The City of Fire
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Grace Livingston Hill >> The City of Fire
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Link came lounging out of the booth mopping his wet forehead:
"She fell fer it all right," he said jerking a wan smile, but he looked
as though the last of his own nerve had gone into the telephone
receiver. "She wanted to put in an extra check, but I told her we'd be
generous and let it go at what she could find without her name on it.
Gosh, what fools some wommen are! I thought I got her number all right,
a whimperin' fool! A whimperin' little old fool! Now, Shorty, all we
gotta do is collect the boodle. It's up to you to watch outside the
hedge. I'm takin' all the risks this time m'self, an' I'm goin' to
ferret my way under that there madam's winder. You stay outside and
gimme the signal. Ef you get cold feet an' leave me in the lurch you
don't get no dividends, See?"
XIII
Billy, with that fine inner sense that some boys have, perceived that
there was deep emotion of a silent sort between the minister and Mark,
and he drifted away from them unnoticed, back toward the car.
"Billy!" whispered Lynn, rising from the upper step in the shadow of
the church.
The boy turned with a quick silent stride and was beside her:
"I couldn't help it, Miss Lynn, I really couldn't--There was something
very important--Cart--That is--Cart needed me! I knew you'd
understand."
"Yes, Billy, I understand. Somehow I knew you were with Mark. It's good
to have a friend like you, Billy!" She smiled wanly.
Billy looked up half proud, half ashamed:
"It's nothin'!" said Billy, "I just had to. Cart--well, I had to."
"I know, Billy--Mark needed you. And Billy,--if there's any trouble--
any--any--that is if Mark ever needs you, you'll stick by him I know?"
"Sure!" said Billy looking up with a sudden searching glance, "Sure,
I'll stick by him!"
"And if there's anything--anything that ought to be done--why--I mean
anything _we_ could do--Billy,--you'll let us know?"
"Sure, I will!" There was utmost comprehension in the firm young voice.
Billy kicked his heel softly into the grass by the walk, looking down
embarrassedly. He half started on toward the car and then turning back
he said suddenly, "Why doncha go see Cherry, Miss Lynn?"
"Cherry?" she said startled, her face growing white in the darkness.
The boy nodded, stuffing his hands deep into his pockets and regarding
her with sudden boldness. He opened his lips as if he would speak
further, then thought better of it and closed them again firmly,
dropping his eyes as if he were done with the topic. There was a bit of
silence, then Lynn said gravely:
"Perhaps I will," and "Thank you, Billy."
Billy felt as though the balm of Gilead had suddenly been poured over
his tired heart.
"G'night!" he murmured, feeling that he had put his troubles into
capable hands that would care for them, as he would himself.
There had been no word spoken between the minister and Mark as they
went together toward the parsonage, but there had seemed to each to be
a great clearing of the clouds between them, and a tender love
springing anew, with warm understanding and sympathy. Mark felt himself
a boy again, with the minister's arm across his shoulder, and a strong
yearning to confide in this understanding friend, swept over him. If
there had been a quiet place with no one about just then there is no
telling what might have happened to change the story from that point
on, but their silent intercourse was rudely interrupted by the voice of
Laurie Shafton breaking in:
"Oh, I say, Mr. Severn, who did you say that man was that could fix
cars? I'd like to call him up and see if he doesn't happen to have some
bearings now. He surely must have returned by this time hasn't he? I'd
like to take these girls a spin. The moon is perfectly gorgeous. We
could go in the lady's car, only it is smaller and I thought I'd ask
your daughter to go along."
"Oh!" said the minister suddenly brought back into the world of trivial
things? "Why, _this_ is Mr. Carter, Mr. Shafton. He can speak for
himself."
Mark stood with lifted head and his princely look regarding the
interloper with cold eyes. He acknowledged the introduction almost
haughtily, and listened to the story of the burnt out bearings without
a change of countenance, then said gravely:
"I think I can fix you up in the morning."
"Not to-night?" asked the spoiled Laurie with a frown of displeasure.
"Not to-night," said Mark with a finality that somehow forbade even a
Shafton from further parley.
Opal had regarded Mark from the vine covered porch as he stood with
bared head in the moonlight and clattered down on her tiny patent
leather pumps to be introduced. She came and stood hanging pertly on
Laurie Shafton's arm as if he were her private property, with her large
limpid eyes fixed upon the stranger, this prince of a man that had
suddenly turned up in this funny little country dump.
She put her giddy little tongue into the conversation, something about
how delicious it would be to take a little ride to-night, implying that
Mark might go along if he would fix up the car. She was dressed in a
slim, clinging frock of some rich Persian gauzy silk stuff, heavy with
beads in dull barbaric patterns, and girt with a rope of jet and jade.
Her slim white neck rose like a stem from the transparent neck line,
and a beaded band about her forehead held the fluffy hair in place
about her pretty dark little head. She wore long jade earrings which
nearly touched the white shoulders, and gave her the air of an Egyptian
princess. She was very gorgeous, and unusual even in the moonlight, and
she knew it, yet this strange young man gave her one cold scrutinizing
glance and turned away.
"I'll see you again in the morning, Mr. Severn," he said, and wringing
the minister's hand silently, he went back across the lawn. The spell
was broken and the minister knew it would be of no use to follow. Mark
would say no more of his trouble tonight.
It was so that Lynn, coming swiftly from her shadow, with troubled
thoughts, came face to face with Mark:
He stopped suddenly as if something had struck him.
"Oh, Mark!" she breathed softly, and put out her hand.
He made a swift motion away from her, and said quickly:
"Don't touch me, Marilyn,--I-am--not--_worthy_!"
Then quickly turning he sprang into his car and started the engine.
The minister stood in the moonlight looking sadly after the wayward boy
whom he had loved for years.
Lynn came swiftly toward her father, scarcely seeing the two strangers.
She had a feeling that he needed comforting. But the minister, not
noticing her approach, had turned and was hurrying into the house by
the side entrance.
"Come on girls, let's have a little excitement," cried Laurie Shafton
gaily, "How about some music? There's a piano in the house I see, let's
boom her up!"
He made a sudden dive and swooped an arm intimately about each girl's
waist, starting them violently toward the steps, forgetting the lame
ankle that was supposed to make him somewhat helpless.
The sudden unexpected action took Marilyn unaware, and before she could
get her footing or do anything about it she caught a swift vision of a
white face in the passing car. Mark had seen the whole thing! She drew
back quickly, indignantly flinging the offending arm from her waist,
and hurried after her father; but it was too late to undo the
impression that Mark must have had. He had passed by.
Inside the door she stopped short, stamping her white shod foot with
quick anger, her face white with fury, her eyes fairly blazing. If
Laurie had seen her now he would scarcely have compared her to a saint.
To think that on this day of trouble and perplexity this gay insolent
stranger should dare to intrude and presume! And before Mark!
But a low spoken word of her mother's reached her from the dining-room,
turning aside her anger:
"I hate to ask Lynn to take her into her room. Such a queer girl! It
seems like a desecration! Lynn's lovely room!"
"She had no right to put herself upon us!" said the father in troubled
tones. "She is as far from our daughter as heaven is from the pit. Who
is she, anyway?"
"He merely introduced her as his friend Opal."
"Is there nothing else we can do?"
"We might give her our room, but it would take some time to put it in
order for a guest. There would be a good many things to move--and it
would be rather awkward in the morning, cots in the living-room. I
suppose Lynn could come in with me and you sleep on a cot--!"
"Yes, that's exactly it! Do that. I don't mind."
"I suppose we'll have to," sighed the mother, "for I know Lynn would
hate it having a stranger among her pretty intimate things--!"
Marilyn sprang up and burst into the dining-room:
"Mother! Did you think I was such a spoiled baby that I couldn't be
courteous to a stranger even if she was a detestable little vamp?
You're not to bother about it any more. She'll come into my room with
me of course. You didn't expect me to sail through life without any
sacrifices at all did you, Motherie? Suppose I had gone to Africa as I
almost did last year? Don't you fancy there'd have been some things
harder than sharing my twin beds with a disagreeable stranger? Besides,
remember those angels unaware that the Bible talks about. I guess this
is up to me, so put away your frets and come on in. It's time we had
worship and ended this day. But I guess those two self-imposed boarders
of ours need a little religion first. Come on!"
She dropped a kiss on each forehead lightly and fled into the other
room.
"What a girl she is!" said her father tenderly putting his hand gently
on the spot she had kissed, "A great blessing in our home! Dear child!"
The mother said nothing, but her eyes were filled with a great content.
Marilyn, throwing aside her hat and appearing in the front door called
pleasantly to the two outside:
"Well, I'm ready for the music. You can come in when you wish."
They sauntered in presently, but Marilyn was already at the piano
playing softly a bit from the Angel Chorus, a snatch of Handel's Largo,
a Chopin Nocturne, one of Mendelssohn's songs without words. The two
came in hilariously, the young man pretending to lean heavily on the
girl, and finding much occasion to hold her hands, a performance to
which she seemed to be not at all averse. They came and stood beside
the piano.
"Now," said Opal gaily, when Marilyn came to the end of another
Nocturne: "That's enough gloom. Give us a little jazz and Laurie and
I'll dance awhile."
Marilyn let her hands fall with a soft crash on the keys and looked up.
Then her face broke up into a smile, as if she had put aside an
unpleasant thought and determined to be friendly:
"I'm sorry," she said firmly, "We don't play jazz, my piano and I. I
never learned to love it, and besides I'm tired. I've been playing all
day you know. You will excuse anything more I'm sure. And it's getting
late for Sabbath Valley. Did you have any plans for to-night?"
Opal stared, but Marilyn stared back pleasantly, and Laurie watched
them both.
"Why, no, not exactly," drawled Opal, "I thought Laurie would be
hospitable enough to look me up a place. Where is your best hotel? Is
it possible at all?"
"We haven't a sign of a hotel," said Marilyn smiling.
"Oh, horrors, nothing but a boarding house I suppose. Is it far away?"
"Not even a boarding house."
"Oh, heavens! Well, where do you stop then?"
"We don't stop, we live," said Marilyn smiling. "I'm afraid the only
thing you can do unless you decide to go back home tonight is to share
my room with me,--I have twin beds you know and can make you quite
comfortable. I often have a college friend to stay with me for a few
weeks."
Opal stared round eyed. This was a college girl then, hidden away in a
hole like this. Not even an extra spare room in the house!
"Oh my gracious!" she responded bluntly, "I'm not used to rooming with
some one, but it's very kind of you I'm sure."
Marilyn's cheeks grew red and her eyes flashed but she whirled back to
her keyboard and began to play, this time a sweet old hymn, and while
she was playing and before the two strangers had thought of anything to
say, Mr. Severn came in with the Book in his hand, followed by his
wife, who drew a small rocker and sat down beside him.
Marilyn paused and the minister opened his Bible and looked around on
them:
"I hope you'll join us in our evening worship," he said pleasantly to
the two guests, and then while they still stared he began to read: "Let
not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me," on
through the beautiful chapter.
It was as Greek to the strangers, who heard and did not comprehend, and
they looked about amazed on this little family with dreamy eyes all
listening as if it meant great treasures to them. It was as if they saw
the Severns for the first time and realized them as individuals, as a
force in the world, something complete in itself, a family that was not
doing the things they did, not having the things considered essential
to life, nor trying to go after any of the things that life had to
offer, but living their own beautiful lives in their own way without
regard to the world, and actually enjoying it! That was the queer part
about it. They were not dull nor bored! They were happy! They could get
out from an environment like this if they choose, and _they did
not_. They _wanted_ to stay here. It was incredible!
Laurie got out his cigarette case, selected a cigarette, got out his
match box, selected a match, and all but lit it. Then somehow there
seemed to be something incongruous about the action and he looked
around. No one was seeing him but Opal, and she was laughing at him. He
flushed, put back the match and the cigarette, and folded his arms,
trying to look at home in this strange new environment. But the girl
Marilyn's eyes were far away as if she were drinking strange knowledge
at a secret invisible source, and she seemed to have forgotten their
presence.
Then the family knelt. How odd! Knelt down, each where he had been
sitting, and the minister began to talk to God. It did not impress the
visitors as prayer. They involuntarily looked around to see to whom he
was talking. Laurie reddened again and dropped his face into his hands.
He had met Opal's eyes and she was shaking with mirth, but somehow it
affected him rawly. Suddenly he felt impelled to get to his knees. He
seemed conspicuous reared up in a chair, and he slid noiselessly to the
floor with a wrench of the hurt ankle that caused him to draw his brows
in a frown. Opal, left alone in this room full of devout backs, grew
suddenly grave. She felt almost afraid. She began to think of Saybrook
Inn and the man lying there stark and dead! The man she had danced with
but a week before! Dead! And for her! She cringed, and crouched down in
her chair, till her beaded frock swept the polished floor in a little
tinkley sound that seemed to echo all over the room, and before she
knew it her fear of being alone had brought her to her knees. To be
like the rest of the world--to be even more alike than anybody else in
the world, that had always been her ambition. The motive of her life
now brought her on her knees because others were there and she was
afraid to sit above lest their God should come walking by and she
should see Him and die! She did not know she put it that way to her
soul, but she did, in the secret recesses of her inner dwelling.
Before they had scarcely got to their knees and while that awkward hush
was yet upon them the room was filled with the soft sound of singing,
started by the minister, perhaps, or was it his wife? It was
unaccompanied, "Abide with me, Fast falls the eventide, the darkness
deepens, Lord with me abide!" Even Laurie joined an erratic high tenor
humming in on the last verse, and Opal shuddered as the words were
sung, "Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes, Shine through the
dark and point me to the skies." Death was a horrible thing to her. She
never wanted to be reminded of death. It was a long, long way off to
her. She always drowned the thought in whatever amusement was at hand.
The song died away just in time or Opal might have screamed. She was
easily wrought up. And then this strange anomoly of a girl, her young
hostess, turned to her with a natural smile just as if nothing
extraordinary had been going on and said:
"Now, shall we say good-night and go upstairs? I know you must be tired
after your long ride, and I know father has had a hard day and would
like to get the house settled for the night."
Opal arose with a wild idea of screaming and running away, but she
caught the twinkle of Laurie's eyes and knew he was laughing at her. So
she relaxed into her habitual languor, and turning haughtily requested:
"Would you send your maid to the cyar for my bag, please?"
Before anyone could respond the minister stepped to the door with a
courteous "Certainly," and presently returned with a great blue leather
affair with silver mountings, and himself carried it up the stairs.
At the head of the stairs Marilyn met him, and put her head on his
shoulder hiding her face in his coat, and murmured, "Oh, Daddy!"
Severn smoothed her soft hair and murmured gently: "There, there little
girl! Pray! Pray! Our Father knows what's best!" but neither of them
were referring to the matter of the unwelcome guests.
Mrs. Severn was solicitous about asking if there was anything the guest
would like, a glass of milk, or some fruit? And Opal declined curtly,
made a little moue at Shafton and followed up the stairs.
"Well!" she said rudely, as she entered the lovely room and stared
around, "so this is your room!" Then she walked straight to the wall on
the other side of the room where hung a framed photograph of Mark at
twelve years old; Mark, with all the promise of his princely bearing
already upon him.
"So this is the perfect icicle of a stunning young prince that was down
on the lawn, is it? I thought there was some reason for your frantic
indifference to men. Is his name Billy or Mark? Laurie said it was
either Billy or Mark, he wasn't sure which."
XIV
Mark Carter and Billy as they rode silently down the little street
toward Aunt Saxon's cottage did not speak. They did not need to speak,
these two. They had utmost confidence in one another, they were both
troubled, and had no solution to offer for the difficulty. That was
enough to seal any wise mouth. Only at the door as Billy climbed out
Mark leaned toward him and said in a low growl:
"You're all right, Kid! You're the best friend a man ever had! I
appreciate what you did!"
"Aw!" squirmed Billy, pulling down his cap, "That's awright! See you
t'morra' Cart! S'long!" And Billy stalked slowly down the street
remembering for the first time that he had his aunt yet to reckon with.
With the man's way of taking the bull by the horns he stormed in:
"Aw, Gee! I'm tired! Now, I'spose you'll bawl me out fer a nour, an' I
couldn't help it! You always jump on me worst when I ain't to blame!"
Aunt Saxon turned her pink damp face toward the prodigal and broke into
a plaintive little smile:
"Why, Willie, is that you? I'm real glad you've come. I've kept supper
waiting. We've got cold pressed chicken, and I stirred up some waffles.
I thought you'd like something hot."
Billy stared, but the reaction was too much. In order to keep the
sudden tears back he roared out crossly:
"Well, I ain't hungry. You hadn't oughtta have waited. Pressed chicken,
did ya say? Aw _Gee_! Just when I ain't hungry! Ef that ain't
_luck_! An' waffles! You oughtta known better! But bring 'em on.
I'll try what I can do," and he flung himself down in his chair at the
table and rested a torn elbow on the clean cloth, and his weary head on
a grimy hand. And then when she put the food before him, without even
suggesting that he go first and wash, he became suddenly conscious of
his dishevelled condition and went and washed his hands and face
_without being sent_! Then he returned and did large justice to
the meal, his aunt eyeing furtively with watery smiles, and a sigh of
relief now and then. At last she ventured a word by way of
conversation:
"How is the man on the mountain?" Billy looked up sharply, startled out
of his usual stolidity with which he had learned from early youth to
mask all interest or emotion from an officious and curious world.
Miss Saxon smiled:
"Mrs. Carter told me how you and Mark went to help a man on the
mountain. It was nice of you Billy."
"Oh! _that_!" said Billy scornfully, rallying to screen his
agitation, "Oh, he's better. He got up and went home. Oh, it wasn't
nothing. I just went and helped Cart. Sorry not to get back to Sunday
School Saxy, but I didn't think 'twould take so long."
After that most unusual explanation, conversation languished, while
Billy consumed the final waffle, after which he remarked gravely that
if she didn't mind he'd go to bed. He paused at the foot of the stair
with a new thoughtfulness to ask if she wanted any wood brought in for
morning, and she cried all the time she was washing up the few dishes
at his consideration of her. Perhaps, as Mrs. Severn had told her,
there was going to come a change and Billy was really growing more
manly.
Billy, as he made his brief preparation for bed told himself that he
couldn't sleep, he had too much to worry about and dope out, but his
head had no more than touched the pillow till he was dead to the world.
Whatever came on the morrow, whatever had happened the day before,
Billy had to sleep it out before he was fit to think. And Billy slept.
But up the street in the Carter house a light burned late in Mark's
window, and Mark himself, his mother soothed and comforted and sent to
sleep, sat up in his big leather chair that his mother had given him on
the last birthday before he left home, and stared at the wall opposite
where hung the picture of a little girl in a white dress with floating
hair and starry eyes. In his face there grew a yearning and a
hopelessness that was beyond anything to describe. It was like a face
that is suffering pain of fire and studying to be brave, yet burns and
suffers and is not consumed. That was the look in Mark Carter's eyes
and around his finely chiseled lips. Once, when he was in that mood
travelling on a railway carriage, a woman across the aisle had called
her husband's attention to him. "Look at that man!" she said, "He looks
like a lost soul!"
For a long time he sat and stared at the picture, without a motion of
his body, or without even the flicker of an eyelash, as if he were set
there to see the panorama of his thoughts pass before him and see them
through to the bitter end. His eyes were deep and gray. In boyhood they
had held a wistful expectation of enchanting things and doing great
deeds of valor. They were eyes that dream, and believe, and are happy
even suffering, so faith remain and love be not denied. But faith had
been struck a deadly blow in these eyes now, and love had been cast
away. The eyes looked old and tired and unbelieving, yet still
searching, searching, though seeing dimly, and yet more dim every day,
searching for the dreams of childhood and knowing they would never come
again. Feeling sure that they might not come again because he had shut
the door against them with his own hand, and by his own act cut the
bridge on which they might have crossed from heaven to him.
A chastened face, humbled by suffering when alone, but proud and
unyielding still before others. Mark Carter looking over his past knew
just where he had started down this road of pain, just where he had
made the first mistake, sinned the first sin, chosen pride instead of
humility, the devil instead of God. And to-night Mark Carter sat and
faced the immediate future and saw what was before him. As if a painted
map lay out there on the wall before him, he saw the fire through which
he must pass, and the way it would scorch the faces of those he loved,
and his soul cried out in anguish at the sight. Back, back over his
past life he tramped again and again. Days when he and Lynn and her
father and mother had gone off on little excursions, with a lunch and a
dog and a book, and all the world of nature as their playground. A
little thought, a trifling word that had been spoken, some bit of
beauty at which they looked, an ant they watched struggling with a
crumb too heavy for it, a cluster of golden leaves or the scarlet
berries of the squaw vine among the moss. How the memories made his
heart ache as he thought them out of the past.
And the books they had read aloud, sometimes the minister, sometimes
his wife doing the reading, but always he was counted into the little
circle as if they were a family. He had come to look upon them as his
second father and mother. His own father he had never known.
His eyes sought the bookcase near at hand. There they were, some of
them birthday gifts and Christmases, and he had liked nothing better
than a new book which he always carried over to be read in the company.
Oh, those years! How the books marked their going! Even way back in his
little boyhood! "Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates." He touched its
worn blue back and silver letters scarcely discernible. "The Call of
the Wild." How he had thrilled to the sorrows of that dog! And how many
life lessons had been wrapped up in the creature's experience! How had
he drifted so far away from it all? How could he have done it? No one
had pushed him, he had gone himself. He knew the very moment when after
days of agony he had made the awful decision, scarcely believing
himself that he meant to stick by it; hoping against hope that some
great miracle would come to pass that should change it all and put him
back where he longed to be! How he had prayed and prayed in his
childish faith and agony for the miracle, and--_it had not come!_
God had gone back on him. He had not kept His promises! And then he had
deliberately given up his faith. He could think back over all the days
and weeks that led up to this. Just after the time when he had been so
happy; had felt that he was growing up, and understanding so many of
the great problems of life. The future looked rosy before him, because
he felt that he was beginning to grasp wisdom and the sweetness of
things. How little he had known of his own foolishness and sinfulness!
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