Louis Joseph Vance - "The Bronze Bell"

St. John G. Ervine - "The Foolish Lovers"

Richard B. Cook - "The Grand Old Man"

Jules Verne - "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The City of Fire

G >> Grace Livingston Hill >> The City of Fire




It was just after they had finished reading and discussing Dante's
Vision. What a wonderful man Mr. Severn was that he had taken two
children and guided them through that beautiful, fearful, wonderful
story! How it had impressed him then, and stayed with him all these
awful months and days since he had trodden the same fiery way--!

He reached his hand out for the book, bound in dull blue cloth, the
symbol of its serious import. He had not opened the book since they
finished it and Mr. Severn had handed it over to him and told him to
keep it, as he had another copy. He opened the book as if it had been
the coffin of his beloved, and there between the dusty pages lay a bit
of blue ribbon, creased with the pages, and jagged on the edges because
it had been cut with a jack knife. And lying smooth upon it in a golden
curve a wisp of a yellow curl, just a section of one of Marilyn's, the
day she put her hair up, and did away with the curls! He had cut the
ribbon from the end of a great bow that held the curls at the back of
her head, and then he had laughingly insisted on a piece of the curl,
and they had made a great time collecting the right amount of hair, for
Marilyn insisted it must not make a rough spot for her to brush. Then
he had laid it in the book, the finished book, and shut it away
carefully, and gone home, and the next day,--the very next day, the
thing had happened!

He turned the leaves sadly:

"In midway of this our mortal life,
I found me in a gloomy wood, astray
Gone from the path direct:--"

It startled him, so well it fitted with his mood. It was himself, and
yet he could remember well how he had felt for the writer when he heard
it first. Terrible to sit here to-night and know it was himself all the
time the tale had been about! He turned a page or two and out from the
text there stood a line:

"All hope abandon ye who enter here."

That was the matter with himself. He had abandoned all hope. Over the
leaf his eye ran down the page:

"This miserable fate
Suffer the wretched souls of those who lived
Without praise or blame, with that ill band
Of angels mixed, who nor rebellious proved
Nor yet were true to God, but for themselves
Were only."

How well he remembered the minister's little comments as he read, how
the sermons had impressed themselves upon his heart as he listened, and
yet here he was, himself, in hell! He turned over the pages again
quickly unable to get away from the picture that grew in his mind, the
vermilion towers and minarets, the crags and peaks, the "little brook,
whose crimson'd wave, yet lifts my hair with horror," he could see it
all as if he had lived there many years. Strange he had not thought
before of the likeness of his life to this. He read again:

"O Tuscan! thou who through the city of fire
Alive art passing,--"

Yes, that was it. A City of Fire. He dwelt in a City of Fire! Hell!
There was a hell on earth to-day and mortals entered it and dwelt
there. He lived in that City of Fire continually now. He expected to
live there forever. He had sinned against God and his better self, and
had begun his eternal life on earth. It was too late ever to turn back.
"All Hope abandon, ye who enter here." He had read it and defied it. He
had entered knowing what he was about, and thinking, poor fool that he
was, that he was doing a wise and noble thing for the sake of another.

Over in the little parsonage, the white souled girl was walking in an
earthly heaven. Ah! There was nothing, _nothing_ they had in
common now any more. She lived in the City of Hope and he in the City
of Fire.

He flung out the book from him and dropped his face into his hands
crying softly under his breath, "Oh, Lynn, Lynn--Marilyn!"




XV


For one instant Lynn stood against the closed door, flaming with anger,
her eyes flashing fire as they well knew how to flash at times. Then
suddenly her lips set close in a fine control the fire died out of her
eyes, she drew a deep breath, and a quick whimsical smile lighted up
her face, which nevertheless did not look in the least like one
subdued:

"You know I could get very angry at that if I chose and we'd have all
kinds of a disagreeable time, but I think it would be a little
pleasanter for us both if you would cut that out, don't you?" She said
it in a cool little voice that sounded like one in entire command of
the situation, and Opal turned around and stared at her admiringly.
Then she laughed one of her wild silvery laughs that made them say she
had a lute-like voice, and sauntered over toward her hostess:

"You certainly are a queer girl!" she commented, "I suppose it would be
better to be friends, inasmuch as we're to be roommates. Will you smoke
with me?" and out from the depths of a beaded affair that was a part of
her frock and yet looked more like a bag than a pocket, she drew forth
a gold cigarette case and held it out.

Marilyn controlled the growing contempt in her face and answered with
spirit:

"No, I don't smoke. And you won't smoke either--_not in here!_ I'm
sorry to seem inhospitable, but we don't do things like that around
here, and if you have to smoke you'll have to go out doors."

"Oh, really?" Opal arched her already permanently arched, plucked brows
and laughed again. "Well, you certainly have lots of pep. I believe I'm
going to like you. Let's sit down and you tell me about yourself?"

"Why don't _you_ tell me about _yourself_?" hedged Marilyn
relaxing into a chair and leaving the deep leather one for her guest,
"I'm really a very simple affair, just a country girl very glad to get
home after four years at college. There's nothing complex and nothing
to tell I assure you."

"You're entirely too sophisticated for all that simplicity," declared
Opal, "I suppose it's college that has given you so much poise. But why
aren't you impressed with Laurie? Simply _everybody_ is impressed
with Laurie! I don't believe you even know who he is!"

Lynn laughed:

"How should I? And what difference would it make any way? As for being
impressed, he gave me the impression of a very badly spoiled boy out
trying to have his own way, and making a great fuss because he couldn't
get it."

"And you didn't know that his father is William J. Shafton, the
multi-millionaire?" Opal brought the words out like little sharp
points that seemed to glitter affluently as she spoke them.

"No," said Marilyn, "I didn't know. But it doesn't matter. We hadn't
anything better to offer him than we've given, and I don't know why I
should have been impressed by that. A man is what he is, isn't he? Not
what his father is. He isn't your--_brother_--is he? I was over at
the church when you arrived and didn't hear the introductions. I didn't
even get your name."

Opal laughed uproariously as if the subject were overwhelmingly
amusing:

"No," she said recovering, "I'm just Opal. Fire Opal they call me
sometimes, and Opalescence. That's Laurie's name for me, although
lately he's taken to calling me Effervescence. No, he's not my brother
little Simple Lady, he's just one of my friends. Now don't look
shocked. I'm a naughty married lady run off on a spree for a little
fun." Marilyn regarded her thoughtfully:

"Now stop looking at me with those solemn eyes! Tell me what you were
thinking about me! I'd lots rather hear it. It would be something
original, I'm sure. You're nothing if not original!"

"I was just wondering why," said Marilyn still thoughtfully.

"Why what?"

"_Why._ Why you did it. Why you wanted to be that kind of a
married woman when the real kind is so much more beautiful and
satisfactory."

"What do you know about it?" blazed Opal, "You've never been married,
have you?"

"My mother has had such a wonderful life with my father--and my father
with my mother!"

Opal stared at her amazed for an instant, then shrugged her shoulders
lightly:

"Oh, _that!_" she said and laughed disagreeably, "If one wants to
be a saint, perhaps, but there aren't many _men_-saints I can tell
you! You haven't seen my husband or you wouldn't talk like that!
Imagine living a saintly life with Ed Verrons! But my dear, wait till
you're married! You won't talk that rubbish any more!"

"I shall never marry unless I can," said Lynn decidedly, "It would be
terrible to marry some one I could not love and trust!"

"Oh, love!" said Opal contemptuously, "You can love any one you want to
for a little while. Love doesn't last. It's just a play you soon get
tired to death of. But if that's the way you feel don't pin your trust
and your love as you call it to that princely icicle we saw down on the
lawn. He's seen more of the world than you know. I saw it in his eyes.
There! Now don't set your eyes to blazing again. I won't mention him
any more to-night. And don't worry about me, I'm going to be good and
run back to-morrow morning in time to meet my dear old hubby in the
evening when he gets back from a week's fishing in the Adirondacks, and
he'll never guess what a frolic I've had. But you certainly do amuse me
with your indifference. Wait till Laurie gets in some of his work on
you. I can see he's crazy already about you, and if I don't decide to
carry him off with me in the morning I'll miss my guess if he doesn't
show you how altogether charming the son of William J. Shafton can be.
He never failed to have a girl fall for him yet, not one that he
_went_ after, and he's been after a good many girls I can tell
you."

Lynn arose suddenly, her chin a bit high, a light of determination in
her eyes. She felt herself growing angry again:

"Come and look at my view of the moon on the valley," she said
suddenly, pulling aside the soft scrim curtain and letting in a flood
of moonlight. "Here, I'll turn out the light so you can see better.
Isn't that beautiful?"

She switched off the lights and the stranger drew near apathetically,
gazing out into the beauty of the moonlight as it touched the houses
half hidden in the trees and vines, and flooded the Valley stretching
far away to the feet of the tall dark mountains.

"I hate mountains!" shuddered Opal, "They make me afraid! I almost ran
over a precipice when I was coming here yesterday. If I have to go back
that same way I shall take Laurie, or if he won't go I'll cajole that
stunning prince of yours if you don't mind. I loathe being alone.
That's why I ran down here to see Laurie!"

But Lynn had switched on the lights and turned from the window. Her
face was cold and her voice hard:

"Suppose we go to bed," she said, "will you have the bed next the
window or the door? And what shall I get for you? Have you everything?
See, here is the bathroom. Father and mother had it built for me for my
birthday. And the furniture is some of mother's grandmother's. They had
it done over for me."

"It's really a dandy room!" said Opal admiringly, "I hadn't expected to
find anything like this," she added without seeming to know she was
patronizing. "You are the only child, aren't you? Your father and
mother just dote on you too. That must be nice. We had a whole houseful
at home, three girls and two boys, and after father lost his money and
had to go to a sanitarium we had frightful times, never any money to
buy anything, the girls always fighting over who should have silk
stockings, and mother crying every night when we learned to smoke. Of
course mother was old fashioned. I hated to have her weeping around all
the time, but all our set smoked and what could I do? So I just took
the first good chance to get married and got out of it all. And Ed
isn't so bad. Lots of men are worse. And he gives me all the money I
want. One thing the girls don't have to fight over silk stockings and
silk petticoats any more. I send them all they want. And I manage to
get my good times in now and then too. But tell me, what in the world
do you do in this sleepy little town? Don't you get bored to death? I
should think you'd get your father to move to the city. There must be
plenty of churches where a good looking minister like your father could
get a much bigger salary than out in the country like this. When I get
back to New York I'll send for you to visit me and show you a real good
time. I suppose you've never been to cabarets and eaten theatre
suppers, and seen a real New York good time. Why, last winter I had an
affair that was talked of in the papers for days. I had the whole lower
floor decorated as a wood you know, with real trees set up, and mossy
banks, and a brook running through it all. It took days for the
plumbers to get the fittings in, and then they put stones in the
bottom, and gold fish, and planted violets on the banks and all kinds
of ferns and lilies of the valley, everywhere there were flowers
blossoming so the guests could pick as many as they wanted. The stream
was deep enough to float little canoes, and they stopped in grottoes
for champagne, and when they came to a shallow place they had to get
out and take off their shoes and stockings and wade in the brook. On
the opposite bank a maid was waiting with towels. The ladies sat down
on the bank and their escorts had to wipe their feet and help them on
with their shoes and stockings again, and you ought to have heard the
shouts of laughter! It certainly was a great time! Upstairs in the ball
room we had garden walks all about, with all kinds of flowers growing,
and real birds flying around, and the walls were simply covered with
American beauty roses and wonderful climbers, in such bowers that the
air was heavy with perfume. The flowers alone cost thousands--What's
the matter? Did you hear something fall? You startled me, jumping up
like that! You're nervous aren't you? Don't you think music makes
people nervous?"

Marilyn smiled pathetically, and dropped back to the edge of her bed:

"Pardon me," she said, "I was just in one of my tempers again. I get
them a lot but I'm trying to control them. I happened to think of the
little babies I saw in the tenement districts when I was in New York
last. Did you ever go there? They wear one little garment, and totter
around in the cold street trying to play, with no stockings, and shoes
out at the toes. Sometimes they haven't enough to eat, and their
mothers are so wretchedly poor and sorrowful--!"

"Mercy!" shuddered Opal, "How morbid you are! What ever did you go to a
place like that for? I always keep as far away from unpleasant things
as I can. I cross the street if I see a blind beggar ahead. I just
loathe misery! But however did you happen to think of them when I was
telling you about my beautiful ball room decorations?"

Lynn twinkled:

"I guess you wouldn't understand me," she said slowly, "but I was
thinking of all the good those thousands of dollars would have done if
they had been spent on babies and not on flowers."

"Gracious!" said Opal. "I _hate_ babies! Ed is crazy about them,
and would like to have the house full, but I gave him to understand
what I thought about that before we were married."

"I _love_ babies," said Marilyn. "They want me to go this Fall and
do some work in that settlement, and I'm considering it. If it only
weren't for leaving father and mother again--but I do love the babies
and the little children. I want to gather them all and do so many
things for them. You know they are all God's babies, and it seems
pitiful for them to have to be in such a dreadful world as some of them
have!"

"Oh, _God_!" shuddered Opal quite openly now, "Don't talk about
God! I _hate_ God! He's just killed one of my best men friends! I
wish you wouldn't talk about God!"

Marilyn looked at her sadly, contemplatively, and then twitched her
mouth into a little smile:

"We're not getting on very well, are we? I don't like your costly
entertainments, and you don't like my best Friend! I'm sorry. I must
seem a little prude to you I'm afraid, but really, God is not what you
think. You wouldn't hate Him, you would love Him,--if you _knew_
Him."

"Fancy knowing God--as you would your other friends! How
_dreadful_! Let's go to bed!"

Opal began to get out her lovely brushes and toilet paraphernalia and
Lynn let down her wonderful golden mane and began to brush it, looking
exquisite in a little blue dimity kimona delicately edged with'
valenciennes. Opal made herself radiant in a rose-chiffon and old-point
negligee and went through numerous gyrations relating to the
complexion, complaining meanwhile of the lack of a maid.

But after the lights were out, and Lynn kneeling silently by her bed in
the moonlight, Opal lay on the other bed and watched her wonderingly,
and when a few minutes later, Marilyn rose softly and crept into bed as
quietly as possible lest she disturb her guest, Opal spoke:

"I wonder what you would do if a man--the man you liked best in all the
world,--had got killed doing something to please you. It makes you go
_crazy_ when you think of it--someone you've danced with lying
dead that way all alone. I wonder what _you'd do_!"

Lynn brought her mind back from her own sorrows and prayers with a jerk
to the problem of this strange guest. She did not answer for a moment,
then she said very slowly:

"I think--I don't know--but I _think_ I should go right to God and
ask Him what to do. I think nobody else could show what ought to be
done. There wouldn't be anything else to do!"

"Oh, _murder_!" said Opal turning over in bed quickly, and hiding
her face in the pillow, and there was in the end of her breath just the
suggestion of a shriek of fear.

But far, far into the night Marilyn lay on her sleepless pillow, her
heart crying out to God: "Oh, save Mark! Take care of Mark! Show him
the way back again!"

Afar in the great city a message stole on a wire through the night, and
presently the great presses were hot with its import, printing
thousands and thousands of extras for early morning consumption, with
headlines in enormous letters across the front page:

"LAURENCE SHAFTON, SON OF WILLIAM J. SHAFTON, KIDNAPPED!"

"Mrs. Shafton is lying in nervous collapse as the result of threats from
kidnappers who boldly called her up on the phone and demanded a king's
ransom, threatening death to the son if the plot was revealed before
ten o'clock this morning. The faithful mother gathered her treasures
which included the famous Shafton Emeralds, and a string of pearls
worth a hundred thousand dollars, and let them down from her window as
directed, and then fainted, knowing nothing more till her maid hearing
her fall, rushed into the room and found her unconscious. When roused
she became hysterical and told what had happened. Then remembering the
threat of death for telling ahead of time she became crazy with grief,
and it was almost impossible to soothe her. The maid called her family
physician, explaining all she knew, and the matter was at once put into
the hands of capable detectives who are doing all they know how to
locate the missing son, who has been gone only since Saturday evening;
and also to find the missing jewels and other property, and it is hoped
that before evening the young man will be found."

Meantime, Laurence Shafton slept soundly and late in the minister's
study, and knew nothing of the turmoil and sorrow of his doting family.




XVI


Though Mark had scarcely slept at all the night before he was on hand
long before the city-bred youth was awake, taking apart the big machine
that stood in front of the parsonage. Like a skillful physician he
tested its various valves and compartments, went over its engine
carefully, and came at last to the seat of the trouble which the
minister had diagnosed the night before.

Lynn with dark circles under her eyes had wakened early and slipped
down to the kitchen to help her mother and the little maid of all work
who lived down the street and was a member of the Sunday School and an
important part of the family. It was Naomi who discovered the young
mechanic at the front door. There was not much that Naomi did not see.
She announced his presence to Marilyn as she was filling the salt
cellars for breakfast. Marilyn looked up startled, and met her mother's
eyes full of comfort and reassurance. Somehow when Mark came quietly
about in that helpful way of his it was impossible not to have the old
confidence in him, the old assurance that all would soon be right, the
old explanation that Mark was always doing something quietly for others
and never taking care for himself. Marilyn let her lips relax into a
smile and went about less heavy of heart. Surely, surely, somehow, Mark
would clear himself of these awful things that were being said about
him. Surely the day would bring forth a revelation. And Mark's action
last night when he refused to speak with her, refused to let her touch
his arm, and called himself unworthy was all for her sake; all because
he did not want her name sullied with a breath of the scandal that
belonged to him. Mark would be that way. He would protect her always,
even though he did not belong to her, even though he were not her
friend.

She was almost cheerful again, when at last the dallying guests
appeared for a late breakfast. Mark was still working at the car,
filing something with long steady grinding noises. She had seen him
twice from the window, but she did not venture out. Mark had not wished
her to speak to him, she would not go against his wish,--at least not
now--not until the guests were out of the way. That awful girl should
have no further opportunity to say things to her about Mark. She would
keep out of his way until they were gone. Oh, pray that the car would
be fixed and they pass on their way at once! Later, if there were
opportunity, she would find a way to tell Mark that he should not
refuse her friendship. What was friendship if it could not stand the
strain of falsehood and gossip, and even scandal if necessary. She was
not ashamed to let Mark know she would be his friend forever. There was
nothing unmaidenly in that. Mark would understand her. Mark had always
understood her. And so she cheered her heavy heart through the
breakfast hour, and the foolish jesting of the two that sounded to her
anxious ears, in the language of scripture, like the "crackling of
thorns under a pot."

But at last they finished the breakfast and shoved their chairs back to
go and look at the car. Mr. Severn and his wife had eaten long ago and
gone about their early morning duties, and it had been Marilyn's duty
to do the honors for the guests, so she drew a sigh of relief, and,
evading Laurie's proffered arm slid into the pantry and let them go
alone.

But when she glanced through the dining-room window a few minutes later
as she passed removing the dishes from the table, she saw Mark upon his
knees beside the car, looking up with his winning smile and talking to
Opal, who stood close beside him all attention, with her little boy
attitude, and a wide childlike look in her big effective eyes.
Something big and terrible seemed to seize Marilyn's heart with a
vise-like grip, and be choking her breath in her throat. She turned
quickly, gathered up her pile of dishes and hurried into the pantry, her
face white and set, and her eyes stinging with proud unshed tears.

A few minutes later, dressed in brown riding clothes exquisitely
tailored, and a soft brown felt hat, she might have been seen hurrying
through the back fence, if anybody had been looking that way, across
the Joneses' lot to the little green stable that housed a riding horse
that was hers to ride whenever she chose. She had left word with Naomi
that she was going to Economy and would be back in time for lunch, and
she hoped in her heart that when she returned both of their guests
would have departed. It was perhaps a bit shabby of her to leave it all
on her mother this way, but mother would understand, and very likely be
glad.

So Lynn mounted her little brown horse and rode by a circuitous way,
across the creek, and out around the town to avoid passing her own
home, and was presently on her way up to the crossroads down which
Laurie Shafton had come in the dark midnight.

As she crossed the Highway, she noticed the Detour, and paused an
instant to study the peculiar sign, and the partly cleared way around.
And while she stood wondering a car came swiftly up from the Economy
way past the Blue Duck Tavern. The driver bowed and smiled and she
perceived it was the Chief of Police from Economy, a former resident of
Sabbath Valley, and very much respected in the community, and with him
in the front seat, was another uniformed policeman!

With a sudden constriction at her heart Marilyn bowed and rode on. Was
he going to Sabbath Valley? Was there truth in the rumor that Mark was
in trouble? She looked back to see if he had turned down the Highway,
but he halted the car with its nose pointed Sabbath Valleyward and got
out to examine the Detour on the Highway. She rode slowly and turned
around several times, but as long as she was in sight his car remained
standing pointed toward the Valley.




XVII


Billy awoke to the light of day with the sound of a strange car going
by. The road through Sabbath Valley was not much frequented, and Billy
knew every car that usually travelled that way. They were mostly
Economy and Monopoly people, and as there happened to be a mountain
trolley between the two towns higher up making a circuit to touch at
Brooktown, people seldom came this way. Therefore at the unusual sound
Billy was on the alert at once. One movement brought him upright with
his feet upon the floor blinking toward his window, a second carried
him to shelter behind the curtain where he could see the stranger go
by.

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