The Red Signal (Grace Livingston Hill Book) (25 page)

Hilda, kneeling beside her funeral pyre, was feeding it with pamphlets on peace, slowly, painfully, fearing lest her fire would go out before it had caught the woodwork and made blaze enough to be seen. She had promised to give a signal if she could. This was her signal. But the men had all gone after the airman. There was no one left to see it and discover her plight. She must trust herself to God. Whatever He wanted for her was best, only not those Schwarzes. “Please, God, dear God, don't leave me to them!”

An angry blow came thundering upon the door, with curses in Schwarz's old familiar style. Hilda stood up, her hand fluttering to her heart, and looked toward the door with wide, frightened eyes. The second blow split the upper panel in a long, slanting crack. She turned shuddering toward her fire. Better fire than those fiends. And then, with sudden alarm, she realized for the first time what a thing she had done in starting this great power of fire in her defense. How the flames in that brief moment when her back was turned had licked their way up through the mattress and caught the shade and the window-frame and the paper on the wall. The whole corner of the room seemed suddenly bathed in flame. Horrified, dazed with the heat, she retreated toward the other window, and, catching up the bed slat that lay on the floor, she dashed it through the glass of the other window, pane after pane, crashing through the framework with an almost superhuman strength. In a moment more she had a wide opening, and the cold air leaping in from outside sent the blaze roaring harder than ever. It helped to drown the noise at her door. With a sudden thought she caught at the water pitcher on the washstand. It was half full of water. She wet her handkerchief in it and then caught up a sheet that hail dropped on the floor when she dragged away the mattress and soaked that. The upper panel of the door crashed in as she reached the window and climbed upon the sill. She turned frightened eyes and caught a glimpse of faces, wondering, angry, startled. Then a wave of smoke caught the draft from the hall and swept over them.

Shuddering, she turned her face toward the street and crept up on her knees on the window sill, with one dizzy glance down to the pavement. It looked as far as from earth to heaven.

Then, wild and clear there rose the cry of fire. A whistle screamed. Bells began to ring. They were coming! The blessed fire engines were coming! Oh, if she could make them hear, before the door gave way. It was very thick and wonderful, that wood. It did not break quickly with their blows. She could hear them tearing with their hands and trying to make a hole large enough for Schwarz to get through, for the American had declined to go. The smoke was troubling them. They could not see into the room for the fire was spreading toward the door. It had caught the corner of the wooden mantel, and one of the boxes was blazing. The carpet gave an ugly smudge that was stifling, and the smoke was pouring thick through the room. Up in the window where Hilda had limbed the flames were hottest of all. She reached for the sheet and wrapped it round her and put the wet handkerchief over her nose and mouth. As soon as they broke that door through she meant to swing out on the narrow window sill and be ready to drop if Schwarz laid a finger on her. Better the pavement below than his rescue!

The engines were clattering now; they were come, in flaring red paint and a gong, with a crowd following. She was alone no longer. They were all come, and were seeing her, and God and she stood up here together.

They were putting up a ladder now over the blazing, tottering way. They had seen her and were going to try to save her, but it was too late; the fire was almost upon her. She could feel its hot breath on her cheek. It had cast a wall of flames between her and Schwarz. Its kind, protecting arms were reaching out and crisping up the floor between them, so that he could not walk to her. Kind, safe fire! It would all be over in a minute now. She could hear the voices in the hall bushed and fearful, “Quick! Over the back fence! Let me pass!” They went tumbling heavily down the stairs. Her soul laughed aloud in her triumph. The fire had conquered. Her signal had saved the day. What a pity the Schwarzes could not be caught, too. If only she could make the people hear above the din! Just one minute more to tell them! She thought of the soldier over in France. Perhaps he, too, was facing death. But be would not do his work half way. She must finish! She must tell them somehow before her captors got away!

She leaned far out over the window sill, pulling the handkerchief away from her face, swaying dizzily, and called in a clear voice that somehow made itself heard above the engines and the noise and the hissing of the water as it fell among the flames:

“They are getting away! The back fence! Quick!” she called, and “Go and catch them! They are all spies! The back fence! They have gone!”

Some of her words must have reached the people below for men dashed around to the alleyway. The flames and smoke were blinding her now. She did not see the car that came rushing up behind the fire engines, nor the young soldier who sprang past the guard in spite of detaining hands and dashed up the ladder toward her. She had closed her eyes and pulled the wet handkerchief over her face again. She was sick with the heat and the smoke. It wouldn't be long now, no, it wouldn't be long! Was she falling? Or were those arms that held her? Strong arms! God's arms! Yes, that was it! “Underneath are the everlasting arms!” She had known those words many years, but, oh, it was good to feel what it meant now. And this must be dying!

WHEN she awoke she was in her own lovely blue and white room, with a wonderful smell of roses everywhere, roses that grew in the winter under glass and brought their perfume from the gardens of the great. She gazed at them, smiling at her everywhere. They seemed to have appeared so mysteriously in place of the smoke and flames, and among them on her dressing-table stood the picture, his picture, that she had been going to hurry home and put away before mother should notice. Strange! Hadn't she been through all that awful experience at all? Had she only dreamed it after a wakeful night of fretting over that strange girl who seemed to be so intimate with the Stevenses? But no, her head and face were swathed in bandages and her hands were wrapped up, too. When she tried to move everything felt stiff and sore. This could not be heaven as she had at first supposed. People did not wear sore bodies in heaven. But it was good to be here. The quiet and safety, the perfume and the picture. Yes, the picture! She was too tired yet to contend with that picture. It smiled at her reassuringly. And, after all, it was hers. He had given it to her! So much of his friendship at least belonged to her! Why worry about it now? She closed her eyes wearily again and drifted away to sleep. When she awoke the next time it was all there, clearer and more defined, the picture was there and the roses. Her mother opened the door gently and looked at her. “Are you awake at last, darling?”

There was something strange in her tone, as one speaks to one newly arisen from the dead, a kind of awe mingled with the love. Hilda tried to smile, but only her eyes accomplished it.

“Yes, mother dear, I'm going to get up in a minute. Is it very late? I don't believe I'll go to the university to-day, I feel a little tired.” Her voice trailed off weakly.

“No, dear, you won't go to the university for a day or two, at least. You're going to lie still and rest for ever so long till you feel like getting up.”

“But I must get up!” she stirred uneasily. “There's something I must find out—”

“No, dear! You needn't worry about anything. Mr. Stevens will tell you all you want to know when he comes back. He's very anxious to see you as soon as you are able. You were very brave, and everything is all right. Now go to sleep, and when you wake up again I will phone him. He has gone to lie down. He isn't very strong himself, and carrying you down the ladder was a heavy strain.”

“Did he bring me down?” she asked wonderingly. “I didn't know I came down. I thought I was going to stay up there.”

“There, dear! Go to sleep!” Her mother drew the shade down a little lower and slipped away, closing the door. Hilda opened her eyes again and saw the picture smiling at her, and drifted off to sleep with the thought in her mind that she must ask her mother to put away that picture before Mr. Stevens came. He would think it presumptuous in her to have his son's picture in her room. But why had her mother said that he wasn't very strong yet himself? Had he been sick? She hadn't heard about it.

When she woke again, the picture had come alive and was sitting in the blue velvet chair by her bed with one of its hands in a bandage. She looked at him in bewilderment, and then back to the picture on the dressing-table, and wondered if she were still in the strange, dazed land between two worlds where everything was queer. Then he spoke softly in a joyous, hungry voice:

“Aren't you ever going to wake up and speak to me dear?” The last word was breathed rather than spoken. When she thought of it afterwards she wasn't sure that she had heard it at all.

“Is it really you?” she asked bewildered, “or am I dreaming? I thought you were in France!”

“It is really me!” he said smiling. “Didn't you know me last night, dear?”

“Last night! Was it you? But I thought mother said it was your father. Then you carried me down the ladder! Oh! And you are wounded! Your hand is all bandaged!”

“Not wounded. Only a trifle scorched. You gave me a pretty warm welcome, you know.” “You saved me, and got burned!” she breathed tremblingly. “Oh, how can I ever repay you?”

“By marrying me just as soon as you are able,” he said, smiling audaciously. “I'm just about sick of this half-way business. I want the right to take care of you. If I have to go back to France again soon I want to fix things so you can't get kidnapped again, or go around doing Secret Service work for the country any more. I want you to understand that you have served your term. You shall receive a Croix de Guerre or its equivalent and be honorably discharged from the service. You certainly have done your bit several times over, and I'm not going to run any more risks with you. You are far too precious to me. Why that trip I took from our house down in the car to find you was ages long. It almost turned my hair gray. I knew then that if I found you I'd keep you safe where no Schwarz or German spy could come near you again.”

“Oh!” said Hilda in a sweet little scared voice from out her bandages. “Did they catch the airman and Schwarz?”

“Caught the whole bunch of them! Rounded up the airman down by the river just taking to a boat be had hid in the bushes. I believe they caught the Schwarzes trying to climb the back fence. They've got the gang shut up safe and sure, waiting for you to get well enough to identify them before they go into seclusion out at some fort or other in the west, where they will be forcibly prevented from doing any more harm this session. Now, I'd like an answer to my question. I told you that I loved you. Will you marry me?”

For answer Hilda raised her eyes and gave him one long, troubled look.

“Who is Gertrude Gilchrist?” she asked irrelevantly.

“She's a little silly-headed fool that is always trailing around trying to take on notice. She's dogged my steps ever since I got my commission. She's uniform-crazy. What on earth has she got to do with the subject? Has she been nosing in on this combination? She's a nut! She's a mess! What have we got to do with her?”

“She called Mrs. Stevens ‘mother,’” said Hilda in a. troubled voice, “and she spoke as if she corresponded with you.”

“She did, did she?” said the young man, noting with satisfaction the changing color on as much of Hilda’s face as was visible. “Well, she does; she writes me loads of invitations which I never answer, and sends me postcards with her picture in fancy costumes that she has worn at a play for some war benefit, and I put them in the waste basket! Do you know what mother and I call her? The vampire—' vamp ' for short. Oh, you peach blossom! Oh, you darling! Did you care? It's the first good turn she ever did me in her life, if you care! And now, answer my question—Will you marry me right away?”

The bandaged head shook a decided negative:

“Not till I've had an education.”

“Education be hanged! Haven't I got education enough for us both? Did you think I wanted to marry a schoolmarm? No, of course, I didn't mean that. You shall study as much as you want to —after we are married. We'll study together! Why wait for an education?”

“Because I'm not in the least fit to be your wife now. I've got to be somewhere near your equal, in knowledge, at least, before I could think of it. I'll see what I turn out to be. I'm not going to have your friends despising me and pitying you!”

Daniel Stevens threw his head back and laughed.

“Are you judging my friends by that little feather-brained idot? I’ll warrant you had more real knowledge when you were five years old than Trudie will ever have. The only school she ever finished was dancing school, and she couldn't jump on a train when it was going nor light any kind of a fire even in a fireplace if her life depended on it. She's a poor little fool! Talk about being my equal! There's only one thing I'm not dead certain you're not my superior in, and that's in loving me as I love you. Of course, there's no comparison between the two things, for look how wonderful you are, and what am I that you should love me? But say—do you think you could —just a little to begin on?”

He was bending anxiously over her now, his eloquent eyes pleading, his voice rich and tender with emotion.

“Could you—darling?”

With a swift beautiful motion of claiming their own, Hilda's bandaged hands went round his neck and drew his face down close to her lips. But what she whispered only those two heard.

Grace Livingston Hill was the foremost trailblazer of Christian Romance novels. She almost single-handedly built the platform for today’s Christian Romance genre almost 130 years ago. Despite the passage of time and all of the changes that come with it, her novels endure and are read and loved by women everywhere. Her stories were filled with tales of good vs. evil and Christian redemption and almost always worked in a classic romantic relationship. Not only was she an influential Christian author, though, she was a person of great integrity, kindness and charity. She spent her life trying to help others both through her work as a writer and through her work with the Presbyterian Church. Until the day she died, she never stopped caring for people, always putting others ahead of herself.