The Red Signal (Grace Livingston Hill Book) (20 page)

Her companion turned wondering eyes upon her.

“I was just thinking, Mrs. Stevens, how astonished Mrs. Schwarz would be if she could see me now!” she said with. a little ripple of laughter.

“Dear child!” said the older woman. “I hope she will never see you again!” and she put out a protecting hand to touch the girl.

Hilda turned to her with a quick, loving glance.

“And how good you were to me that night in Washington, taking me to that lovely hotel when I looked such a fright! Oh! You must have been so ashamed of me!”

“My dear!” said the woman gently. “You wore a lovely soul in your eyes. What did anything else matter? Besides, you're mistaken about your looks that night. You had had a hard trip, of course, and were a bit mussed, but the first thing I noticed about you was the pretty contour of the little cap you improvised so cleverly. Your dress was neat and simple and fitted well. There was nothing noticeably out of place about you anywhere, so put that out of your mind forever. Now, tell me what are your plans for the winter? If I am not mistaken it is almost time for you to register at the university if you expect to be a student there this year.”

The journey was all too brief for the delightful plans they had to talk about, and when they reached Philadelphia, there was the big car waiting with her mother inside, and Karl sitting with the chauffeur in front. The winter looked very bright to Hilda as she watched the lights of the city whirl by and realized that this was to be her new home. 

HILDA entered into her studies at the university with a zest that not many students could equal.

“Just to think, mother, how dreadful everything was last spring when I graduated from high school, and didn't see any way to go to normal. And now I'm in college! I never dreamed of college! Everything has been so wonderful. It was worth going through that experience at Schwarz's just to have all this, wasn't it? I suppose that's the way all troubles will look when we get to heaven, don't you?”

“I don't know,” said her mother with a wistful smile. “I haven't been able yet to think of that truck farm for you without a shudder. I'm glad you can look at it that way; but I keep thinking of a lot of awful things that might have happened. I certainly am thankful and glad that I have you here safe and sound. I'm glad you are back from Washington, too, although I wanted you to have that beautiful time there with Mrs. Stevens, and it was wonderful of her to do what she did; but I kept thinking that perhaps those dreadful men were lurking around somewhere watching for you. It seems to me now as if I was crazy to have allowed you to go off by yourself just because your Uncle Otto said there was no other way. I'm sure there were a thousand other ways if I had bestirred myself; but I was just paralyzed for the time with the thought that the house and the money and everything were gone.”

“I know, mother, you weren't to blame. There wasn't any other way then, either. There just wasn't. But I've wondered sometimes why Uncle Otto thought it would do. He knew father never would have allowed us to go to such places—or at least I don't think he would. Would be have, mother?”

She searched her mother's averted face anxiously. Somehow her experiences of the last few weeks had opened her eyes and awakened many questions that had never troubled her before.

“Your father was a very busy man, Hilda,” evaded her mother. “He let me do a great deal as I pleased—that is, with my own,” she added thoughtfully. “You know I had quite a little money of my own when I was married.”

Hilda eyed her with new interest, “You had? Then what became of it?”

“I don't quite know,” answered her mother with a troubled look. “I allowed your father to put it in his business at one time, but he said he had paid it all back and it was in a separate account. Just a few days before he died he said he was going to bring me all the papers. I had put it in the business on that condition, for I had heard of so many people doing that and then being left penniless when something happened. I didn't want you and Karl to be left this way. I wanted to keep my money for you. He told me that the papers were all down in the safe and he would bring them up the next day. But the next day he forgot, and then the next he was gone! Your Uncle Otto says he doesn't know anything about it. He says the money was never put in the business and that there was some mistake. He thinks your father used it for a private speculation and didn't want me to know.”

“Would father have done that, mother?” asked Hilda in a low, troubled voice.

Her mother turned hastily away and wiped two tears from her eyes.

“I don't know, Hilda!” she said quietly a minute afterward. “Your father was reserved about most things, and sometimes a little overbearing. You know that yourself. But I thought—he was perfectly honest----”

“Well, I think it's Uncle Otto!” declared the girl decidedly, “and I think I'm done with him. Mother, he must have known what those Schwarzes were when he sent me there; or else he didn't know, and he told a lie when he said they were his friends. Mother, have you ever thought that perhaps Uncle Otto is interested in the German Government? He couldn't be a ----”

“A spy, you mean? Child! I hope not! Oh, if I thought we were disgraced in that way in our own country, the country my father loved, and my grandfather died for!”

“Well, there, mother! Uncle Otto is nothing to us. If he's a spy, we'll change our names and take your maiden name. We'll show the Government that we are not spies, anyway. And come, smooth out your face and smile, mother, dear! What's money, anyway! We've got enough now to start on and when I get through college and can go to work I'll show Uncle Otto somehow what a big mistake he made. Until then—goodby, Uncle Otto!” and she kissed her pink finger tips and blew a fluted greeting to an imaginary uncle in the distance.

The Lessings were located most delightfully in a charming little apartment but three blocks away from the Stevens mansion. Mrs. Stevens had been vigilant in securing it and in helping to make it delightful, insisting upon lending a lot of old mahogany furniture and pretty rugs and other things which she said were only in the way and would have to be stored unless they took care of them for the winter; and then as a last touch that they could not well resist, she asked the privilege of furnishing Hilda's room herself with some of the things she would have given a daughter of her own if she had one. She was always harking back to how Hilda saved her son's life, until Hilda told her she had paid her many times over for the little she did toward it, and he had done far more for her. But still she would not be denied. So the crowning beauty of the little seven-rooms-and-a-bath was the room that, Hilda had chosen. The furniture was ivory white with simple lines and wide low curves in bed and chair and dressing table. The floor was covered with a huge Chinese rug in blue and tawny yellow, how costly Hilda could only guess. Its blue was repeated in the velvet of a big soft couch, and a cozy round fat chair, in the soft silk of the inner curtains, the fringed candle shades on her dressing table, and in the blue and white satin eider-down that puffed at the foot of the bed. The brushes and toilet articles were all silver backed and monogrammed, and there was a wonderful white bookcase filled with beautifully bound books, and a darling white desk with all sorts of mysterious drawers and cubby holes and a lot of desk paraphernalia in blue leather. On the walls were two or three fine pictures, and when Hilda saw it for the first time after it was finished she felt like a queen with a palace all new made for her.

It was a beautiful winter from beginning to end, except for the anxiety that filled the air everywhere on account of thee war. Mrs. Lessing was interested in her work, and gradually the worn, tired lines were smoothing away from her sweet face and giving way to calm. Hilda was immersed in her studies, satisfied with nothing but perfection in her preparation for classes, delighted with her explorations into the world of literature and science, happy in her home, and shyly thrilled with the letters that came to her from over the seas. It was her recreation to sit by the lovely white desk under the light of the blue shaded candles and write long, wise, bright answers to them; and the thickness and frequency of his letters showed that hers were appreciated by the young soldier at the front.

For he was at the front, that was the worst of it—and the glory of it, too. That was why each letter brought a breathless moment of fear before it was opened and read, lest some terrible thing had happened to him. That was why the days when the letters came were so full of song and uplift because he was still all right. Just friends, grand good friends, Hilda told herself they were, nor let herself question her heart any further.

Mrs. Stevens had been lovely to them. In. addition to helping them get settled in their new apartment she interested herself in putting Karl in school, and seeing that Hilda entered the university under the very best possible conditions. She often sent the car around for their use, and came herself for a few minutes as if they were old family friends, quite informally, although Hilda knew from the few days spent in the Stevens home before they found the right apartment that Mrs. Stevens was a woman of great consequence in the city. Her time was more than full and her friends were many. The demands upon her were unceasing. There were clubs and Red Cross and Emergency Aid and numerous other organizations, religious, civic and social, that claimed her constantly. The rich and great came to her and begged for a share in her interest. Yet she had always time for her home and the friends who were near her heart. That she had chosen to make Hilda and her mother of that charmed circle of inner friends was a constant joy and wonderment to Hilda. Often and often she reflected how much the mother and son were alike in this respect; and it never once occurred to her that the charm was in her own lovely natural self and in her sweet mother. She laid it to their goodness of heart that they were so kind to quiet, shy people far beneath their station socially.

As the winter progressed, more and more Mrs. Stevens seemed drawn to Hilda and her mother. She planned to take them to lectures and to great concerts. They had a standing invitation to attend the Saturday evening orchestra concerts, and here a new world of enjoyment opened up to Hilda which lifted her to the seventh heaven of delight. She felt when one of those concerts was over as if she must fling herself down at the feet of God and thank Him for having made melody in the world.

It was not a gay season, of course, on account of the war, but there were many little gatherings, quiet and for a purpose, where a cup of tea and a knitting bag were the only excitement—sometimes, as sugar grew scarce, even without the cup of tea. To these Hilda and her mother were often bidden; and as often as their other engagements permitted they went. Mrs. Lessing, to her surprise, forgot her almost painful embarrassment at the thought of going into this kind of society and found congenial acquaintances. She held her own, too, in the conversations, and often her quiet, wise remarks caused the other women to defer to her on questions that perplexed them. Mrs. Stevens reflected that there was nothing of which to be ashamed in the mother of the girl her son admired.

They were keeping house in their tiny apartment, and enjoying it immensely. They had found a woman nearby who would come in to cook the dinners at night and clean up once a week. Karl bought his lunch at the school, where a hot meal was served every day for a small sum, and there really was little else to be done. Hilda was almost ideally happy. She could scarcely believe she was the same girl who had gone to Plate’s Crossing to do housework only a few short months before. As she went cheerily about the little white-tiled kitchen of the apartment washing out her dish towels on the nights when the hired woman could not stay to finish, her heart would be just bursting into song to remember those awful days at the truck farm while she worked under the cruel lash of Mrs. Schwarz. How strange and far away and tragic it all seemed, as if it had happened to somebody else. Strange how those Schwarzes had disappeared! Maybe they got on a submarine somehow and went over to Germany. That certainly was where they belonged, not in free, beautiful America!

Then came a sad and anxious time when a big drive was on in France and no letters came from the wanderer. Mrs. Stevens called up or ran in daily to see if Hilda had had any word, and tried to keep a brave, smiling face; but Hilda could see that she was anxious. It was then that Hilda went to her room and, dropping upon her knees beside the white bed, prayed with all her heart, sobbing as she prayed, that her dear friend, her brave soldier boy, might be kept safe from harm. Quite often she brought out her little Bible and read, searching for comfort through the promises of God.

“The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him and delivereth them,” she read over and over again, catching at it gladly with her spirit in her eyes. Surely that was for him. He feared God and loved Him. Only in his last letter he had said how when he was going out to battle there was always the great thought that very soon be might be facing God. He had written much of how different life looked from the point of view of the battlefield; how small things fell away and there remained only the great things, like right and wrong, sin and forgiveness, and the love of God. He had said that the dear people at home seemed like a strong rock on which he was leaning, and that he knew they were praying for him, and that helped. Again and again she read that letter over and then knelt and poured out her young soul in agony and strength for him, as if she would take hold of God with all her might and force Him to attend to her plea brought in the words of His own promise. Day after day she prayed and read His promises, and day after day went by without word.

All the power of the father, who was a great man in the world of men with much influence at headquarters, was brought to bear upon the matter. Anxious cablegrams slipped through the great waters to the other side, and still no satisfactory answer. All was confusion and congestion in the Department of intelligence. The battle was still raging, had been for days, and the lists of wounded and missing were not accurate as yet. So the days went by and Hilda came and went about her duties, with a great wistful look in her eyes and a heavy burden upon her heart. The boy's mother went feverishly about her many duties and worked all the harder, a smile upon her face that almost had the light of other worlds in it, so strong it seemed, and self-forgetful. Yet those who knew her best saw the strained look about her lips, the eager alertness in her eyes, the quick attention when anyone called or the phone rang or a telegram came. Some women would have taken refuge behind drawn curtains and wept. Not so Mrs. Stevens. She was of old, brave fighting stock. She knew her part and did it. The little gatherings for aid to the Belgians and French, for knitting and bandages and all sorts of succor, became only more frequent, and everywhere she was the moving spirit. She seemed anxious also to keep Hilda with her, and often when the girl really could not spare the time to be present at some one of these gatherings, she went because Mrs. Stevens almost insisted she should go.