaps he was only succeeding in making them see Rex in all his best lights and filling them with terror at the thought of what he had done.

And then as he paused, trying to get a different topic, thinking perhaps he would tell them about his own successes and turn their thoughts away from Rex a little while, the mother spoke out of a great sorrowful silence.

"What kind of a girl is this Florimel? You didn't mean she was not respectable, did you, Paul?"

Paul turned and realized that his mother had not been blinded by his silence. Her mind had caught the worst possible construction and turned it over in her thoughts.

"Mother!" he said distractedly. "You mustn't get such ideas. I just spoke of that girl because I wanted to show you there wasn't anyone there that Rex could possibly get entangled with. No girls except visiting ones at dances. No, I don't think she is not respectable. Just silly, perhaps. She may not even be that. I truly don't know much about her. It isn't, of course, a nice position for a girl in a college town, to be a waitress in a pie shop where the fellows go, but for all I know, she's perfectly respectable. Mother, you simply must forget about her. If this is true about Rex, which I'm not at all sure it is, then it's probably something perfectly all right. That is, as right as it could be to marry
any
one at his age. So please try not to think it out and torture yourself anymore. Now, why won't you all go to bed and rest? Rex ought to be here in a very short time now; that is, if he isn't held up by a flat tire or something like that. Or, it may be he finds it necessary to stay all night with the fellow who brought him."

"In which case, of course, he ought to telephone me," said Mary Garland sadly. "No, Paul, I've had three days to think this thing over carefully, and I'm satisfied there is something absolutely wrong about it all. Something that perhaps Rex is ashamed of, and he is afraid to come home after what I said to him about his classes not being important now. I'm afraid I let him see too clearly how I felt about what he had done. Perhaps he has decided not to come home at all."

"Nonsense!" said Paul sharply. "How
could
he? Mother, he hasn't got any money to hang around anywhere. I know that for a fact because Rex borrowed ten dollars from me before he started for Buffalo, so he can't be very flush. He wanted more, but I couldn't spare it."

"Oh!" moaned the mother and lay very still with her hand shading her trembling lips and her tortured eyes.

"Say, Mother," said Paul, jumping up and walking over to the couch, "would you feel better if I took the midnight train and went back to college and scouted around to see if I can locate Rex? Or to find out just when and how he left the town? I
can
, you know. There is a midnight train, and"--he glanced at his watch--"I've just about time to catch it. Then when I get there, if I find out anything I can telephone you at once and ease your mind a little. Wouldn't you like me to do that?"

The room was very still while Mary Garland turned that over in her mind. Then she shook her head.

"No, Paul, you'd better stay here. I need you. If Rex is really married, it would make him very angry to know that you had gone hunting him. And as you say, he may be staying overnight with whoever is bringing him, although I can't think why he wouldn't telephone if he could. But I guess we've got to be patient and wait. He'll likely come later, or at least in the morning. If he doesn't, we can think what to do then. But you had better stay here. I'm glad you have come, Son."

Paul stooped down and kissed her.

"Dear brave little Moms!" he breathed gently. "I'll do whatever you want."

She smiled sadly.

"Yes, I know, and I'm glad to have you here. It's a comfort."

In a moment she looked up again and around upon them all, and then she sat up.

"Children," she said, and her voice was very gentle. "I think perhaps we need to ask God to help us. I think perhaps we've drifted a long way from our heavenly Father since your earthly father went away, and it's my fault. Suppose we just bow our heads right here and ask our Father to help us. There really isn't anything we can do to help ourselves tonight, that I see. We don't want to call in the police to help us search. Our Father knows all about it. Let us pray to Him about it."

And then Mary Garland bowed her head in her hands and began haltingly, almost shyly, to pray, pleading her own weakness and failure and inability, pleading His love for all His redeemed ones.

"And Thou knowest, dear Lord, that we have been redeemed by Thine atoning sacrifice," she said. "Oh, we haven't walked with Thee as we should, and we have no right in ourselves to ask this great thing of Thee in our distress, but because Thou art our Savior and lovest us, we have confidence that Thou wilt forgive our wanderings and hear our prayer now for our dear Rex, wherever he may be. Thou knowest where he is. Wilt Thou care for him? Wilt Thou help us to find him? Wilt Thou relieve our distress? And whatever our Rex may have done, no matter how wrong, wilt Thou forgive him and open up a way for him to be a man after Thy plan, a man who will be pleasing unto Thee? We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus."

It was very still for an instant after she had finished, and no one was expecting any more; they all were bowing there before God with uplifted hearts. Then suddenly Paul's voice--strong, solemn, clear--broke the silence.

"Heavenly Father, I haven't been following You the way I meant to when I went to college, but I did mean it when I accepted You as my Savior, and I'm asking You now to forgive me and help me to be what I ought to be. Help me to be a help to my brother. Oh, Lord, pity him, and save him from what he seems to have done to his life! Somehow help him to get back to You, even if it is through a hard way. And help me to know what I ought to do to find Rex and help Mother!"

Paul's voice was very solemn as he finished. Then Sylvia very softly breathed a few words, almost inaudibly, and then Stan spoke, as if God were right there beside him.

"Oh, Lord, I haven't been much of a Christian, but after this I'm going to try to be different, and won't You please bring our Rex home, no matter how foolish he has been?"

Fae, her voice drowned in tears, murmured, "Dear God, please bring Rex home."

They looked at one another shyly after that experience. It was something they never would forget. It was more tremendous than even the sorrow that had brought it about.

Stan got up silently and went about locking the doors for the night as he had been doing since his brothers went away to college, just as if he were the head of the house. Then they all kissed their mother goodnight, and Paul escorted her upstairs, with Fae just behind patting his arm and saying, "I'm glad you're home again, Paul."

He smiled at her and answered, "And I'm glad to be here, little sister!"

When they were all lying in their beds, their doors open into the wide hall, they thought about that prayer time. It was as it used to be when Father was alive and they were little children and had worship every night and morning. It was beautiful. It was a bond between them all, like no other bond that had ever been. They would never forget their mother's prayer, with tears in her voice, nor Paul's clear petition that was a confession and a testimony, nor the others' halting sentences. It was as if God had come into the house to be with them and help them.

They did not listen for taxi wheels that night, nor footsteps on the drive. They had put the whole matter into stronger hands than theirs, and they could rest and trust. It was a new feeling, and they liked it.

The mother fell asleep with peace in her soul, such peace as she had not had for years. Trouble might come back tomorrow. She was reasonably sure that it would. But she did not have to bear it alone now. God would somehow help them through.

Sylvia, as she drifted off to sleep, had a passing thought of Rance Nelius; he would have fitted into the prayer time, too, if he had been there. She didn't know why she felt he would, but she did, and she was glad.

The night came deeper, blacker, with no stars above. No Christmas stars! But Christmas was not many days off, even if trouble was all about.

Silently, stealthily, down through the darkness came flakes of snow; thicker and faster they came, whirling this way and that, hurrying down to cover the ground and the dead grass and the place where flowers had been, and where flowers would be again in the spring. But now they were spreading a Christmas robe upon the earth to surprise the sleepers in the morning.

And out in the world, somewhere, beyond that white blanket of snow, was Rex, out in the world! But God knew where he was.

Next morning there was still no word from Rex.

Paul spent a good deal of time at the telephone doing some wise detective work and finding out very little. But he found enough to convince him that there would be no real use in going back to college now to search for Rex, for some of his faithful friends had made sure that Rex was not in or about the college anywhere, and now there was more testimony to make sure that Rex had driven away in a car with another young man. And if there had been a girl along also, the fact was still shrouded in mystery.