Treasured Brides Collection (7 page)

“What becomes of the message if it comes while you’re away?” he asked feverishly.

“Oh, it’ll be repeated,” she replied easily. “You c’n cumb back bime-by ’bout two o’clock er later, ‘n’ mebbe it’ll be here. I gotta lock up now.”

Lyman Gage dragged himself to his feet and looked dazedly about him; then he staggered out on the street.

The sun hit him in the eyes again in a way that made him sick, and the wind caught at his sleeves and ran down his collar gleefully. The girl shut the door with a click and turned the key, eyeing him doubtfully. He seemed to her very stupid for a soldier. If he had given her half a chance, she would have been friendly to him. She watched him drag down the street with an amused contempt, then turned to her belated lunch.

Lyman Gage walked on down the road a little way, and then began to feel as if he couldn’t stand the cold a second longer, though he knew he must. His heart was behaving strangely, seeming to be absent from his body for whole seconds at a time and then returning with leaps and bounds that almost suffocated him. He paused and looked around for a place to sit down, and finding none, dropped down on the frozen ground at the roadside. It occurred to him that he ought to go back now, while he was able, for he was fast getting where, from sheer weakness, he couldn’t walk.

He rested a moment and then stumbled up and back toward Little Silverton. Automobiles passed him, and he remembered thinking if he weren’t so sick and strange in his head, he would try to stand in the road and stop one and get them to carry him somewhere. He had often done that in France or even in this country during the war. But just now it seemed that he couldn’t do that, either. He had set out to prove to Mary Amber that he was a man and a soldier, and holding up automobiles wouldn’t be compatible with that idea. Then he realized that all this was crazy thinking, that Mary Amber had gone to thunder, and so had he, and it didn’t matter, anyway. All that mattered was for him to get that money and go back and pay Miss Marilla for taking care of him. And then for him to take the next train back to the city and get to a hospital. If he could only hold out long enough for that. But things were fast getting away from him. His head was hot and in a whirl, and his feet were so cold he thought they must be dead.

Without realizing it, he walked by the telegraph office and on down the road toward Purling Brook again.

The telegraph girl watched him from the window of the tiny bakery where she ate her lunch.

“There goes that poor boob now!” she said, with her mouthful of pie a la mode. “He gets my goat! I hope he doesn’t come back. He’ll never get no answer to that telegram he sent. People ain’t goin’ ‘round pickin’ up five hundred dollarses to send to broke soldiers these days. They got ‘um all in Liberty Bonds. Say, Jess, gimme one more o’ them chocolate éclairs, won’t you? I gotta get back.”

About that time, Lyman Gage had found a log by the wayside and sunk down permanently upon it. He had no more breath to carry him on, and no more ambition. If Mary Amber had gone to thunder, why should he care whether he got an answer to his telegram or not? She was only another girl, anyway.
Girl
. His enemy! And he sank into a blue stupor, with his elbows on his cold, cold knees and his face hidden in his hands. He had forgotten the shivers now. They had taken possession of him and made him one with them. It might be, after all, that he was too hot, and not too cold. And there was a strange, burning pain in his chest when he tried to breathe, so he wouldn’t breathe. What was the use?

M
iss Marilla tiptoed softly up the hall and listened at the door of the spare bedroom. It was time her soldier-boy woke up and had some dinner. She had a beautiful little treat for him today, chicken broth with rice, and some little bits of tender breast meat on toast, with a quivering spoonful of currant jelly.

It was very still in the spare room, so still that a falling coal from the grate of the Franklin heater made a hollow sound when it fell into the pan below. If the boy was asleep, she could usually tell by his regular breathing. But, though she listened with a keen ear, she could not hear it today. Perhaps he was awake, sitting up. She pushed the door open and looked in. Why! The bed was empty. She glanced around the room, and
it was empty too
.

She passed her hand across her eyes as if they had deceived her and went over to look at the bed. Surely he must be there somewhere. And then she saw the note.

Her eyes were too blurred with quick tears and apprehension to read any further.
Mother!
He had called her that. She could never feel quite alone in the world again. But where was he? She took the corner of her white apron and wiped the tears away vigorously to finish the note. Then, without pausing to think, and even in the midst of her great grasp of apprehension, she turned swiftly and went downstairs, out the front door, across the frozen lawn, and through the hedge to Mary Amber’s house.

“Mary! Mary Amber!” she called as she panted up the steps, the note grasped tightly in her trembling hand. She hoped, oh, she hoped Mary Amber’s mother would not come to the door and ask questions. Mary’s mother was so sensible, and Miss Marilla always felt as if Mrs. Amber disapproved of her, just a little, whenever she was doing anything for anybody. Not that Mary Amber’s mother was not kind herself to people, but she was always so very sensible in her kindness and did things in the regular way and wasn’t impulsive like Miss Marilla.

But Mary Amber herself came to the door, with pleasant forgetfulness of her old friend’s recent coolness, and tried to draw her into the hall. This Miss Marilla firmly declined, however. She threw her apron over her head and shoulders as a concession to Mary’s fears for her health, and broke out, “Oh, don’t talk about me, Mary. Talk about
him
. He’s gone! I thought he was asleep, and I went up to see if he was ready for his dinner, and he’s
gone
! And he’s sick, Mary. He’s not able to stand up. Why, he’s had a fever. It was a hundred and three for two days and only got down to below normal this morning for the first time. He isn’t fit to be out, either, and that little thin uniform with no overcoat!”

The tears were streaming down Miss Marilla’s sweet Dresden china face, and Mary Amber’s heart was touched in spite of herself.

She came and put her arm around Miss Marilla’s shoulder and drew her down the steps and over to her own home, closing the door carefully first, so her mother needn’t be troubled about it. Mary Amber always had tact when she wanted to use it.

“Where was he going, dear?” she asked sympathetically, with a view to making out a good case for the soldier without Miss Marilla’s bothering further about him.

“I—do–don’t know,” sobbed Miss Marilla. “He just thought he ought not to stay and bother me. Here! See his note.”

“Well, I’m glad he had some sense,” said Mary Amber with satisfaction. “He was perfectly right about not staying to bother you.” She took the little crumpled note and smoothed it out.

“Oh my dear, you don’t understand”—sobbed Miss Marilla. “He’s been such a good, dear boy, and so ashamed he had troubled me. And really, Mary, he’ll not be able to stand it. Why, you ought to see how little clothes he had. So thin, and cotton underwear. I washed them and mended them, but he ought to have had an overcoat.”

“Oh well, he’ll go to the city and get something warm, and go to a hospital if he falls sick,” said Mary Amber comfortably. “I wouldn’t worry about him. He’s a soldier. He’s stood lots worse things than a little cold. He’ll look out for himself.”

“Don’t!” said Miss Marilla fiercely. “Don’t say that, Mary. You don’t understand. He is
sick
, and he’s all the soldier-boy I’ve got. And I’ve
got
to go after him. He can’t be gone very far, and he really isn’t able to walk. He’s weak. I just can’t stand it to have him go this way.”

Mary Amber looked at her with a curious light in her eyes.

“And yet, Auntie Rill, you know it was fine of him to do it,” she said, with a dancing dimple in the corner of her mouth. “Well, I see what you want. And, much as I hate to, I’ll take my car and scour the country for him. What time did you say he left?”

“Oh Mary Amber.” Miss Marilla smiled through her tears. “You’re a good girl. I knew you’d help me. I’m sure you can find him if you try. He can’t have been gone over an hour, not much, for I’ve only fixed the chicken and put my bread in the pans since I left him.”

“I suppose he went back to the village, but there hasn’t been any train since ten, and you say he was still there at ten. He’s likely waiting at the station for the twelve o’clock. I’ll speed up and get there before it comes. I have fifteen minutes. I”—glancing at her wristwatch—“I guess I can make it.”

“I’m not so sure he went that way,” said Miss Marilla, looking up the road past Mary Amber’s house. “He was on his way up that way when—” And then Miss Marilla suddenly shut her mouth and did not finish the sentence. Mary Amber gave her another curious, discerning look and nodded brightly.

“You go in and get warm, Auntie Rill. Leave that soldier to me. I’ll bring him home.” Then she sped back through the hedge to the little garage, and in a few minutes was speeding down the road toward the station. Miss Marilla watched her in troubled silence, and then, putting on her cape that always hung handy by the hall door, walked a little distance up the road, straining her old eyes but seeing nothing. Finally, in despair, she turned back, and presently, just as she reached her own steps again, she saw Mary’s car come flying back with only Mary in it. But Mary did not stop nor even look toward the house. She sped on up the road this time, and the purring of the engine was sweet music to Miss Marilla’s ears. Dear Mary Amber, how she loved her.

The big blue soldier, cold to the soul of him and full of pain that reminded him of the long horror of the war, was still sitting by the roadside with his head in his hands when Mary Amber’s car came flying down the road. She stopped before him with a little triumphant
purr
of the engine, so close to him that it roused him from his lethargy to look up.

“I should think you’d be ashamed of yourself, running away from Miss Marilla like this and making her worry herself sick!” Mary Amber’s voice was keen as icicles, and the words went through him like red-hot needles. He straightened up, and the light of battle came back to his eyes. This was
Girl
again, his enemy. His firm upper lip moved sensitively, and came down straight and strong against the lower one, showing the nice line of character that made his mouth beautiful.

“Thank you,” he said coldly. “I’m only ashamed that I stayed so long.” His tone further added that he did not know what business of hers it was.

“Well, she sent me for you. And you’ll please to get in quickly, for she’s very much worked up about you.”

Mary Amber’s tone stated that she herself was not in the least worked up about a great, hulking soldier that would let a woman wait on him for several days hand and foot and then run away when her back was turned.

“Kindly tell her that I am sorry I troubled her but that it is not possible for me to return at present,” he answered stiffly. “I came down to send a business telegram, and I am waiting for an answer.”

A sudden shiver seized him and rippled involuntarily over his big frame. Mary Amber was eyeing him contemptuously, but a light of pity stole into her eyes as she saw him shiver.

“You are cold!” said Mary Amber, as if she were charging him with an offense.

“Well, that’s not strange—is it—on a day like this? I haven’t made connections yet with an overcoat and gloves, that’s all.”

“Look here, if you are cold, you’ve simply got to get into this car and let me take you back to Miss Marilla. You’ll catch your death of cold sitting there like that.”

“Well, I may be cold, but I don’t
have
to let you take me anywhere. When I get ready to go, I’ll walk. As for catching my death of cold, that’s strictly my own affair. There’s nobody in the world would care if I did.”

The soldier had blue lights like steel in his eyes, and his mouth looked very soldierlike indeed. His whole manner showed there wasn’t the least use in the world trying to argue with him.

Mary Amber eyed him with increasing interest and thoughtfulness.

“You’re mistaken,” she said grudgingly. “There’s one. There’s Miss Marilla. She’d break her heart. She’s like that, and she hasn’t much to care for in the world, either. Which makes it all the worse what you’ve done. Oh, I don’t see how you
could
deceive her.”

“Deceive her?” said the astonished soldier. “I never deceived her.”

“Why, you let her think you were Dick Chadwick, her nephew, and you
know
you’re not!
I
knew you weren’t the minute I saw you, even before I found Dick’s telegram in the stove saying he couldn’t come. And then I asked you a lot of questions to find out for sure, and you couldn’t answer one of them right.” Her eyes were sparkling, and there was an eager look in her face, like an appeal, almost as if she wanted him to prove what she was saying was not true.