Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer Part 5

"Good morning, Mother mine. Is Grace here?" Tom Gray's impetuous inquiry betokened strong excitement.

"Good morning, Tom. Come in. Grace has just vanished up the stairs. I'll let her tell you why she left us in such a hurry." Mrs. Harlowe smilingly ushered Tom into the living-room. "Nora, you can play hostess.

I will go and tell Grace that Tom is here."

"Thank you." Tom cast a grateful look after Mrs. Harlowe's retreating back. Following Nora into the living-room he seated himself nervously on the davenport, his eyes fixed on the doorway.

Nora eyed him in sober speculation. She would have liked to inquire into the nature of his excitement. Courtesy forbidding her to do so, she indulged only in commonplaces to which Tom replied almost absently. It was evident that something remarkable must have happened to thus upset Tom's equanimity. The sound of Grace's light feet on the stairs was a matter of relief to her. Excusing herself to the impatient lover, she left the room, wondering if, after all, there could be a remote possibility that her prediction of ill luck was about to be fulfilled.

CHAPTER VI

THE SHADOW

"But why must _you_ go, Tom?" Grace's tones rang with nervous dread.

"Can't some one else adjust matters satisfactorily?"

"No." Tom's reply was freighted with gloom. "I understand those men up there and can get along better with them than a new superintendent could. It wouldn't be worth while hiring one. Mr. Mackenzie isn't dangerously ill. He'll be about again in two or three weeks. But it needs some one who understands Aunt Rose's affairs to look after them properly, even for that short period of time. If it weren't almost tragic, it would be funny. Here I am bound heart and soul to the work of preserving forests. Now duty calls me to handle a crowd of men whose business it is to cut down forests. It isn't very pleasant to contemplate. To me trees are almost as much alive as human beings. Worse still, I hate to leave you, Grace. It's not so very long until the tenth of September, either, and we've so many plans to carry out yet at Haven Home."

"I know it." Grace's admission contained resignation. With duty thus obstinately confronting Tom, she felt that she had no right to discourage the performance of it. "I don't wish you to go," she faltered, "but I can't help knowing that you are right. You owe it to your aunt. She comes first. She's been both father and mother to you, and I'm glad you are the one to help her now."

"Aunt Rose doesn't want me to go," returned Tom quickly. "She's afraid something dreadful may happen to me. I don't antic.i.p.ate any such thing.

I'm too good a woodsman to feel concerned about myself. After that strenuous expedition to South America, this will be child's play. It's leaving you that I don't like."

Grace did not reply for a moment. Secretly she, too, was echoing Mrs.

Gray's fears. With the day of their marriage so near, she could not bear even to dwell on the dire possibility of any occurrence which might wreck her Golden Summer. Bravely thrusting aside such a contingency she said with grave sweetness: "I should be a pretty poor sort of comrade if I were to fly in the face of your duty. It's hard, of course, Tom, but I can say truthfully that I wish you to go. I shall try not to be sad over it, or worry. After all, it's only for two or three weeks. One week of that time I shall be at Elfreda's attending the Semper's reunion. As for Haven Home, you attended to the really important things to be done there while I was in New York City. Most of the furniture is there now. Ever so many of the smaller things yet to be done, I can do or have done. My trousseau is attended to, so I'll have time to make daily pilgrimages to our forest retreat."

"I've thought of all that, too. I knew you'd wish to finish the work at Haven Home. The touring car or my roadster are always at your service to take you there. You know you love to drive the roadster. It's already as much yours as mine. You can always take one of your girl friends with you. It's bully in you to be so brave about it. It helps me more than I can say." Tom caught Grace's hands in a loving, steadfast clasp.

For an hour or more they sat side by side on the davenport, each st.u.r.dily trying to conceal the blow which the unlooked-for swing in Mrs.

Gray's business affairs had dealt them. Tom's chief cause for sorrow was in the fact that he must leave the girl he adored, even for so brief an interval of time. Grace's sadness, which she sternly concealed from him, lay far deeper. Though Tom was scarcely concerned for his own welfare, she was filled with a thousand vague alarms as to the disasters which might perhaps overtake him. Not so long since, in speaking of the vast lumber region in a northern state where his aunt possessed important holdings, he had told her of the troubles that frequently ensued by reason of lawless timber thieves. Then, too, the camp for which he was bound was large and comprised a rough element of men. From Tom himself she had learned that the Scotch superintendent, Alec Mackenzie, was obliged to rule them with an iron hand. During his enforced absence from them, discipline was sure to grow lax. She wondered whether even resolute Tom Gray could ably contend with the difficult situation.

Yet she kept all this to herself. It was her place to encourage, not discourage. If unbounded faith in Tom could help work the wonder of carrying him safely through his mission and home again to her, then she would bestow that faith ungrudgingly. Hers was too fine and steadfast a nature to quail at the first obstacle that rose to impede her highway of happiness. "Loyalheart" she had been christened and "Loyalheart" she would remain to the end of her days.

"When must you go, Tom?" she questioned at last. Both had thus far been sedulously side-stepping direct reference to their moment of parting.

"I ought to go this afternoon." Tom's voice registered his hearty regret as he made this response. "I can wait until to-morrow if _you_ say so, Grace. I'd rather you'd decide it. Of course, you know I'd prefer to put over going until to-morrow. It's only----"

"I understand," came faintly from Grace. "You'd better go to-day. Tom.

It will be even harder for both of us to wait another day before saying good-bye. Besides," she added, making a valiant effort to be cheerful, "the sooner you go, the sooner you will return. You may find that you won't have to stay there as long as you imagine."

"You're a true comrade, Loyalheart." Since the day when Grace had named their future residence Haven Home, at the same time telling Tom of the college play in which she had taken part, he had fallen into the habit of calling her Loyalheart. "That Miss West had the right idea about you," had been his tender criticism. "There isn't another name in the whole world that could possibly suit you so well."

"I hope always to be a good comrade," returned Grace, a faint color stealing into her lately-paling cheeks. "It's a pretty hard contract always to live up to, though. While everything is lovely, it's not hard.

When things go wrong, it is. It reminds me of a poem I once read that began, 'It's easy enough to be pleasant when life flows by like a song.'

I can't remember any more of it, except that it conveyed the thought that the only persons who are really worth while are the ones who can keep on being pleasant even when everything in their lives goes wrong.

So we ought to try to smile over this little hardship and look at it as being just one of the vicissitudes that life is bound to bring us."

"But I don't like to see hardship and vicissitudes creeping into our Golden Summer," protested Tom, not quite satisfied to adjust himself to Grace's more optimistic view of the situation. "I'm selfish about it, I'm afraid. When, after a long dark winter, a man is suddenly turned loose in the sunshine, he is naturally anxious to stay there. Just because I'm saying that, I don't mean that I would dream of failing Aunt Rose. I'd go even if it meant we'd have to put off our marriage a few weeks longer."

"And I would wish you to go," agreed Grace earnestly. "I am glad you said that. If, when you get to the camp, you find that you will have to stay quite a while, we can put off our wedding until the last of September. Only a few of our closest friends know that we have set the date for the tenth of September, so we needn't feel in the least embarra.s.sed if we find it necessary to change it."

"Oh, I'll be back before the last of August," was Tom's confident prediction. "That will give us plenty of time to make all our arrangements. And now I must go, Grace. I have a good deal to do before train time. I'll leave Oakdale on that 4.30 express. I'll drive over here for you in the roadster. I'd like just you to see me off on my journey. Aunt Rose will understand when I tell her. Then if you will, you can drive the roadster back to our garage."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Devoted Love Shone in Her Clear Gray Eyes.]

"I will," acquiesced Grace briefly. A swift rush of unbidden emotion brought her very near to tears. Accompanying Tom to the door, she watched him wistfully down the walk. She was forcibly reminded of a day, belonging to the past, when she had seen him go down that same walk, and, as she then believed, out of her life. On that dark rainy afternoon of the long ago she had felt only pity as she gazed after his retreating form. She had gone into the house and cried bitterly, out of sheer sorrow of the hurt which she had inflicted upon her childhood's friend.

Now all was changed. Devoted love shone through the windows of the clear gray eyes that followed Tom Gray's tall, broad-shouldered figure, as he swung through the gate and down the street. And, as she stood there in the doorway, the triumphant knowledge that she loved and was loved in return swept away her inclination to tears. Even the shadow of separation could not dim the glory of the summer that lived in her heart.

CHAPTER VII

THE VEILED PROPHETESS OF DESTINY

"But is Emma really coming, Elfreda?" questioned Sara Emerson anxiously.

"She wrote us that she would surely be here."

Seven eager faces reflected the anxiety in Sara's tones as she made this inquiry. The first day of the Semper Fidelis week of reunion was well on its way toward sunset. Of the original members, six had descended upon the Briggs' s.p.a.cious cottage to keep Elfreda company. With them had come Kathleen West and Patience Eliot, the guests of honor. Five members were still among the missing. Marian c.u.mmings, Gertrude Wells, Elsie Wilton and Ruth Denton had been unable to grace the occasion with their presence. Ruth's inability to attend lay in the fact that she was with her father in Nevada. This had been a great cross to her chum, Arline Thayer. The others had also mourned the distance that separated her from them. But even the absence of these four paled almost into insignificance beside the disappointing knowledge that the fifth missing member, jovial Emma Dean, had not yet appeared.

"She will be here," announced Elfreda positively. "I know she will.

Don't worry about it. She will no doubt come to the surface when you least expect it. She wouldn't miss the reunion for a good deal."

"But she'll miss having dinner on the lawn this evening and seeing that wonderful gypsy fortune teller you have hunted up for the occasion," was Julia Emerson's regretful cry. "Where did you find her, Elfreda? Can she really tell fortunes?"

"She can," Elfreda a.s.serted with solemn positiveness. "Wait and see.

Where I found her is a secret for to-night. Perhaps if you are good, I'll tell you all about her to-morrow."

"But to-morrow never comes," reminded Patience Eliot. "You'd better tell us now."

"Can't do it." Elfreda beamed mysteriously on the Emerson twins. "Curb your curiosity, twins. Wait patiently and the future shall unfold itself to you as an open book. I wouldn't make a bad fortune teller myself,"

she added humorously. "That's the way they usually talk."

"I am so disappointed at not seeing Emma here, too," sighed Grace Harlowe. "It seems ages since we said good-bye to each other at Overton.

You don't suppose anything has happened to her, do you, Elfreda?"

"Of course not. Take my word for it, she'll be here before we are a day older. There, that finishes the decorations." Elfreda triumphantly fastened into place the last of a quant.i.ty of Chinese lanterns that she and her friends had been stringing about the grounds, viewing the work with a sigh of satisfaction. "These won't give much light, but they'll look pretty. The electric light will have to do the real illuminating act. The table looks sweet, doesn't it?"

Several voices sent up laudatory affirmations. Though the Sempers had arrived only that morning they had entered heart and soul soul into Elfreda's plan for a dinner on the lawn that evening, with the added treat of communing with a real fortune-teller afterward. In order to give the mysterious sooth-sayer a proper setting, a veritable grotto had been arranged for her inside a small summer house at one end of the lawn, on which the light would shine only faintly, thereby according her the eerie environment so necessary to one whose business it is to foretell the future.

Luncheon over, the Sempers had wandered in and out of one another's rooms, exchanging confidences and reminiscences, while a wholesale unpacking of their effects went on. Later Elfreda had marshalled them to the lawn, where their tongues continued to wag busily as they strung the many-colored lanterns on every available bush, or between such trees as could be easily put into use.

"We'd better be thinking about getting dressed for the evening,"

reminded Miriam Nesbit, consulting her wrist watch. "It is after six o'clock."