Story of Chester Lawrence

CHAPTER XVI.

Chester got away from Lucy and Un­cle Gilbert that morn­ing, with­out be­tray­ing his fa­ther's se­cret, which had now al­so be­come his own. If his fa­ther had kept the se­cret so long, it was ev­ident­ly for a pur­pose; he would try not to be the first to re­veal it. He kissed Lucy some­what hur­ried­ly, she thought, as he left.

The soon­er he got away the few­er of his strange ac­tions he would have to ex­plain. He did not look back when he walked away for fear that Lucy would be watch­ing him from win­dow or door.

He went back to his own lodg­ings rather more by in­stinct than by thought. He slipped in­to his room, looked aim­less­ly about, then went out again. He must be alone, yet not con­fined with­in walls. The park was not far away, but he walked by it al­so, on, on. This Lon­don is lim­it­less, he thought. One could nev­er es­cape it by walk­ing. He met oth­er men some hur­ry­ing as if stern du­ty called, oth­ers saun­ter­ing as if they had no pur­pose in life but qui­et con­tem­pla­tion. He met wom­en, and if he could have read through their weary eyes their life's sto­ry, he would not per­haps, have thought his own was the most cru­el. A lit­tle boy was gath­er­ing dust from the pave­ment, and Chester was re­mind­ed of that oth­er lit­tle fel­low's struc­ture which the car­riage wheels had de­mol­ished. Well, he was un­der the wheel of fate him­self. He had heard of this wheel, but nev­er had he been un­der it un­til now!

Chester found him­self a street or two from the mis­sion of­fice. He would call and per­haps have a talk with El­der Mal­by. Why had he not thought of that soon­er? He quick­ened his steps, and in a few min­utes he was ring­ing the bell. He heard it tin­gle with­in, but no one re­spond­ed. He rang again, and this time steps were heard com­ing up from the base­ment. The house­keep­er opened the door.

“Good morn­ing,” she greet­ed him with a smile.

“Good morn­ing, is El­der Mal­by in?”

“No; none of the el­ders are in. They are out tract­ing, I think--but won't you come in?”

“No, thank you, I want­ed to see El­der Mal­by.”

“Well, _he_ might be back at any time--come in and rest. You look tired.”

“Well--I be­lieve I will.”

He fol­lowed the moth­er­ly house­keep­er in­to the of­fice par­lor, where she bade him be seat­ed. She ex­cused her­self as her work could not be ne­glect­ed--Would he be in­ter­est­ed in the Lon­don pa­pers, or the lat­est _De­seret News_. She point­ed to the ta­ble where these pa­pers lay, then went about her work.

Chester looked list­less­ly at the pa­pers, but did not at­tempt to read. Present­ly, the house­keep­er came back.

“I'm hav­ing a bite to eat down in the din­ing room. Come and keep me com­pa­ny. The El­ders don't eat till lat­er, but I must have some­thing in the mid­dle of the day.”

Chester went with her in­to the cool, rest­ful room be­low, and par­took with her of the sim­ple meal. Not hav­ing had break­fast, he ate with rel­ish. Be­sides, there was a spir­it of peace about the place. His aching heart found some com­fort in the talk of the good wom­an.

Short­ly af­ter­wards, El­der Mal­by ar­rived, and he saw in a mo­ment that some­thing was the mat­ter with his young friend.

“How are the folks,” he asked, “Lucy and her fa­ther?”

“He is not well,” Chester replied.

“That's too bad. And you are wor­ried?”

“Yes; but not al­to­geth­er over that. There is some­thing else, Broth­er Mal­by. I'll have to tell you about it. Will we be un­in­ter­rupt­ed here?”

“Come with me,” said the el­der and he took him in­to his own room up a flight of stairs. “Now, then, what can I do to help you?”

“You will par­don me, I know; but some­how, I was led to tell you my sto­ry on ship-​board, and you're the on­ly one I can talk to now.” Then Chester told the el­der what he had learned. When he had fin­ished, the el­der's face was very grave.

“What ought I to do?” asked Chester; “what can I do?”

The oth­er shook his head. “This is a strange sto­ry,” he said; “but there can be no doubt that you are his son. You look like him. I no­ticed it on ship-​board, but of course said noth­ing about it. But you _do_ look like him.”

“Do I?”

“Yes; but why he en­cour­aged you to make love to your sis­ter--that is be­yond me--I--I don't know what to say.”

“Oh, what _can_ I do?”

There was a pause. Then the el­der as if weigh­ing well ev­ery word, said:

“My boy, you can pray.”

“No; I can't even do that. I haven't said my prayers since this thing came to me. What can I pray about? What can I ask of God?”

“Lis­ten. It is easy to pray when ev­ery­thing is go­ing along nice­ly, and we are get­ting ev­ery­thing we ask for; but when we seem to be up against hard fate; when de­spair is in our hearts and the Lord ap­pears to have de­sert­ed us, then it is not so easy; but then is when we need most to pray.”

“Yes, yes, broth­er, true enough; but what's the use?”

“Look here, once be­fore, in your life, you felt as you do now; and you told me your­self that not un­til you said both in your heart and to God 'Thy will be done' did you get peace. Try it again, broth­er. There is no dark­ness but the Light of Christ can pen­etrate, there is no seem­ing evil but the Lord can turn to your good. What did Job say of the Lord?”

“I don't know.”

“'Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.' And you are not yet as Job. He lost ev­ery­thing. You have gained a fa­ther and a sis­ter. That, cer­tain­ly, is some­thing.”

“Yes, it is; and yet in the find­ing of these two, I have lost--well--you know--”

“Yes; I know; but the Lord can even make that right. Trust Him, trust Him, al­ways and in ev­ery­thing. That's my mot­to for life. I can not get along with­out it.”

“Thank you so very much.”

They talked for some time, then they went out for a walk.

“But you haven't time to spend on me like this,” re­mon­strat­ed Chester.

“I am here to do all the good I can, and why should my ser­vices not be giv­en to those of the faith as well as to those who have no use for me nor my mes­sage? Come along; I want to tell you of an­oth­er let­ter which I re­ceived from home,--yes, the twin calves are do­ing fine.”

Chester smiled, which was just what his com­pan­ion want­ed. “You re­main here to­day,” con­tin­ued the el­der. “The boys will be in af­ter a while, and then we shall have din­ner. Af­ter that, if you are still think­ing too much of your own af­fairs, we'll take you out on the street and let you preach to the crowd.”

“That might help,” ad­mit­ted Chester.

“Help! It's the surest kind of cure.”

Chester re­mained with the el­ders dur­ing the af­ter­noon and evening, even go­ing out with them on the street. He was not called on to preach, how­ev­er, though he would have at­tempt­ed it had he been asked.

Chester slept bet­ter that night. He felt so sure of him­self next morn­ing that he could call on Lucy, and do the right thing. He did not for­get or ne­glect his prayers any more, and he was well on the way of say­ing again, “Thy will be done,” in the right spir­it.

Un­cle Gilbert met Chester at the door, not very gra­cious­ly, how­ev­er. He replied to Chester's in­quiries sharply:

“My broth­er is quite ill, brought about, I have no doubt, by your un­wise ac­tions of yes­ter­day morn­ing. What was the mat­ter with you? I don't un­der­stand you.”

Chester did not at­tempt any ex­pla­na­tion or de­fense.

“And Lucy, too, was quite ill yes­ter­day--no; she is not up yet--no; I don't think you had bet­ter come in. I shall not per­mit you to see my broth­er again un­til he is bet­ter.”

“I'm very sor­ry,” said Chester. “I must see Lucy, how­ev­er, and so I'll call again af­ter a while.” He walked away. He did not blame Un­cle Gilbert, who was no doubt do­ing the best he knew, al­though some­what in the dark. He walked in the park for an hour and then came back.

Lucy met him at the gate. She was dressed as if for walk­ing. Her face be­trayed the dis­tur­bance in her soul, and Chester's heart went out in pity for her.

“Yes,” she said sim­ply, “I was go­ing out to find you, I heard Un­cle Gilbert send you away. Shall we walk in the park?”

“Yes; I am glad you came out. Is your fa­ther worse this morn­ing?”

“I don't think he is worse. He is sim­ply in the stage of his at­tacks when he can't talk. I'm sure he'll be all right in a day or two; but Un­cle Gilbert don't un­der­stand.”

“And you, Lucy--you must not wor­ry.”

“How can I help it? Some­thing is the mat­ter with you. Why do you act so strange­ly?”

They found the bench on which they were wont to rest, and seat­ed them­selves.

Chester could not de­ny that he had changed; yet how could he tell her the truth? She must know it, the soon­er the bet­ter. It might be many days be­fore her fa­ther could tell her, even if he were in­clined to do so. The sit­ua­tion was un­bear­able. She must know, and he must tell her.

“Lucy,” he said af­ter a lit­tle strug­gle with his throat, “I have some­thing to tell you,--some­thing strange. Oh, no, noth­ing evil or bad, or any­thing like that.”

He took her hands which were trem­bling.

“You must promise me that you will take this news qui­et­ly.”

“Just as qui­et­ly as I can, Chester.”

“Well, you know how ex­cite­ment af­fects your heart, so I shall not tell you if you will not try to be calm.”

“And now, of course, I can be in­dif­fer­ent, can I, even if you should say no more? Oh, Chester, what is it? The sus­pense is a thou­sand times hard­er than the truth. What have you got to tell me? What passed be­tween you and pa­pa last evening? Is it--have you ceased to love me?”

“No, no, Lucy, not that. I love you as much as ev­er, more than ev­er for some­thing has been added to my first love--that of a love for a sis­ter.”

“Yes, Chester I know. When I was bap­tized--”

“No; you don't know. I don't mean that.”

“What _do_ you mean?”

Oh, it was so hard to go on. One truth must lead to an­oth­er. If he told her he was her broth­er in the flesh as well as in the spir­it, she would want to know how, why; and the ex­pla­na­tion would in­volve her fa­ther. He had not thought of that quite so plain­ly. But he could not now stop. He must go on. He felt about for a way by which to ap­proach the rev­ela­tion grad­ual­ly.

“You have nev­er had a broth­er, have you?” he asked.

“No.”

“Would you like to have one?”

“I've al­ways want­ed a broth­er.”

“How would I do for one?”

She looked at him cu­ri­ous­ly, then the sober face re­laxed and she smiled.

“Oh, you'd make a fine one.”

“You wouldn't ob­ject.”

“I should think not.”

“But, now, what would you think if I _was_ your re­al broth­er, if my name was Chester Strong?”

“I'd think you were just jok­ing a lit­tle.”

“But I'm not jok­ing, Lucy; I am in earnest. Take a good look at me, here at this pro­file. Do I look like your fa­ther?”

She looked close­ly. “I be­lieve you do,” she said, still with­out a guess at the truth. “Your fore­head slopes just like his, and your nose has the same bump on it. I nev­er no­ticed that be­fore.”

“What might that mean, Lucy?”

“What might what mean?”

“That I look like your fa­ther.”

He had turned his face to her now, but she still gazed at him, as if the truth was just strug­gling for recog­ni­tion. The smile van­ished for an in­stant from her face, and then re­turned. She would not en­ter­tain the ad­vance mes­sen­ger.

“I don't ob­ject to your look­ing like my pa­pa, for he's a mighty fine look­ing man.”

“Lucy, you saw what your fa­ther and I were do­ing last night?”

“Yes.”

“What did you think--what do you now think of us?”

“Again, Chester, I don't ob­ject to you and fa­ther spoon­ing a bit. In fact, I think that's rather nice.”

Chester laughed a lit­tle now, which loos­ened the ten­sion con­sid­er­ably; but he re­turned to the at­tack:

“Lucy, what would you think if your fa­ther had a son who had been lost when a ba­by, and that now he should re­turn to him as a grown man?”

“Well, I would think that would be jol­ly, as the En­glish say.”

“And that his son's name was Chester Lawrence?” he con­tin­ued as if there had been no in­ter­rup­tion.

Now the cog in Lucy's men­tal make-​up caught firm­ly in­to the ma­chin­ery that had been buzzing about her for some time.

“Are you my broth­er?” she asked.

“Yes; I am your broth­er.”

“My re­al, live, long lost broth­er?”

“Yes.”

“Now I see what you have been driv­ing at all this time. You say you are my broth­er, that my fa­ther is your fa­ther. Now ex­plain.”

“That's not so easy, Lucy. I would much rather your fa­ther would do that. But I can tell you a lit­tle, for it's very lit­tle I know--and, Lucy, that lit­tle is not pleas­ant.”

“But I must know.” Her face was se­ri­ous again. She was brac­ing her­self brave­ly too.

“I was born out­side the mar­riage re­la­tion, and your fa­ther was my fa­ther!”

That was plain enough--bru­tal­ly plain. The girl turned to mar­ble. Had he killed her?

“Go on,” she whis­pered.

“No more now--some oth­er time.”

“Go on, Chester.”

Chester told her in brief sen­tences the sim­ple facts, and what had led to his dis­cov­ery of the truth just the oth­er day. It was this that had caused the change she had no­ticed in him.

“Lucy, I was not sure,” he said, “so I went to your fa­ther last night and asked him point­ed­ly, di­rect­ly, and he said 'Yes.' That ex­plains the sit­ua­tion you found us in. My heart went out to my fa­ther, Lucy; and his heart went out to his son.”

“The son to which his heart has been reach­ing for many long years, Chester. Yes, I see it plain­ly.... You have told the truth ... you are my broth­er--you--”

She trem­bled, then fell in­to his arms; but she con­trolled her­self again, and when he kissed her pale face and stroked her hair, she opened her eyes and looked steadi­ly up in­to his face. Thus they re­mained for a time, heed­less of the few passers-​by who but looked at a not un­com­mon sight. She closed her eyes again, and when she opened them Chester was strug­gling hard to keep back the tears.

To tell the truth, both of them cried a lit­tle about that time, and it did them good too. They got up, walked about on the grass for a time un­til they could look more un­moved­ly at their changed stand­ing to each oth­er. Then they talked more freely, but things were tru­ly so new­ly mixed that it was dif­fi­cult to get them un­tan­gled. At last Lucy said she would have to go back to her fa­ther--our fa­ther, she cor­rect­ed.

“And he knows, re­mem­ber,” said Chester to her. “I and you al­so know. We know too,” he added, “that the Lord is above, and will take care of us all.”

“Yes,” said Lucy.

Then they went back. The fa­ther was still very ill. Chester did not try to see him, for Un­cle Gilbert had not re­lent­ed.

“I'm go­ing to see El­der Mal­by this af­ter­noon,” said Chester. “This evening I shall call again. Mean­while”--they were alone in the hall now--“you must keep up your courage and faith. I feel as though ev­ery­thing will yet turn out well.”

He took her as usu­al in his arms, and she clung to him clos­er than she had ev­er done be­fore.

“Chester,” she said, “I can't yet _feel_ that there is any dif­fer­ence in our re­la­tion­ship. You are yet my lover, are you not?”

“Yes, Lucy; and you are my sweet­heart. Some­how, I am not con­demned when I say it. What can it be--”

“Some­thing that whis­pers peace to our hearts.”

“The Com­forter, Lucy, the Com­forter from the Lord.”