The City of Fire

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

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"Jane! Jane Duncannon!" called Christie McMertrie. But the hollow
echoes in the tidy kitchen flung back emptily, and the plate of
steaming cinnamon buns on the white scrubbed table spoke as plainly as
words could have done that no one was at home.

"She's gone!"

The two hurried around the house, through the front gate, across the
street with a quick glance up and down to be sure that the Petrie
babies playing horse in the next yard were their only observers, and
then ducking under the bars of the fence they scuttled down a slope,
crossed a trickle of a brook that hurried creekward, and up the
opposite bank. Behind Little's barn they paused to glance back. Some
one was coming out the Harricutt door, some one wearing a bonnet and a
black veil. They hurried on. There were two more fences separating the
meadows.

Mary went over and Christie between. They made quick work of the rest
of the way and crept panting through the hedge at the back of Carter's
just as Jane Duncannon swung open the little gate in front with a
glimpse back up the street in triumph and a breath of relief that she
had won. By only so much as a lift of her lashes and a lighting of her
soft brown eyes did she recognize and incorporate the other two in her
errand, and together the three entered the Carter house by the side
entrance, with a neighborly tap and a call: "Miz Carter, you home?"

Quick nervous steps overhead, a muffled voice calling catchily, "Yes,
I'm coming, just set down, won't you?" and they dropped into three
dining-room chairs and drew 'breath, mopping their warm faces with
their handkerchiefs and trying to adjust their minds to the next move.

Their hostess gave them no time to prepare a program. She came
hurriedly down stairs, obviously anxious, openly with every nerve on
the qui vive, and they saw at once that she had been crying. Her hair
was damp about her forehead as if from hasty ablution. She looked from
one to another of her callers with a frightened glance that went beyond
them as if looking for others to come, as she paused in the doorway
puzzled.

"This is a s'prise party, Miz Carter," began Jane Duncannon laughing,
"We all brought our work along and can't stay but a minute, but we got
an idea an' couldn't keep it till Ladies' Aid. You got a minute to
spare? Go get your knitting and set down. _Now_! It's Miz'Severn's
birthday next Sat'day an' we thought 'twould be nice to get her a
present. What do you think about it?"

Mrs. Carter who had stood tensely in the doorway, her fingers whitely
gripping the woodwork, her face growing whiter every minute, suddenly
relaxed with relief in every line of her body, and bloomed into a
smile:

"Oh, why, _is_ it? Of course! What'll it be? Why, couldn't we
finish that sunburst bed quilt we started last year while she was away?
If we all get at it I think we could finish. There's some real fast
quilters in the Aid. Wait, till I get my apples to pare. I promised
Mark I'd have apple sauce for lunch!"

A quick glance went from eye to eye and a look of relief settled down
on the little company. She _expected Mark home for lunch_ then!

They were in full tide of talk about the quilting pattern when a knock
came on the front door, and Mary Rafferty jumped up and ran to open it.
They heard the Harricutt voice, clear, sharp, incisive:

"I came to sympathize--!" and then as Mary swung her face into the
sunlight the voice came suddenly up as against a stone wall with a gasp
and "Oh, it's _you_! Where's Mrs. Carter? I wish to see Mrs.
Carter."

"She's right back in the dining-room, Mrs. Harricutt. Come on back.
We're talking over how to celebrate Miz Severn's birthday. Do you like
a straight quilting or diamond, Miz Harricutt: It's for the sunburst
coverlet you know!"

"The sunburst coverlet!" exclaimed Mrs. Harricutt irately, as though
somehow it were an indecent subject at such a time as this, but she
followed Mary back to the dining-room with a sniff of curiosity. She
fairly gasped when she saw Mrs. Carter with her small sensitive face
bright with smiles:

"Just take that chair by the window, Mrs. Harricutt," she said affably,
"and _excuse me_ fer not getting up. I've got to get these apples
on the fire, for I promised Mark some apple sauce for lunch, and he
likes it stone cold."

Mrs. Harricutt pricked up her ears:

"Oh, Mark is coming home for _lunch_ then!" Her voice was cold,
sharp, like a steel knife dipped in lemon juice. There was a bit of a
curl on the tip of it that made one wince as it went through the soul.
Little Mrs. Carter flushed painfully under her sensitive skin, up to
the roots of her light hair. She had been pretty in her girlhood, and
Mark had her coloring in a stronger way.

"Oh, yes, he's coming home for lunch," she answered brightly, glad of
this much assurance. "And he has to have it early because he has to
drive that strange young woman from the parsonage back somewhere down
in New Jersey. She came alone by herself yesterday, but the mountain
passes sort of scairt her, and she asked Mark to drive back with her."

"Oh!" There was a challenge in the tone that called the red to Mrs.
Carter's cheek again, But Christie McMertrie's soft burring tongue slid
in smoothly:

"What wad ye think o' the briar pattern around the edge? I know it's
some worruk, but it's a bonnie border to lie under, an' it's not so
tedious whan there's plenty o' folks to tak a hand."

They carried the topic along with a whirl then and Mrs. Harricutt had
no more chance to harry her hostess. Then suddenly Mary arose in a
panic:

"I left my pies in the oven!" she cried, "They'll be burned to a crisp.
I must go. Miz Harricutt, are you going along now? I'll walk with you.
I want to ask you how you made that plum jam you gave me a taste of the
other day. Jim thinks it is something rare, and I'll have to be making
some or he'll never be satisfied, that is if you don't mind--!" and
before Mrs. Carter realized what was happening Mary had marshalled the
Harricutt vulture down the street, and was questioning eagerly about
measures of sugar and plums and lemon peel and nuts:

"Now," said Christie setting down her jelly glass that she had been
holding all this time, "We'll be ganging awa. There's a bit jar of
raspberry jam for the laddie with the bright smile, an' you think it
over and run up and say which pattern you think is bonniest."

"It was just beautiful of you all to come--" said little Mrs. Carter
looking from one to another in painful gratitude--why it's been just
_dear_ for you to run in this way--"

"Yes, a regular party!" said Jane Duncannon squeezing her hand with
understanding. "See, Mary has left her peas. You'd best put them on to
boil for Mark. He'll be coming back pretty soon. Come, Christie,
wumman, it's time we was back at our worruk!" and they hurried through
the hedge and across the meadows to their home once more, but as they
entered the Duncannon gate they marked Billy Gaston, head down,
pedalling along over on Maple Street, his jaws keeping rhythmic time
with his feet.

One hour later the smooth chug of a car that was not altogether
unfamiliar to their ears brought those four women eagerly to their
respective windows, and as the old clock chimed the hour of noon they
beheld Mark Carter driving calmly down the street toward his own home
in his own car. _His own car!_ and Billy Gaston lounging lazily by
his side still chewing rhythmically.

Mark's Car! Mark! Billy! _Ah Billy!_ Three of them mused with a
note of triumph in their eyes.

And Mrs. Harricutt as she rolled her Sunday bonnet strings mused:

"Now, how in the world did that Mark Carter get his own car down to
Economy when he went up with the Chief? He had it down here this
morning, I know, for I saw him riding round. And that little imp of a
Billy! I wonder why he always tags him round! Miss Saxon ought to be
warned about that! I'll have to do it! But how in the world did Mark
get his car?"

Billy enjoyed his lunch that day, a bit of cold chicken and bread, two
juicy red cheeked apples, and an unknown quantity of sugary doughnuts
from the stone crock in the pantry. He sat on the side step munching
the last doughnut he felt he could possibly swallow. Mark was home and
all was well. Himself had seen the impressive glance that passed
between Mark and the Chief at parting. The Chief trusted Mark that was
plain. Billy felt reassured. He reflected that that guy Judas had been
precipitate about hanging himself. If he had only waited and
_done_ a little something about it there might have been a
different ending to the story. It was sort of up to Judas anyway,
having been the cause of the trouble.

With this virtuous conclusion Billy wiped the sugar from his mouth,
mounted his wheel and went forth to browse in familiar and much
neglected pastures.

He eyed the Carter house as he slid by. Mrs. Carter was placidly
shaking out the table cloth on the side porch. Mark had eaten his apple
sauce and gone. He passed Browns, Todds, Bateses, chasing a white hen
that had somehow escaped her confines, but in front of Joneses he
suddenly became aware of the blue car that stood in front of the
parsonage. It had come to life and was throbbing. It was backing toward
him and going to turn around. On the sidewalk leaning on a cane stood
the obnoxious stranger for whose presence in Sabbath Valley he, Billy
Gaston, was responsible. He lounged at ease with a smile on his ugly
mug and acted as if he lived there! There was nothing about his
appearance to suggest _his_ near departure. His disabled car still
stood silent and helpless beside the curb. Aw _Gee_!

Billy swerved to the other side of the road to avoid the blue car at a
hair's breadth, but as it turned he looked up impudently to behold the
strange girl with the flour on her face and the green baseball bats in
her ears smiling up into the face of Mark Carter, who was driving.
Billy nearly fell off his wheel and under the car, but recovered his
balance in time to swerve out of the way without apparently having been
observed by either Mark or the lady, and shot like a streak down the
road. Beyond the church he drew a wide curve and turned in at the
graveyard, casting a quick furtive eye toward the parsonage, where he
was glad not to discover even the flutter of a garment to show that
Lynn Severn was about. That guy was there, but Miss Lynn was not
chasing him. That was as it should be. He breathed a sigh from his
heavy heart and stole sadly, back to the old mossy stone where so many
of his life problems had been thought out. Still, that guy _was
there! He_ had the advantage! And Mark and that lady! Bah! He sat
down to meditate on Judas and his sins. It seemed that life was just
about as disappointing as it could be! His rough young hand leaned hard
against the grimy old stone till the half worn lettering hurt his flesh
and he shifted his position and lifted his hand. There on the palm were
the quaint old letters, imprinted in the flesh, "Blessed are the dead--
" Gosh yes! _Weren't_ they? Judas had been right after all. "Aw
Gee!" he said aloud, "Whatta fool I bin!" He glanced down at the stone
as he rubbed the imprint from the fleshy part of his hand. The rest of
the text caught his eye. "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord!"
There was a catch in that of course. It wasn't blessed if you didn't
_die in the Lord_. "In the Lord" meant that you didn't do anything
Judas-like. He understood. The people who didn't die in the Lord
weren't blessed. They didn't go to heaven, whatever heaven was. They
went to _hell_. Heaven had never seemed very attractive to Billy
when he thought of it casually, and he had taken it generally for
granted that he being a boy was naturally destined for the other place.
In fact until he knew Lynn Severn he had always told himself calmly
that he _expected_ to go to hell sometime, it had seemed the manly
thing to do. Most men to his mind were preparing for hell. It seemed
the masculine place of final destiny, Heaven was for women. He had
ventured some of this philosophy on his aunt once in a particularly
strenuous time when she had told him that he couldn't expect the reward
of the righteous if he continued in his present ways, but she had been
so horrified, and wept so long and bitterly that he hadn't ever had the
nerve to try it again. And since Marilyn Severn had been his teacher he
had known days when he would almost be willing to go to heaven--for her
sake. He had also suspected, at times, that Mr. Severn was fully as
much of a man as Mark Carter, although Mark was _his own_, and if
Mark decided to go to hell Billy felt there could be no other destiny
for himself.

But now, face to face with realities, Billy suddenly began to realize
what hell was going to be like. Billy felt hell surrounding him. Flames
could not beat the reproach that now flared him in the face and stung
him to the quick with his own sinfulness. He, Billy Gaston, Captain of
the Sabbath Valley Base Ball team, prospective Captain of the Sabbath
Valley Foot Ball team, champion runner, and high jumper, champion
swimmer and boxer of the boy's league of Monopoly County, friend and
often tolerated companion of Mark Carter the great, trusted favorite of
his beloved and saintly Sunday School teacher, was _in hell_! He
could never more hold up his head and walk proud of himself. He was in
hell at fourteen for life, and by his own act! And Gosh hang it! Hell
didn't look so attractive in the near vision stretching out that way
through life, and _then some_, as it had before he faced it. He'd
rather walk through fire somewhere and stand some chance of getting
done with it sometime. "Aw Gee! Gosh! Whatta fool I bin!"

And then he set himself to see just what he had done, while the high
walls of sin seemed to rise closer about him, and his face burned with
the heat of the pit into which he had put himself.

There was that guy Shafton--sissyman!--He had put him in the parsonage
along with his beloved teacher! If he only hadn't taken that ten
dollars or listened to that devil of a Pat, he wouldn't have put up
that detour and Shafton would have gone on his way. What difference if
he had got kidnapped? His folks wouldda bailed him out with their old
jewels and things. Whaddid anybody want of jewels for anyway? Just
nasty little bits of stone and glass! Mark had seen the guy there in
church. Mark didn't like it. He knew by the set of Mark's mouth. Of
course Mark went with Cherry sometimes, but then that was different!
Lynn was--well, Lynn was Miss Marilyn! That was all there was about it.

And if he hadn't put up that detour Mark would have gone home that
night before twelve and his mother would have known he was home, and
likely other people would have seen him, and been able to prove he
wasn't out shooting anybody, and then they wouldn't have told all those
awful things about him. Of course now Mark was safe, _of course,_
but then it wasn't good to have things like that said about Mark. It
was fierce to have a thing like that session meeting to remember! He
wanted to kill that old ferret of a Harricutt whenever he thought about
it. Then he would be a murderer, and be hanged, and he wouldn't care if
he did mebbe. _Aw Gee!_

A meadow lark suddenly pierced the sky with its wild sweet note high in
the air somewhere, and Billy wondered with a sick thud of his soul how
larks dared to sing in a world like this where one could upset a whole
circle of friends by a single little turn of finance that he hadn't
meant anything wrong by at all? The bees droned around the honeysuckle
that billowed over the little iron fence about a family burying lot,
and once Lynn Severn's laugh--not her regular laugh, but a kind of a
company polite one--echoed lightly across to his ears and his face
dropped into his hands. He almost groaned. Billy Gaston was at the
lowest ebb he had ever been in his young life, and his conscience, a
thing he hadn't suspected he had, and wouldn't have owned if he had,
had risen up within him to accuse him, and there seemed no way on earth
to get rid of it. A conscience wasn't a _manly_ thing according to
his code, yet here he was, he Billy Gaston, with a conscience!

It was ghastly!

XIX

Laurie Shafton had caught Lynn as she came down the stairs with a bit
of sewing in her hand to give Naomi a direction from her mother, and
had begged her to come out on the porch and talk to him. He pleaded
that he was lonesome, and that it was her duty as hostess to amuse him
for a while.

Lynn had no relish for talking with the guest. Her heart was too sore
to care to talk with any one. But her innate courtesy, and natural
gentleness finally yielded to his pleading, for Laurie had put on a
humility that was almost becoming, and made her seem really rude to
refuse.

She made him sit down in the hammock at the far end, however, and
insisted on herself taking the little rocker quite near the front door.
She knew her father would soon be returning from some parish calls and
would relieve her, so she settled herself with the bit of linen she was
hemstitching and prepared to make the best of it.

"It's a shame my car is out of commission yet," began Laurie settling
back in the hammock and by some strange miracle refraining from
lighting a cigarette. It wouldn't have entered his head that Lynn would
have minded. He didn't know any girls objected to smoking. But this
girl interested him strangely. He wasn't at all sure but it was a case
of love at first sight. He had always been looking for that to happen
to him. He hoped it had. It would be such a delightful experience. He
had tried most of the other kinds.

"Yes, it is too bad for you to be held up in your journey this way,"
sympathized Lynn heartily, "but father says the blacksmith is going to
fix you up by to-morrow he hopes. Those bearings will likely come
to-night."

"Oh, but it has been a dandy experience. I'm certainly glad it
happened. Think what I should have missed all my life, not knowing
_you_!"

He paused and looked soulfully at Lynn waiting for an appreciative
glance from her fully occupied eyes, but Lynn seemed to have missed the
point entirely:

"I should think you might have well afforded to lose the experience of
being held up in a dull little town that couldn't possibly be of the
slightest interest to you," she said dryly, with the obvious idea of
making talk.

"Oh, but I think it is charming," he said lightly! "I hadn't an idea
there was such a place in the world as this. It's ideal, don't you
know, so secluded and absolutely restful. I'm having a dandy time, and
you people have been just wonderful to me. I think I shall come back
often if you'll let me."

"I can't imagine your enjoying it," said Lynn looking at him keenly,
"It must be so utterly apart from your customary life. It must seem
quite crude and almost uncivilized to you."

"That's just it, it's so charmingly quaint. I'm bored to death with
life as I'm used to it. I'm always seeking for a new sensation, and I
seem to have lighted on it here all unexpectedly. I certainly hope my
car will be fixed by morning. If it isn't I'll telegraph for my man and
have him bring down some bearings in one of the other cars and fix me
up. I'm determined to take you around a bit and have you show me the
country. I know it would be great under your guidance."

"Thank you," said Lynn coolly, "But I haven't much time for pleasuring
just now, and you will be wanting to go on your way--"

He flushed with annoyance. He was not accustomed to being baffled in
this way by any girl, but he had sense enough to know that only by
patience and humility could he win any notice from her.

"Oh, I shall want to linger a bit and let this doctor finish up this
ankle of mine. It isn't fair to go away to another doctor before I'm on
my feet again."

He thought she looked annoyed, but she did not answer.

"Did you ever ride in a racer?" he asked suddenly, "I'll teach you to
drive. Would you like that?"

"Thank you," she said pleasantly, "but that wouldn't be necessary, I
know how to drive."

He almost thought there was a twinkle of mischief in her eye:

"You know how to drive! But you haven't a car? Oh, I suppose that young
Carter taught you to drive his," he said with chagrin. He was growing
angry. He began to suspect her of playing with him. After all, even if
she was engaged to that chap, he had gone off with Opal quite willingly
it would appear. Why should he and she not have a little fling?

"No," said Marilyn, "Mr. Carter did not have a car until he went away
from Sabbath Valley. I learned while I was in college."

"Oh, you've been to college!" the young man sat up with interest, "I
thought there was something too sophisticated about you to have come
out of a place like this. You had a car while you were in college I
suppose.".

Lynn's eyes were dancing:

"Why didn't you say 'dump' like this? That's what your tone said," she
laughed, "and only a minute ago you were saying how charming it was.
No, I had no car in college, I was--" But he interrupted her eagerly:

"Now, you are misunderstanding me on purpose," he declared in a hurt
tone. "I think this is an ideal spot off in the hills this way, the
quaintest little Utopia in the world, but of course you know you
haven't the air of one who had never been out of the hills, and the
sweet sheltered atmosphere of this village. Tell me, when and where did
you drive a car, and I'll see if I can't give you one better for a joy
ride."

Lynn looked up placidly and smiled:

"In New York," she said quietly, "at the beginning of the war, and
afterward in France."

Laurie Shafton sat up excitedly, the color flushing into his handsome
face:

"Were you in France?" he said admiringly, "Well, I might have known. I
saw there was something different about you. Y. M., I suppose?"

"No," said Lynn, "Salvation Army. My father has been a friend of the
Commander's all his life. She knew, that we believed in all their
principles. There were only a very few outsiders, those whom they knew
well, allowed to go with them. I was one."

"Well," said Laurie, eyeing her almost embarrassedly, "You girls made a
great name for yourselves with your doughnuts and your pies. The only
thing I had against you was that you didn't treat us officers always
the way we ought to have been treated. But I suppose there were
individual exceptions. I went into a hut one night and tried to get
some cigarettes and they wouldn't let me have any."

"No, we didn't sell cigarettes," said Lynn with satisfaction, "That
wasn't what we were there for. We had a few for the wounded and dying
who were used to them and needed them of course, but we didn't sell
them."

"And then I tried to get some doughnuts and coffee, but would you
believe it, they wouldn't let me have any till all the fellows in line
had been served. They said I had to take my turn! They were quite
insulting about it! Of course they did good, but they ought to have
been made to understand that they couldn't treat United States Officers
that way!"

"Why not? Were you any better than any of the soldiers?" she asked
eyeing him calmly, and somehow he seemed to feel smaller than his
normal estimate of himself.

"An _officer?_" he said with a contemptuous haughty light in his
eye.

"What is an officer but the servant of his men?" asked Lynn. "Would you
_want_ to eat before them when they had stood hours in line
waiting? They who had all the hard work and none of the honors?"

Laurie's cheeks were flushed and his eyes angry:

"That's rot!" he said rudely, "Where did you get it? The officers were
picked from the cream of the land. They represent the great Nation. An
insult to them is an insult to the Nation--!"

Lynn began to smile impudently--and her eyes were dancing again.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Shafton, you must not forget I was there. I
knew both officers and men. I admit that some of the officers were
princely, fit men to represent a great Christian Nation, but some of
them again were well--the scum of the earth, rather than the cream. Mr.
Shafton it does not make a man better than his fellows to be an
officer, and it does not make him fit to be an officer just because his
father is able to buy him a commission."

Laurie flushed angrily again:

"My father did not buy me a commission!" he said indignantly, "I went
to a training camp and won it."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Shafton, I meant nothing personal, but I
certainly had no use for an officer who came bustling in on those long
lines of weary soul-sick boys just back from the front, and perhaps off
again that night, and tried to get ahead of them in line. However,
let's talk of something else. Were you ever up around Dead Man's Curve?
What division were you in?"

Laurie let his anger die out and answered her questions. For a few
minutes they held quite an animated conversation about France and the
various phases of the war. Laurie had been in air service. One could
see just how handsome he must have looked in his uniform. One would
know also that he would be brave and reckless. It was written all over
his face and in his very attitude. He showed her his "croix de guerre."

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