george

Whom Did Lucile Marry?
(The end of the story.)

Eight o'clock the night before the ball! For almost an hour Lucile had been sitting before the library table dreamily pondering the momentous question, but when the clock struck she said aloud, "Here! This will never do. Poor Edward has 'phoned seven times, and the others -- if I keep them on nettles much longer, they'll wish they'd never seen me! I'll give myself one more hour, and then if I haven't decided, I'll draw cuts.

First to her mother-instinct came the appeal for help, of Traymore Lee. It affected her strongly; three times she had weitten his address on a telegraph blank, and then torn the paper to bits in uncertainty; she dreaded to tell him no, but -- Did he really mean what he wrote, that she was essential to his future? Then why did he try such frequent experiments with other girls? And if he did mean it, was not that a confession of weakness that approached the un-manly? Could she affort to entrust her life to a man who had said, in substance, that he would consider refusal an excuse to let down the bars? She re-read his letter, and after a moment's thought tenderly but finally laid it aside.

Eight-fifteen! She must hurry. As she thought of the other five, her childhood lover came to the foreground of her consciousness. How natural and proper it would seem to go down the years with Crandall Sprague! How pleased her father and mother would be to see her so settled! But that last thought played with mischief, and she shrugged her scholders faintly and placed the bundle of old letters with Tray's epistle, murmuring, "I'll marry for myself, not for my parents; and I choose my wedded life to be not a habit, but a love!"

Love! That was it exactly. The flash of that magic word across her mind suddenly revealed the cause of her perplexity; she was burdening her brain with a task that belonged to her heart. She liked all six of these fellows -- was very fond of them, in fact; was confident that all of them would make good husbands, and was simply trying to decide which would make the best one for her; but did she love any of them? She had loved Stephen Grier's wife, but not request of a dying friend, though cou0led with any amount of admiration and confidence, could take the place of love -- and she did not love Stephen Grier. Arthur Grenville with his wealth and his mastery, Frances Ney with his daring fastidiousness and his literary genious, Edward Steele with his profound knowledge of human nature and his gift of leadership, -- each destined, she felt sure, to a position among the world's great ones, -- these all appealed to her ambition, but not to her love. Then suppose she could somehow be able to determine her preference among these six whom she admired, and at some later day meet Number Seven, whom she should love?

The clock chimed the third quarter. Mentally she framed a message which she would have her father's secretary write to all six -- the same to each -- saying that she did not love him, but neither did she love another, and that she would reserve her decision until some man awakened her dormant affection. It was easier for her to write than to dictate, soshe reached for pad and pencil, and brushed aside the different objects that lay on the table; as she did so, the title-page of Francis Ney's novel fell to the floor dave downward. Her heart seemed to fall with it as she remembered that never since she had received that page with the accompanying proposal in verse, had she thought of anything else byt that her name should be on it. It was the first of his productions to which he had signed his real name, and in her heart she knew that he would not have done so had he not counted on placing her name above his own.

What a terrible disappointment! She tried to write -- started her message once and again only to cross it out and begin over, until she noticed that the words were blurred and there were wet spots on the page. She buried her face in her hands, but wuickly looked up again, first in bewilderment, then in wonder; then with a new light in her soft blue eyes, she whispered, "I love you, Francis, or I wouldn't feel this way!" Trembling, she rang for the messenger, picked up the title-page, and with effort of will steadied her hand to write "Lucile" in the blank space above the name of Francis Ney.

And the clock struck nine.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I had planned to scan a couple of pictures of George Cooley, and perhaps include a bit of the "Easter Cantata" he wrote in 1935 - maybe mention that one of the things his sons remembered was that their father always read out loud to their mother while she was ironing. But I started going through a box labeled The Literary Effects of George H. Cooley, and here I've been sitting for two hours.

George kept stories he'd written; he kept school papers from The Academy at Drury College (he earned an A on one about Shakespeare's Hamlet); he kept poems (including a copy of "An Ode to My Brother on his Twenty-First Birthday"); he kept handwritten sermons from his days at Seminary, and one from his last church.

"Whom Did Lucile Marry?" was written by George Cooley during his college years.
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:49 PM