THE PAST AND FUTURE MEET
Larry knocked at Ruth’s door.
It opened and a wan and pathetically drooping little
figure stood before him. Ever since she had been
awake Ruth, had been haunted by that unwelcome bit
of memory illumination which had come the night before.
No wonder she drooped and scarcely dared to lift her
eyes to her lover’s face. But in a moment
he had her in his arms, a performance which banished
the droop and brought a lovely color back into the
pale cheeks.
“Larry, oh Larry, is it all
right? I’m not his wife? He didn’t
marry me?”
Larry kissed her.
“He didn’t marry you.
Nobody’s going to marry you but me. No,
I didn’t mean to say that now. Forget it,
sweetheart. You are free, and if you want to
say so I’ll let you go. If you don’t
want ”
“But I do want,” she interrupted.
“I want Larry Holiday and he is all I want.
Why won’t you ever, ever believe I love you?
I do, more than anything in the world.”
“You darling! Will you
marry me? I shouldn’t have asked you that
other time. I hadn’t the right. But
I have now. Will you, Ruth? I want you so.
And I’ve waited so long.”
“Listen to me, Larry Holiday.”
Ruth held up a small warning forefinger. “I’ll
marry you if you will promise never, never to be cross
to me again. I have shed quarts of tears because
you were so unkind and faithless. I
ought to make you do some terrible penance for thinking
the money or anything but you mattered to me.
Not even the wedding ring mattered. I told you
so but still you wouldn’t believe.”
Larry shook his head remorsefully.
“Rub it in, sweetheart, if you
must. I deserve it. But don’t you think
I have had purgatory enough because I didn’t
dare believe to punish me for anything? As for
the rest I know I’ve been behaving like a brute.
I’ve a devil of a disposition and I’ve
been half crazy anyway. Not that that is any
excuse. But I’ll behave myself in the future.
Honest I will, Ruthie. All you have to do is
to lift this small finger of yours ”
He indicated the digit by a loverly kiss “and
I’ll be as meek and lowly as as an
ash can,” he finished prosaically.
Ruth’s happy laughter rang out
at this and she put up her lips for a kiss.
“I’ll remember,”
she said. “You’re not a brute, Larry.
You’re a darling and I love you oh
immensely and I’ll marry you just as quick as
ever I can and we’ll be so happy you won’t
ever remember you have a disposition.”
Another interim occurred, an interim
occupied by things which are nobody’s business
and which anybody who has ever been in love can supply
ad lib by exercise of memory and imagination.
Then hand in hand the two went down to where Geoffrey
Annersley waited to bring back the past to Elinor
Farringdon.
“Does he know me?” queried Ruth as they
descended.
“He surely does. He knows
all there is to know about you, Miss Elinor Ruth Farringdon.
He ought to. He is your cousin and he married
your best friend, Nan ”
“Wait!” cried Ruth excitedly,
“it’s coming back. He married Nancy
Hollinger and she gave me some San Francisco addresses
of some friends of hers just before I sailed.
They were in that envelope. I threw away the
addresses when I left San Francisco and tucked my tickets
into it. Why, Larry, I’m remembering really
remembering,” she stopped short on the stairs
to exclaim in a startled incredulous tone.
“Of course you are remembering,
sweetheart,” echoed Larry happily. “Come
on down and remember the rest with Annersley’s
help. He is some cousin. You’d better
be prepared to be horribly proud of him. He is
a captain and wears all kinds of honorable and distinguished
dingle dangles and decorations as well as a romantic
limp and a magnificent gash on his cheek which he
evidently didn’t get shaving.”
Larry jested because he knew Ruth
was growing nervous. He could feel her tremble
against his arm. He was more than a little anxious
as to the outcome of the thing itself. The shock
and the strain of meeting Geoffrey Annersley were
going to be rather an ordeal he knew.
They entered the living room and paused
on the threshold, Larry’s arm still around the
girl. Doctor Holiday and the captain both rose.
The latter limped gallantly toward Ruth who stared
at him an instant and then flung herself away from
Larry into the other man’s arms.
“Geoff! Geoff!” she cried.
For a moment nothing more was said then Ruth drew
herself away.
“Geoffrey Annersley, why did
you ever, ever make me wear that horrid ring?”
she demanded reproachfully. “Larry and I
could have married each other months ago if you hadn’t.
It was the silliest idea anyway and it’s all
your fault everything.”
He laughed at that, a, big whole-souled
hearty laugh that came from the depths of him.
“That sounds natural,”
he said. “Every scrape you ever enticed
me into as a kid was always my fault somehow.
Are you real, Elinor? I can’t help thinking
I am seeing a ghost. Do you really remember me?”
anxiously.
“Of course I remember you. Listen, Geoff.
Listen hard.”
And unexpectedly Ruth pursed her pretty
lips and whistled a merry, lilting bar of melody.
“By Jove!” exulted the
captain. “That does sound like old times.”
“Don’t tell me I don’t
remember,” she flashed back happy and excited
beyond measure at playing this new remembering game.
“That was our special call, yours and Rod’s
and mine. Oh Rod!” And at that all the joy
went out of the eager, flushed face. She went
back into her cousin’s arms again, sobbing in
heart breaking fashion. The turning tide of memory
had brought back wreckage of grief as well as joy.
In Geoffrey Annersley’s arms Ruth mourned her
brother’s loss for the first time. Larry
sent his uncle a quick look and went out of the room.
The older doctor followed. Ruth and her cousin
were left alone to pick up the dropped threads of
the past.
They all met again at luncheon however,
Ruth rosy cheeked, excited and red-eyed but on the
whole none the worse for her journey back into the
land of forgotten things. As Larry had hoped the
external stimulus of actually seeing and hearing somebody
out of that other life was enough to start the train.
What she did not yet remember Geoffrey supplied and
little by little the past took on shape and substance
and Elinor Ruth Farringdon became once more a normal
human being with a past as well as a present which
was dazzlingly delightful, save for the one dark blur
of her dear Rod’s unknown fate.
In the course of the conversation
at table Geoffrey addressed his cousin as Elinor and
was promptly informed that she wasn’t Elinor
and was Ruth and that he was to call her by that name
or run the risk of being disapproved of very heartily.
He laughed, amused at this.
“Now I know you are real,”
he said. “It is exactly the tone you used
when you issued the contrary command and by Jove almost
the same words except for the reversed titles.
‘Don’t call me Ruth, Geoff,’”
he mimicked. “’I am not going to be Ruth
any more. I am going to be Elinor. It is
a much prettier name.’”
“Well, I don’t think so
now,” retorted Ruth. “I’ve changed
my mind again. I think Ruth is the nicest name
there is because well ”
She blushed adorably and looked across the table at
the young doctor, “because Larry likes it,”
she completed half defiantly.
“Is that meant to be an official
publishing of the bans?” teased her cousin when
the laugh that Ruth’s naïve confession had raised
subsided leaving Larry as well as Ruth a little hot
of cheek.
“If you want to call it that,”
said Ruth. “Larry, I think you might say
something, not leave me everything to do myself.
Tell them we are engaged and are going to be married ”
“To-morrow,” put in Larry
suddenly pushing back his chair and going over to
stand behind Ruth, a hand on either shoulder, facing
the others gallantly if obviously also embarrassedly
over her shyly bent blonde head.
The blonde head went up at that, and
was shaken very decidedly.
“No indeed. That isn’t
right at all,” she objected. “Don’t
listen to him anybody. It isn’t going to
be tomorrow. I’ve got to have a wedding
dress and it takes at least a week to dream a wedding
dress when it is the only time you ever intend to
be married. I have all the other things everything
I need down to the last hair pin and powder puff.
That’s why I went to Boston. I knew I was
going to want pretty clothes quick. I told Doctor
Holiday so.” She sent a charming, half merry,
half deprecating smile at the older doctor who smiled
back.
“She most assuredly did,”
he corroborated. “I never suspected it was
part of a deep laid plot however. I thought it
was just femininity cropping out after a dull season.
How was I to know it was because you were planning
to run off with my assistant that you wanted all the
gay plumage?” he teased.
Ruth made a dainty little grimace at that.
“That isn’t a fair way
to put it,” she declared. “If I had
been planning to run away with Larry or he with me
we would have done it months ago, plumage or no plumage.
I wanted to but he wouldn’t anyway,” she
confessed. “I like this way much, much better
though. I don’t want to be married anywhere
except right here in the heart of the House on the
Hill.”
She slipped out of her chair and away
from Larry’s hands at that and went over to
where Doctor Philip sat.
“May we?” she asked like
a child asking permission to run out and play.
“It is what we all want more
than anything in the world, dear child,” he
said. “You belong with Larry in our hearts
as well as in the heart of the House. You know
that, don’t you?”
“I know you are the dearest
man that ever was, not even excepting Larry.
And I am going to kiss you, Uncle Phil, so there.
I can call you that now, can’t I? I’ve
always wanted to.” And fitting the deed
to the word Ruth bent over and gave Doctor Philip
a fluttering little butterfly kiss.
They rose from the table at that and
Ruth was bidden go off to her room and get a long
rest after her too exciting morning. Larry soberly
repaired to the office and received patients and prescribed
gravely for them just as if his inner self were not
executing wild fandangoes of joy. Perhaps his
patients did get a few waves of his happiness however
for there was not one of them who did not leave the
office with greater hope and strength and courage
than he brought there.
“The young doctor’s getting
to be a lot like his uncle,” one of them said
to his wife later. “Just the very touch
of his hand made me feel better today, sort of toned
up as if I had had an electrical treatment. Queer
how human beings can shoot sparks sometimes.”
Not so queer. Larry Holiday had
just been himself electrified by love and joy.
No wonder he had new power that day and was a better
healer than he had ever been before.
In the living room Doctor Philip and
Captain Annersley held converse. The captain
expressed his opinion that Ruth should go at once to
Australia.
“If her brother is dead as we
have every reason to fear, Elinor Ruth is
the sole owner of an immense amount of property.
The lawyers are about crazy trying to keep things
going without either Roderick or Ruth. They have
been begging me to come out and take charge of things
for months but I haven’t been able to see my
way clear owing to one thing or another. Somebody
will have to go at once and of course it should be
Ruth.”
“How would it do for her and Laurence both to
go?”
“Magnificent. I was hoping
you would think that was a feasible project.
They will be glad to have a man to represent the family.
My cousin knows nothing about the business end of
the thing. She has always approached it exclusively
from the spending side. Do you think your nephew
would care to settle there?”
“Possibly,” said the Doctor.
“That will develop later. They will have
to work that out for themselves. I am rather
sorry he is going to marry a girl with so much money
but I suppose it cannot be helped.”
“Some people wouldn’t
look at it that way, Doctor Holiday,” grinned
the captain. “But I am prepared to accept
the fact that you Holidays are in a class by yourselves.
We have always been afraid that Elinor would be a
victim of some miserable fortune hunter. I can’t
tell you what a relief it is to have her marry a man
like your nephew. I am only sorry he had to go
through such a punishing period of suspense waiting
for his happiness. Since there wasn’t really
the slightest obstacle I rather wish he had cut his
scruples and married her long ago.”
“I don’t agreed with you,
Captain Annersley.. They are neither of them
worse off for waiting and being absolutely sure that
this is what they both want. If he had taken
the risk and married her when he knew he hadn’t
the full right to do it he would have been miserable
and made her more so. Larry is an odd chap.
There is a morbid streak in him. He wouldn’t
have forgiven himself if he had done it. And losing
his own self-respect would have been the worst thing
that could have happened to him. No amount of
actual legality could have made up for starting out
on a spiritually illegal basis. We Holidays have
to keep on moderately good terms with ourselves to
be happy,” he added with a quiet smile.
“I suppose you are right,”
admitted the Englishman. “Anyway the thing
is straight and clear now. He has earned every
bit of happiness that is coming to him and I hope
it is going to be a great deal. My own sense of
indebtness for all you Holidays have done for Ruth
is enormous. I wish there were some way of making
adequate returns for it all. But it is too big
to be repaid. I may be able to keep an eye on
your other nephew when he gets over. I certainly
should like to. I don’t know when I’ve
taken such a fancy to a lad. My word he is a
ripping sort.”
“Ted?” Doctor Holiday
smiled a little. “Well, yes, I suppose he
is what you Britishers call ripping. It has been
rather ripping in another sense being his guardian
sometimes.”
“I judge so by his own account
of himself. Yoxi mustn’t let that smash
of his worry you. He’ll find something
over there that will be worth a hundred times what
any college can give him, and as for the rest half
the lads of mettle in the world come to earth with
a jolt over a girl sooner or later and they don’t
all rise up out of the dust as clean as he did by,
a long shot.”
“So he told you about that affair?
You must have gotten under his skin rather surprisingly
Ted doesn’t talk much about himself and I fancy
he hasn’t talked about that thing at all to
any one. It went deep.”
“I know. He shows that
in a hundred ways. But it hasn’t crushed
him or made him reckless. It simply steadied
him and I infer he needed some steadying.”
Doctor Holiday nodded assent to that
and asked if he thought the boy was doing well up
there.
“Not a doubt of it,” said
the Englishman heartily. And he added a brief
synopsis of the things that the colonel had said in
regard to his youngest corporal.
“That is rather astonishing,”
remarked Doctor Holiday. “Obedience hasn’t
ever been one of Ted’s strong points. In
fact he has been a rebel always.”
“Most boys are until they perceive
that there is sense instead of tyranny in law.
Your nephew has had that knocked into him rather hard
and he is all the better for it tough as it was in
the process. He is making good up there.
He will make good over seas. He is a born leader a
better leader of men than his brother would be though
maybe Larry is finer stuff. I don’t know.”
“They are very different but
I like to think they are both rather fine stuff.
Maybe that is my partial view but I am a bit proud
of them both, Ted as well as Larry.”
“You have every reason,”
approved the captain heartily. “I have seen
a good many splendid lads in the last four years and
these two measure up in a way which is an eye opener
to me. In my stupid insular prejudice maybe I
had fallen to thinking that the particular quality
that marks them both was a distinctly British affair.
Apparently you can breed it in America too. I’m
glad to see it and to own it. And may I say one
other thing, Doctor Holiday? I have the D.S.C.
and a lot of other junk like that but I’d surrender
every bit of it this minute gladly if I thought that
I would ever have a son that would worship me the way
those lads of yours worship you. It is an honor
any man might well covet.”