The Strange Proposal

© 2014 by Grace Livingston Hill

eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-63058-196-1
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-63058-195-4

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.

All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

Published by Barbour Books, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.barbourbooks.com

Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

About the Author

Chapter 1

1930s

John Saxon saw Mary Elizabeth for the first time as she walked up the church aisle with stately tread at Jeffrey Wainwright’s wedding. John was best man and stood at the head of the aisle with the bridegroom, where he could see everything.

First came the ushers stealing on the picture with earnest intent to get the business over, then the four bridesmaids in pale green crisp gowns—and then Mary Elizabeth! She was wearing something soft and delicately rosy, like the first flush of dawn in the sky, and bearing her armful of maidenhair fern and delicate blossoms like a sheaf of some lovely spring harvest. She preceded the bride, Camilla (on the arm of her father’s old friend Judge Barron), as if she delighted to introduce her to the waiting world.

But John Saxon had no eyes for the lovely bride, for they had halted at Mary Elizabeth and held there all the way up the aisle.

Mary Elizabeth had eyes that were wide and starry, fringed with long, dark lashes under fine level brows. There was a hint of a smile on her lovely unpainted mouth, a little highborn lifting of her chin, a keen interest and delight apparent in her whole attitude that distinguished her from the rest of the bridal party. To her it was all a beautiful game they were playing, and she was enjoying every minute of it. There was none of that intent determination to get each step measured just right, each move made with the practiced precision that characterized the procession of the bridesmaids. Mary Elizabeth moved along in absolute rhythm, as naturally as clouds move or butterflies hover.

The wide brim of the transparent hat she wore seemed to John Saxon almost like the dim shadow of a halo as she lifted her head and gave him a friendly, impersonal glance before she moved to her place at the left of the aisle.

The bridesmaids wore thin white hats also, but they were not halos; they were only hats.

John suddenly remembered the bride, whom he had not sighted as yet except as background, and lest he seem to stare at Mary Elizabeth, he turned and looked down the aisle to Camilla. Camilla, in her mother’s lovely embroidered organdy wedding dress of long ago; Camilla, wearing the ancestral Wainwright wedding veil of costly hand-wrought lace and John Saxon’s orange blossoms from his own Florida grove; Camilla, carrying Jeff’s white orchids and looking heavenly happy as she smiled up to answer her bridegroom’s welcoming smile.

Yes, she was a very lovely bride, with her gold hair shining beneath the frostwork of lace and waxen blossoms! How splendid they were going to look together, Jeff and Camilla! How glad he was for Jeff that he had found a girl like that!

Then he stepped one pace to the right and front and took his place in the semicircle as had been planned, with the old minister standing before them against the background of palms and flowers that the old hometown people had arranged for Camilla’s wedding.

He raised his eyes again to find Mary Elizabeth, wondering if she might not have vanished, if she could possibly be there in the flesh and not be a figment of his imagination. He met her eyes again and found her broadcasting that keen delight in what they were doing, found himself responding to that glint in her eyes, that bit of a smile at the corner of her lovely mouth. It was as if they had known each other for a long time. It couldn’t be true that he had only just now seen her and for the first time felt that start of his heart at the vision of her! It couldn’t be true that he had never been introduced to her!

John had arrived but the day before the wedding and spent the most of his time since in acquiring the necessary details of dress in which to appear as best man.

Quite casually he had asked when Jeff met him at the train and as he pocketed the directions Jeff had given him to find the right tailor and haberdashery shops: “And who is this person, this maid of honor I’m supposed to take on as we go back up the aisle after the ceremony? Some flat tire I suppose, since you’ve picked the one and only out of all the women of the earth.” He gave Jeff a loving slap on the shoulder.

“Why, she’s quite all right, I guess. I haven’t seen her yet, but she’s an old schoolmate of Camilla’s. She’s on her way here from California just to attend the wedding. Camilla says she’s a great Christian worker and interested in Bible study, so I guess you’ll hit it off. Anyway, I hope she won’t be too much of a bore. She’s expected to arrive tomorrow afternoon sometime. Somebody will fill in for her tonight at the rehearsal I believe, so she won’t be around long enough to matter anyway. Her name is … Foster—I think that’s it. Yes, Helen Foster.”

Nobody had told John about a washout on the road halfway across the continent, a wreck ahead of Helen Foster’s train, and a delay of twenty-four hours. He had not heard that, in spite of frantic attempts to reach an airport from the isolated place of the wreck in time to arrive for the ceremony, the maid of honor had telegraphed only two hours before the wedding that she could not possibly get there. He had spent most of the day in shops, perplexing his mind over the respective values of this and that article of evening wear, and arrived at the hotel only in time to get into his new garments and arrive at the church at the hour appointed. He was there just a few minutes before Jeff. And so he had escaped the excitement and anxiety that resulted from the news of the missing maid of honor. He did not know how hurriedly and anxiously the troublesome question of whether or how to supply her place at this last minute had been discussed and rediscussed, nor how impossible at this last minute it had seemed to get even a close friend to come in and act in a formal wedding without the necessary maid of honor outfit.

Excitement had run high, and Camilla had just escaped tears as the thought of the Warren Wainwrights, and the Seawells of Boston, and the Blackburns and Starrs of Chicago and New York, all new, unknown, to-be relations. She went down the list of all the girls she knew who would be at all eligible for the position of maid of honor and shook her head in despair. There wouldn’t be one who could take the place at a moment’s notice and fit right in, and even if there were one, what would she do for a dress?

Dresses could be bought of course, even as late as that, but no ordinary dress would be able to enter the simple yet lovely scheme of the wedding without seeming to introduce a wrong note in an otherwise perfect harmony.