The Tryst (Annotated) (Grace Livingston Hill Book) (36 page)

It was a cold, gloomy morning when Hespur's letter reached Patty. The day before had been bright, but the memory of it was bitter. Treeves had been at the house from Saturday night and she had seen him go out with Marjorie early in the morning for a walk. They had returned in deep and earnest conversation. It seemed to Patty that she could not stand it to have Marjorie carrying out her avowed purposes that way and John Treeves falling into the trap. It didn't seem like him not to see through a girl like that. And yet, she had to own that Marjorie was very attractive, and most charming when she chose to be. But there was a desolate little ache back in Patty's heart all that day and she found it there yet when she awoke Monday morning. Somehow all the wonderful sermon of the day before had not taken that hurt out of her heart. 

When the letter came she read it over twice and then took it to Miss Cole: 

“See what came in the mail this morning,” she said, holding out the letter. “I wondered if you could tell me of anything I could do to cheer the poor old soul.” 

Miss Cole's face took on a gray look as she read the letter, and her hand trembled as she handed it back. She sat for several minutes looking unseeingly into space. Patty almost thought she had forgotten to answer, and stood uncertainly wondering whether to go away. But at last Miss Cole spoke: “Can you get ready to go by the afternoon train?” she said, and her tone was most matter of fact. 

“Why!” said Patty looking startled. “You don't mean --that you think I ought to go?” 

“Not alone,” said Miss Cole. “Of course not. We'll both go! He's an old friend when it comes to that, and when one is dying it's different! Nobody'll think anything of it, for I often run off for a few days, and I go down there frequently. Besides, that Letitia Horliss is coming to visit to-morrow and I can't abide her. She treats me as if I was as old as Methuselah and she had to keep me always in mind of it. Look up trains and see if there's anything sooner that will make connections. I can be ready in two hours if there is. I'll telephone my brother and let Kate know and you can do the rest. You might send Banely to get a trunk together. We won't need but one, because I don't suppose we'll stay forever, and we can send for more things if we do. That's all. I'll ring if I want you, and you let me know as soon as you've made the arrangements.” 

To Patty the sudden change of program was a relief. It helped to take her out of her own thoughts which were growing decidedly gloomy. She went to work with a will and soon had matters in train for their trip, with parlor car reservations, trunks, tickets and everything arranged. Her own simple preparations required but a few minutes, and at twenty minutes to twelve she and Miss Cole were seated in the limousine on their way to the Pennsylvania Station to answer old Hespur's appeal. 

As the Fifth Avenue mansion passed out of her vision she sat up with a little sigh of relief. Perhaps now she would be able to forget some of the things that were always hurting her, and some of the problems that perplexed her night and day.  

“It is growing very dark in the room, Hespur; dark and cold. Why don't you light the fire?” 

“Yes, sir, yes, sir; I will, sir!” Hespur, with tears on his sad, old face and a troubled look at the clock, gave a stir to the already bright fire and turned back. 

“It's a dark day, Hespur, a dark, dark day.”

“Yes, sir, it is that, sir, but it'll soon be that bright, sir! You'll see, sir! Now, shall I read a bit?” 

He glanced at the clock again. It was almost time for the doctor's train. He touched lightly the cold hand of the old man and tucked it under the blanket. He wiped the perspiration from the waxen brow. 

“Yes, read --read about the blood--” whispered the old man, nestling among his pillows, and groping under the blankets with his chilly hands: 

“The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin--” repeated Hespur, kneeling beside the bed and watching the growing pallor of the waxen face. “As far as the East is from the West, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us--” Hespur had learned the lesson well in the weeks in which he had been studying the Bible, but farther back than that it was ingrained into his soul, in the old country when he was a little fellow by his old grandmother's knee at the fireside. He had wandered long and far from that teaching, but it all came back to him now, as the Word that is writ in the heart will always do, and he did not have to stumble and hesitate for the words now when the need was great and his soul was wrung for the old child who was passing into the shadow so rapidly. 

“There is one --about the lamb in the valley--” murmured the withered lips. 

“Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me --” repeated Hespur, and a smile of peace came over the old man's face. 

“Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest,” went on the old servant, searching about for the words the old man had liked oftenest to hear. “Fear thou not for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name, thou art Mine!” 

On and on, from promise to promise, went the faithful servant, watching the face that had grown dear to him through the long, hard years of his service, dear because it was so pitiful in its self-made loneliness. Hespur did not hear the soft tap at the door, nor its opening. He did not know that anyone had entered until suddenly the old eyes on the bed opened and looked up into Patty's sweet pitiful face, and a smile broke out over Calvin Treeves's face, a smile like a passing ray of light on a swift, hurrying cloud. Then his eyes searched, farther, and his face lit up with a most wondrous light, for the instant glorifying the haggard and spent clay into the semblance of Calvin Treeves as he used to be before the devil of Greed and Power took utter possession of his soul. 

“Sylvia!” he said, and his trembling hands went out eagerly for hers. “Sylvia! You've come at last!” 

Sylvia Cole knelt beside the bed, took his cold hand in both her own, and stooping, kissed him on his stiffening lips. 

A soft murmur of content came from the old man, and his eyelids fell shut. Patty crept close and took his other hand in hers, and Hespur stood back with bowed head waiting as was his place, now that others more fitted had come to do his master honor. The doctor had come silently in, laid a practised hand on the feeble wrist, and stood back in the attitude of waiting also. 

“Hespur! The blood! Say the blood!” 

“The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin,” repeated Hespur obediently. 

“Sylvia!” the old eyes opened again and sought her face. “You know about the blood?” 

“Yes, Calvin, I know,” she said in a clear, steady voice. “Yes, it's all right.”

“He -- He's --forgiven me!” he trembled out. “I've been a great sinner but Christ has forgiven --Syl-via -- can --you -- forgive --me --too?” 

“Yes, Calvin. I forgive you!” Sylvia kissed him once more, and he seemed to be content. They thought he was gone, but after a long silence he murmured: 

“I --will -- fear -- no -- evil --for --Thou --art --with –me--!” The voice trailed off again, then rose clearer, triumphantly. “HE'S HERE! Hespur, HE'S HERE! Don't forget to come, too!” 

“I'll not, sir! I'll be there, sir!” choked Hespur gallantly, and turned to the window to hide his sobs. 

The doctor drew the ladies away, and shut the door, and old Hespur was left to do the last service for his old master. Calvin Treeves had passed to meet his God! 

Two hours later Hespur knocked at the door of Miss Cole's room and handed her a letter and a little white box. Then to Patty, who had opened the door, he gave another box. 

“And this. Miss, he wanted you to have. Only last night he had me get it out and mark it for you with his love, and I was to do it up to-day and send it on to you.”

When Patty opened the box she found the ring with the blue diamond. But when she went to Miss Cole to ask what she ought to do about it she found her sitting by the window weeping over a great blazing white diamond on her finger, and an open letter in her lap, Patty gently closed the door and stole away. 

John Treeves had been working in The Plant for nearly eight weeks and was already counted an expert in the work he had chosen. He was still preaching in the New York church. “Supplying the pulpit,” he called it, till they could get hold of a man they would be willing to call, for he had steadily refused to listen to their arguments, and they had settled down to wait for a time, hoping to make him see the light after he had tasted a little of the weariness of toil and lost some of his high spirits; for there was no denying the fact that they wanted to find no other man in his place as long as they could possibly keep him. Also some of the committee had an eye to that hundred thousand dollars. 

He was intensely interested in the work he was doing and the people he was among. He had taken board in one of the little gray houses where the husband and father had been recently killed in one of the machines, and where the young son, barely seventeen, was the only wage earner left for a family of seven. The woman was exceptionally clean and careful and Treeves had a little whitewashed room to himself, furnished with a canvas cot, a chair, a wooden table and his trunk. He had some army blankets to supplement the scanty bed clothes, and he felt entirely comfortable. He was doing just what he wanted to do, get close to the people. He wore the same kind of coarse, cheap clothes that they wore, and ate at the oilcloth-covered table in their kitchen the same kind of food they ate. They thought him one of themselves. His genial smile and kindly ways won their hearts and his broad shoulders and strength won their respect. Also, although he had shown him-self a skillful and rapid worker he never was averse to helping one of them, and never showed any desire to show up better than anyone else in the eyes of the foreman, which won their admiration. He was so unassuming that as yet they had not even been curious about him, for although his speech was different from theirs, he had plenty of army slang, and democratic ways, and those who earn their living and grow dog-weary with the struggle against hunger and poverty are not curious concerning those who drop down among them and toiL as they do, falling in with their conditions and habits. He was clean, very clean, that was the only thing they noticed strongly, and many of them were that. 

Already he had made many friends and comrades among the workers; already there were overburdened women who had come to look upon him as a sort of angel of mercy; at night gathering their little children around him and playing games and telling stories. A little sick child in the community would rather have “Tree” as they took to calling him, to hold him and pet him than his own mother, and many an aching back and arms that were heavy with carrying a sick baby were relieved for a blessed hour when John Treeves had finished his work and eaten his supper and was ready to give himself to the people. 

In one of the side streets of lower New York, in a quiet boarding house, he had a room where he kept his Sunday clothes, his books and his writing desk. Here on Saturday nights he would betake himself, going in at dusk with his rough, cheap suit he had worn from The Plant, a shoddy over-coat with collar turned up and an old cap drawn over his eyes, and coming out the next morning fine and comely in the garments that befitted his station. As yet the reporters had not got onto his trail, and he came and went in peace. They had besieged him on Sunday for interviews, and he had smilingly told them a few brief facts, stating that he was away all the week, only coming to New York for the Sabbath, and that his home was in Maple Brook. The few that had persevered far enough to take a trip to Maple Brook had got very little satisfaction out of it; Mrs. Burnside, telling them that 'he came and went now and again, and you never could tell when he'd be there and when not. Mostly he was writing or reading or walking up the mountain when he did come.' Those who had ventured went back with a constructed story about his love of nature, and his habits of study, but no one had as yet found out the truth. Horliss-Cole had managed to conceal it from all but two of the committee so far that he had allowed the minister to work in his plant. 

The morning after the death of Calvin Treeves his nephew was almost late at the works. He had been sitting up all night with a sick boy whose mother was worn out and he looked worn and tired himself. Little lines that took away the boyish look were beginning to show themselves around his eyes since he came to live at The Plant, for life, as not even the war had shown it, had been passing like a panorama before his eyes, and he was meeting great problems every day. The burden of sin and poverty had been laid upon his shoulders, and he was wondering how he could lift more of it from others not so able to bear it. 

He went quietly to his machine, greeting the men about him with a smile. He had a pleasant word for everyone, but he was not talkative that morning as he went about putting his machine in order for the day. 

“Well, I guess, Buddie, you wisht your name was anything but John this morning, don'cha?” 

“How's that?” asked John Treeves pleasantly, always ready to enter into conversation, even if it were but a joke on himself. 

“Ain't you seen the papers yet this morning?” asked the other wonderingly. For Treeves had distinguished himself by being one of the few men who took the morning paper and read it on the way down to the shop. 

“Why, no,” he said, “I stayed all night with Johnny Fusco and didn't get back to my room. What's the news?” 

“Only another millionaire croked, that's all,” said the workman cheerily, clinking his oilcan into a slot, and mopping it off with a big, dirty rag. Oh, man! If all that money could just be divided between us hard-working men there'd be some justice in things! If I had my way every rich man would have to leave his property to the state at his death, and the state would divide it up. No one gets any of it that has over a certain income, big enough to live comfortably on. Then things would keep evening themselves up all the time, see?”