A new name

by Grace Livingston Hill

“Couldn’t we pick the lock?” said Jane, wishing she still wore hairpins. It would be so romantic to lend the hairpin that opened the new hero’s trunk.

But Mrs. Summers opened a little locker seat by the foot of the stairs, and took out a hammer and screw-driver.

“I think we’ll manage with these,” she said pleasantly. “Jane, if you’ll just take those two vases and that maple cake and run over to the church and tell them we’ll be a few minutes late, but we’re coming, then I needn’t stop to go over just yet. Now, Allan Murray, come on!” she said, and started up the stairs.

Murray Van Rensselaer hesitated and looked toward the door, but the reluctant Jane, with arms full of cake and vases, was still filling it, eyeing him blissfully, and there was no escape that way. Perhaps if he once got in the room above with the door locked he could climb from the window and get away in the dark. So he dragged himself up the stairs after his hospitable hostess, and was ushered into a bedroom, the like of which for sweetness and restfulness had never met his eye before.

There were thin white smooth curtains at three low windows, a white bed with plump pillows that looked the best thing in the world for his weary body, a little stand beside it with a shaded lamp, and a Bible. Queer! A Bible! Across the room was a fireplace under a white mantel, and drawn up beside it under a tall shaded lamp was a big luxurious chair with a book-case full of books beside it.

Then he turned to the inner side of the room, and there a bureau with a great mirror suddenly flung his own vision back to him and startled him.

The last time he had seen himself in a mirror was at his tailor’s trying on a new suit that had just been finished for his order. He could see the trim lines of his figure now, the sharp creases of well-pressed garments, the smart cut, the fine texture of the material, his own well-groomed appearance, his handsome careless face, shaven and sure of himself and his world, the grace of his every movement. He had not known he was particularly vain of himself, but now as he gazed on this forlorn, unshaven object, with bloodshot eyes, with coarse, ill-cut garments, and a shapeless cap crushed in his dirty, trembling hand, he was suddenly filled with a great shame.

Mrs. Summers was down on her knees beside a neat trunk, making strong, efficient strokes with a hammer on the lock.

“I don’t belong here!” The words were as audible to his ears as if he had spoken them aloud, and he turned with a swift motion to glide out the door and away; but too late. The lock of the trunk had given, way with a rasping sound, and Mrs. Summers rose with a little smile of triumph on her lips and looked toward him. He could not flee with those kind mother eyes upon him.

“Now, if you’ll help me pull it out from the wall we can open it,” she said pleasantly, and there was nothing for him to do but acquiesce, although he really was very little help with that trunk, for his arms were weak, and when he stooped a great dizziness came over him, so that he almost thought he was going to fall.