Ariel Custer (Musaicum Romance Classics). Grace Livingston Hill
a young girl counts dear. She had kept his house and tended him like a child when he was drinking and disagreeable. She bore with his tyrannies and petty cruelties and loved him in spite of it all; she had submitted to scrimping and going without when she knew he was well able to buy her all she wanted, without a murmur; and she had never failed in her loyalty to him and his wishes, though it had gone hard with her when she suspected that he was being unjust and dishonest with others; and so when at last his death set her free and then she found that his will had laid his bonds upon her once more, and put a woman tyrant over her in his place, she gravely and sweetly submitted, knowing that the justice of God might demand this in restitution. Not even for freedom would she hint to any that her father had not been right in anything. Not for worlds would she leave a just debt of his unpaid. This it seemed was the only way to repay the injustice done to Joe Granniss years ago, and so this she must endure. And, well, what did it matter? Life was not a golden pavement to walk down without a care.
The cousins raged and reasoned; they urged and protested, but she was gently firm. She would carry out her father’s will. And she lived her quiet life apart, going about in her own house, yet not in reality its mistress, keeping her reserves in spite of all the grilling that Harriet Granniss gave her, looking back to a few bright days in the past, looking ever forward with golden vision to a time when it all should be over forever.
For Emily Dillon had one bright memory in her life that was like a gorgeous jewel, for which all the rest of her somber life was like a dull but lovely antique setting, valuable because it held the jewel.
Long ago there had been Nathan Barrett, a big, strong, clean-souled, clear-eyed youth, who had carried her books home from school, taken her to gather chestnuts, and to go skating, drawn her on her sled, and brought her red apples and the first violets. They had been very young then, and only the first shy dream of love beginning to dawn in their eyes that would otherwise have been dull with the monotony of the years. She had looked for him to return, confidently hoped to hear from him when her father died and she was free, but the years had gone by and he had not come. Yet the jewel burned in her soul and gave her something to cherish, and she kept her sweet patience and looked to the great beyond for something everlasting to return out of her own love, something that could not perish and would someday be hers forever. She did not reason it out. She just quietly held its dearness to her soul, along with her faith in God, and her hope in Christ, and her love of her mother. Having these, she somehow managed to bear the little everyday trivialities and look beyond. It gave her a quiet assurance and a gentle sweetness that Harriet Granniss could not penetrate, could not understand; it was the something about her housemate that nettled her beyond all power of control sometimes. She could not stir Emily Dillon beyond a certain point. In many ways Emily was like Harriet’s stubborn son. She called it stupidity. She held them to blame for it, and she nagged them all the more.
Sometimes she caught a look in Emily Dillon’s eyes as if she felt sorry for her, and that was most maddening of all. Sorry for her! Why should Emily Dillon be sorry for her? Poor simpleminded Emily, who didn’t even know enough to be angry that she had to divide her house with a stranger!
Then there were times when Harriet felt almost jealous at the smile that came into Jud’s eyes when he answered Emily. Jud was so unnecessarily polite and formal with Emily Dillon, almost as if he thought he hadn’t a perfect right in that house. Almost as if it were entirely Emily’s house and he a visitor.
Jud spent a great deal of time studying evenings when he ought to have been out having a good time like other young folks. One was only young once, and Harriet wanted a son she could be proud of, a handsome, dashing fellow with a speedy automobile and many girls following after him. She wanted him to be popular. With all her fierce, determined soul she wanted him to be popular. And she had it against Emily Dillon that she encouraged him to stay at home and study. Sometimes he even went to her special own sitting room and read things to her. He never read to his mother. He knew she would only sneer at him and tell him not to waste his time on such things now, to wait until he was an old man for that; but she felt it in her heart that he went to Emily for sympathy.
So they lived at cross purposes, those three, whom life had strangely joined in one house, and none of them quite understood the others. One would have known, even as early as that summer that Ariel came north, that something was bound to happen to disrupt a household like that.
CHAPTER III
The stir and bustle of the passengers preparing to leave the car roused Ariel from the deep sleep into which she had fallen as soon as the train left Washington.
She rubbed her eyes and looked around in bewilderment, realizing that they must have arrived in Philadelphia, and here was she, but half awake. She passed her hands over her dazed eyes, smoothed back her disheveled hair, and straightened her hat. Stumbling to her feet, she grasped for her satchel in the rack overhead and followed the other passengers up the long platform to the station. She gazed around her in dismay. There seemed so many people, so many, many trains. Her heart beat with almost frightened rhythm, and now that she was here, she shrank inexpressibly from what might be before her. She seemed to be suddenly stripped of any preparation that her heart might have made for the coming interview. It became in a flash so important whether they liked her or not.
She was not surprised that there was nobody at the gate to meet her. It was four hours later than she had promised to come, for the train that had brought her from home to the junction had had engine trouble, and she had missed the morning train from the junction to Washington. There had been three hours to wait and another delay in Washington. It seemed that she had been traveling forever. But she had the address of the library and had been told to come straight there in case Miss Larrabee failed to meet her. Also she knew Miss Larrabee’s home address.
* * * * *
The station was so big it bewildered her, but she saw a large friendly sign reading information and went shyly over to the counter to find out how to proceed.
It frightened her to try to get into the trolley cars. They seemed so big and indifferent, and their doors were in such uncertain places. She let several go by while she watched how others did it before she ventured herself.
The way to the library seemed through a maze of traffic. She felt frightened again at the thought of getting out. But when she reached the place and entered the big leather doors into a sort of super-quiet, her courage came again, and she marched up to the girl behind the big desk and asked for Miss Larrabee.
“She isn’t here,” answered the other girl. “She’s gone.”
“Gone?” echoed Ariel. “Do you mean she’s gone to the station to meet me? I looked all around where she told me she would be and I didn’t see her. It’s too bad if I kept her waiting so long. My train was very late”
“Oh no,” said the assistant librarian crisply as if she couldn’t waste the time. “She’s gone. Not here anymore. Gone home!”
“You don’t meannot dead?” said Ariel, wide eyed with awe. Such phrases were connected with death in her mind.
The librarian laughed.
“Mercy, no! I hope not. She simply isn’t with us anymore. She’s resigned. They’ve appointed a new librarian in her place. She had to go home and take care of her sick mother. She lives away up in Maine somewhere.”
Ariel stood still, growing white to the lips.
“But I don’t understand,” she managed to say. “I’m to be her assistant. She wrote me to come today, and she was to meet me at Broad Street Station at half past twelve. My train was late”
“Oh, are you the one?” The girl eyed her intently with a kind of indifferent interest. “But she wrote you the very next day. I saw the letter. She was very sorry, but she told you not to come. You see, her mother was taken very sick and her father had just died and she had to go home and stay. She wrote that letter a whole week ago, just as soon as