CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 12
“Hadn’t we better take a policeman along?” said one of the girls with a nervous laugh.
“There’s no danger,” said Virginia briefly.
“Is it true that your brother, Rollin, converted?” asked another.
It struck Virginia that all three of her friends were regarding her with close attention as if she were peculiar. “Yes, he certainly is.”
“I understand he’s going around to the clubs talking with his old friends there, trying to preach to them,” said the girl with the red silk parasol.
Virginia did not answer, and as they neared the district, the girls grew more and more nervous. As they entered farther into the district, the Rectangle seemed to stare as with one great, bleary, beer-soaked countenance at this fine carriage with its load of fashionably dressed young women. Frightened and disgusted, the girls felt that instead of seeing the Rectangle, they were the objects of curiosity.
“Let’s go back,” said the girl sitting with Virginia.
At that moment they were just opposite a notorious saloon and gambling house. The street was narrow and the sidewalk crowded. Suddenly, out of the door of this saloon a young woman reeled. She sang in a broken, drunken sob that indicated she partly realized her awful condition—“Just as I am, without one plea”—and as the carriage rolled past, she leered at it. Virginia recognized the face of the girl who had knelt sobbing the night Virginia knelt beside her, praying for her.
“Stop!” cried Virginia. The carriage stopped, and in a moment she was out and took the girl by the arm. “Loreen!”
The girl looked into her face, and her own changed into a look of utter horror. The saloonkeeper came to the door of the saloon and stood there looking on with his hands on his hips. And the Rectangle, from its windows, its saloon steps, its filthy sidewalk, gutter, and roadway, paused and with undisguised wonder stared at the two girls. Over the scene the warm sun of spring poured its mellow light.
Virginia simply saw a soul that had tasted of the joy of a better life slipping back again into its old hell of shame and death. She asked only one question, “What would Jesus do?” She looked around now as she stood with Loreen, and the whole scene was cruelly vivid to her.
“Drive on; don’t wait for me. I am going to see my friend home,” she said calmly to the girls in the carriage.
The girl with the red parasol gasped at the word friend, but she didn’t say anything. The other girls were speechless.
The carriage moved on, and Virginia was alone with her charge. She looked up and around. Many faces in the crowd were sympathetic. The Holy Spirit had softened a good deal of the Rectangle.
“Where does she live?” asked Virginia.
No one answered.
The girl suddenly wrenched her arm from Virginia’s grasp, nearly throwing Virginia down. “Leave me! Let me go to hell! That’s where I belong!” she exclaimed hoarsely.
Virginia stepped up to her and put her arm about her. “Loreen,” she said firmly, “come with me. You do not belong to hell. You belong to Jesus, and He will save you. Come.”
The girl suddenly burst into tears.
Virginia looked around again. “Where does Mr. Gray live?” she asked. A number of voices gave the address.
“Come, Loreen. Go with me to Mr. Gray’s,” she said, still keeping her hold of the swaying, trembling creature, who moaned and sobbed and now clung to her.
So the two moved on through the Rectangle toward the evangelist’s lodging place. The sight seemed to impress the Rectangle seriously. The fact that one of the richest, most beautifully dressed girls in all Raymond was taking care of one of the Rectangle’s most noted characters, who reeled along under the influence of liquor, was a fact astounding enough to throw dignity and importance about Loreen herself. When they finally reached Mr. Gray’s lodging place, the woman who answered Virginia’s knock said that both Mr. and Mrs. Gray were out somewhere and would not be back until six o’clock.
Virginia had not planned anything further than a possible appeal to the Grays, either to take charge of Loreen for a while or to find some safe place for her until she was sober. She stood now at the door, at a loss to know what to do. Finally, a thought possessed her that she could not escape. What was to hinder her from taking Loreen home with her? Why should not this homeless, wretched creature, reeking with the fumes of liquor, be cared for in Virginia’s own home instead of being consigned to strangers in some hospital or house of charity? “Loreen, come. You are going home with me.”
Loreen staggered to her feet and, to Virginia’s surprise, made no trouble. She had expected resistance or a stubborn refusal to move. When they reached the corner and took the car, it was nearly full of people going uptown. Virginia was painfully conscious of the stare that greeted her and her companion as they entered. Loreen was lapsing into a state of stupor, and Virginia was obliged to hold fast to her arm. Several times the girl lurched heavily against her. When she mounted the steps of her handsome house, Virginia breathed a sigh of relief, even in the face of the interview with her grandmother, and when the door shut and she was in the wide hall with her homeless outcast, she felt equal to anything that might come.
Hearing Virginia come in, Madam Page came into the hall. Virginia stood there supporting Loreen, who stared stupidly at the rich magnificence of the furnishings around her.
“Grandmother”—Virginia spoke without hesitation and very clearly—“I have brought one of my friends from the Rectangle. She is in trouble and has no home. I am going to care for her here a little while.”
Madam Page glanced from her granddaughter to Loreen in astonishment.
“Did you say she is one of your friends?” she asked in a cold, sneering voice.
“Yes.” Virginia’s face flushed, but she recalled a verse that Mr. Gray had used for one of his recent sermons, “A friend of publicans and sinners.” Surely Jesus would do this that she was doing.
“Do you know what this girl is?” asked Madam Page in an angry whisper, stepping near Virginia.
“I know very well. She is an outcast. I know it even better than you do. She is drunk at this minute. But she is also a child of God. I have seen her on her knees, repentant. And I have seen hell reach out its horrible fingers after her again. And by the grace of Christ, I feel that the least I can do is to rescue her from such peril.”
Madam Page glared at Virginia and clenched her hands. All this was contrary to her social code of conduct. What would Virginia’s action cost the family in the way of criticism and loss of standing? To Madam Page society represented more than the church or any other institution. It was a power to be feared and obeyed. She stood erect and stern and confronted Virginia, fully roused and determined. Virginia placed her arm about Loreen and calmly looked her grandmother in the face.
“You shall not do this, Virginia! You can send her to the asylum for helpless women. We can pay all the expenses. We cannot afford, for the sake of our reputations, to shelter such a person.”
“Grandmother, I do not wish to do anything that is displeasing to you, but I must keep Loreen here tonight, and longer if it seems best.”
“Then you can answer for the consequences! I do not stay in the same house with a miserable—” Madam Page lost her self-control.
Virginia stopped her before she could speak the next word. “Grandmother, this house is mine. It is your home as long as you choose to remain. But in this matter I must act as I fully believe Jesus would in my place.”
“I shall not stay here, then!” said Madam Page. “You can always remember that you have driven your grandmother out of your house in favor of a drunken woman.” Then, without waiting for Virginia to reply, she turned and went upstairs.
Virginia called a servant and soon had Loreen cared for.