Substitute Guest

by Grace Livingston Hill

  Then out from beneath the heap of snow-covered arms and legs and heads a mittened hand feebly waved a lit flashlight until it slipped down rolling crazily to loll on the floor, and a voice, weak but still undaunted, cried huskily, “We made it, folks! MER-RY CHRIST-MUS!”

  “Yes,” said Mother Devereaux as she rushed to kneel at her boy’s side, “I knew you would! I’ve got nice hot barley soup and coffee all ready for you.”

  “Good work!” said Lance feebly, and then faded right out of the picture.

  Chapter 7

  They lifted the tall figure of the stranger and put him in Father’s big chair, and they laid Lance on the dining room couch, and then hurried to minister to them. For having arrived the two seemed incapable of anything else. The heat of the room in their benumbed condition seemed to take away further ability to move or speak. Once Alan roused to explain in a weary tone, “He fell and hurt his ankle….” But his voice trailed off vaguely again as if he had suddenly fallen asleep in the middle of the thought.

  Father Devereaux brought pails and a tub of snow from the sheltered back porch. The girls rushed for warm blankets and aromatic ammonia, and then all hands went to work pulling off the frozen garments from the numb bodies, rubbing frosted cheeks and feet and hands with snow, applying restoratives at Mother Devereaux’s directions, bringing warm woolen garments, until presently the two pilgrims were thawed out and able to talk.

  They told their story briefly between sips of hot soup. They were being fed by the two girls while Mother hurried the meal on the table that had been prepared just in the nick of time.

  “You see,” said Lance from his couch where his father was still rubbing his stiff hands and feet, “they loaned us some snowshoes and we got tangled with those when it came to the trail down the mountain. When we tried to kick them off and go on without them we found they were frozen to us, at least we couldn’t undo the buckles with ice on the fingers of our gloves, so we decided to skirt the woods and come down by way of the fields, but that didn’t work either. Our guide rope caught on the last tree we had fastened it to and broke. We couldn’t find the trail so we somehow lost our bearings and went wandering over the country until we reached a creek. It didn’t seem to be our creek, for it certainly didn’t look familiar to me, and I didn’t know whether we were going up or down it, so that didn’t help much. Once we saw a bright light high up on the mountain but couldn’t tell whether it was the house we’d come from or another away across the valley. So there we were. How we came home or whether we are really home now or not we don’t know. It may turn out to be just a dream, and maybe we are really still lying in a snowbank with the sleet in our faces, but if it is, it’s a mighty nice dream!”

  “Yes,” said Mother Devereaux gently, “I thought it would be about like that, and I was praying for you. I asked God to guide you both home safely.”

  “Yes,” said Lance happily. “I knew that! I told Alan once when we got close enough together to hear each other and were resting a minute before we went on—that was after I turned my ankle and couldn’t walk so well and Alan had to sort of carry me—I said, ‘Don’t give up, pard! Mother’s down in the corner of the dining room this minute praying us through. We’ll get there yet!’”

  Alan looked up with a sudden light in his eyes.

  “I appreciate those prayers, Mrs. Devereaux,” he said. “I’m sure we couldn’t have got through alone.”

  Mother Devereaux smiled lovingly at the stranger and patted his hand as she went by with the dish of crackly roasted potatoes.

  “Yes, but Mother, you don’t know the half yet,” said Lance, suddenly eager in his enthusiasm. “You don’t know what a man I had with me. Why, Mother, after I stepped in that hole and turned my ankle I thought it was all up with me. I knew no one could reasonably find us before morning even if they sent out search parties in that storm, and by morning I was sure we would be frozen dead. Alan here had been all in for a long time, and I didn’t see how he was ever going to make it, not being used to the mountain the way I am, and then when I found I couldn’t walk alone, what did he do but just pick me up and sling me over his shoulder and struggle on. He didn’t know where he was going, and I couldn’t see to tell him. And I’m no sack of feathers to carry, you know, but he just kept on as if he had new strength. I don’t know how he ever thought he was going to find the way, but he would keep on. He wouldn’t leave me behind, and he wouldn’t take my suggestion of digging a snow hut and crawling in. He just plugged away, and somehow we got here.”

  “Well.” Alan grinned. “I figured that if we kept on long enough we’d surely come to something somewhere, and I didn’t want to go alone. I felt if you had courage to go out in that storm with a stranger up that awful mountain, that I surely ought to hold out to get you home!”

  Ruth looked up from her post beside Lance’s couch where she was feeding spoonfuls of soup as often as he would stop talking long enough to take one, and thought what nice eyes the stranger had, and Daryl murmured as she offered another mouthful of soup to Alan, “I shall never be able to thank you enough for saving my brother!”

  Alan looked up and caught the gratitude in those lovely eyes and was startled at their beauty. Suddenly it seemed a wonderful thing to be sitting there in the old-fashioned armchair with that comfortable sense of warmth and well-being stealing over him, and that lovely girl ministering to him. It seemed to his weary senses that it was worth all the toil and hardship and cold and terror through which he had passed.

  And now the meal was on the table, and the two young men declared they were able to sit up and act like men. But it was on very shaky limbs that they moved to their places.

  Again Alan experienced that feeling of awe as the old man bowed his head and spoke to God.

  “Lord, we cannot thank Thee enough for bringing our two boys back safely to us. We rejoice that Thou art a prayer-hearing and a prayer-answering God, and that Thou hast heard and answered us tonight. Bless this food to their needs and make us fit for Thy service. Amen.”

  It warmed Alan’s heart that he should be included in the thanksgiving. “Our two boys!” As if he belonged, too! And he suddenly wished that he really did! What a circle to be in by right! It must be something like his mother’s family whom he had never known. And then a sudden memory of the house party to which he was due that night came to mind, and his soul revolted at the thought. What a contrast it would be. Drinking and dancing and unholy riotous music! How had he ever thought he could go among them? Just for the doubtful companionship of one girl, whom he wondered if he really admired anyway. Somehow the stern realities of life and death as he had faced them all those hours out there in the storm had given him a new sense of values that he felt he never would forget! Values that he did not want to forget! This home, even the brief glimpse he had had, showed that there was still beauty and love and good fellowship left upon the earth, still a real spirit of Christmas to be found if one looked in the right place for it.

  In the morning of course he would have to go on his way as soon as he could get transportation. Even if he had to leave his car behind for repairs and take to the train, but that way would not lead to the house party. He was certain of that now. Tonight had opened his eyes. But of course he must get out of here as soon as possible. He must not intrude upon their Christmas, kind as these people had been. He was conscious of a relief that Demeter Cass and her crowd could not find him tonight. He was lost out of their kind and need not fear invasion even by the telephone. He would have plenty of time to think things over and find out just where he stood before he saw Demeter again; and tonight, at least what little was left of it, was his. Even with his weary body, exhausted almost to the breaking point, he was enjoying every minute of the time.

  The meal was cooked perfectly.

  “I don’t see how you came to put the potatoes in at just the right time, Mother,” said Daryl. “You acted as if you knew the exact minute when they would be needed.”

  Mother smi
led.

  “I just asked the Lord to show me what to do about it,” she said gently.

  “And you think the Lord gives attention to such little details as how long a potato should cook?” asked Ruth earnestly.

  “Why yes, dear,” answered the mother, “if you put a matter, even a little matter, into the Lord’s hands to guide you, and trust that He will, of course He will.”

  “Well, but suppose He didn’t, Mother? What would you think then?”

  “I would think I hadn’t trusted Him,” said the mother promptly.

  “Leave it to Mother to provide an alibi for her faith,” Lance said, grinning.

  Alan caught the tender look in Lance’s eyes as he glanced toward his mother, and a great envy and hunger grew in his heart for a home such as this other young man had. No wonder he was what he was, a prince among men. It had taken him only a very few minutes out in that terrible storm to show him that, and the hours they had faced death together had bound his heart to Lance’s in a love that he felt would last forever.

  And now of course the next thing in order was for him to go away, just as soon as it was light, and leave them decently to their own holiday without intruders. He sighed at the thought of going and somehow the Christmas time seemed suddenly a hundredfold more desolate to him than when he had started out in the morning. Was this only the midnight of that day? It seemed so very long, and yet all too short now that it was ended. But it was worth all the suffering and danger in the storm, just to know there was one such family on the earth today.

  As the numb flesh thawed out, their blood began to flow in its natural course again, and the warm food renewed their strength. The young men revived perceptibly.

  “Well, I feel pretty good after all,” said Alan, lifting first one foot and then the other as he slowly, cautiously arose from the table. “I didn’t think I’d ever be able to use these arms and legs again, did you, Lance?”

  “Well no,” responded Lance, “I thought we’d have to have artificial ones if we ever lived to need them.”

  So they laughed and joked about their recent peril, and the family devoured them with thankful eyes and tried to smile, but the anxiety was too recent to warrant much mirth about it for them.

  “Well now,” said Mother Devereaux, looking around radiantly upon her family circle, “the next thing on the program of course is to hang up the stockings, but if you boys would rather just be tucked into bed first it will be all right. The girls can hang up the stockings for you.”

  “No, indeed!” called out Lance, who had dropped down into a chair to save his ankle, and now dragged himself to the living room door. “We aren’t going to be cheated out of that fun, are we, Alan? That’s what we hurried home for, to be in time to hang up our stockings.”

  “I’d hate to be left out of anything that’s going,” said Alan pleasantly, “but you know, Lance, I don’t belong here. I’m only something the storm blew down on your tender mercies. I don’t want to intrude. If you’ll just let me lie here on the dining room couch till it’s daylight, I’ll try to take myself off out of your way.”

  “The idea!” cried both of the girls. “When we’ve got your stocking all ready to hang up! Planning to walk out on us! Just like that!”

  “Nothing doing, old man!’ said Lance, slapping his new friend feebly on the shoulder with his best arm. “If you didn’t earn your way into this family, and your right to hang up your stocking with the best of us when you carried me though that blast, I don’t know who belongs. Man alive, if you hadn’t stuck to me and dragged me in I’d have laid down in the snow and given up. I was all in, and that’s the truth. When that ankle doubled under me the pain was something awful, and sickened me. You saved my life, boy, and you talk about not belonging!”

  It was Father Devereaux who was beside the stranger instantly, with his hand upon his shoulder.

  “Friend,” he said earnestly, “son, you’re welcome, and you’re one of us. We shouldn’t be happy to see you go till the Christmas is past, unless you have someone who has a deeper claim upon you, and who would be grieving at your absence.” He peered into the young man’s eyes with something like a searching question in his own.

  “I haven’t!” said Alan huskily, shaking his head. “My folks are all gone. Just friends left, but they wouldn’t care a cent whether I came or went. I’m free as far as that’s concerned, but I couldn’t think of butting in where I don’t belong.”

  It was left for Mother Devereaux to answer that, and she came over and put a gentle arm around the young man’s broad shoulders and laid soft lips against his cheek and kissed him.

  “Of course you belong,” she said tenderly. “We couldn’t think of letting you go! We want you!”

  Alan was deeply touched. His eyes filled with sudden tears.

  “That’s wonderful of you,” he said huskily. “I appreciate that, and with all my heart I’ll stay. But you must promise not to upset any of your plans. If you’ll just let me park on that couch I’ll be perfectly comfortable. I heard someone say you were expecting another guest, and I couldn’t think of crowding him out.”

  Instinctively his eyes sought Daryl’s, and he saw the deep shadow come suddenly into her eyes, and her lovely lips set in a thin, sharp line. She lifted her chin just a little and a proud, tired look came and covered the sorrow in her eyes. As if she felt that he had addressed his remarks to her, she answered, “The fr—the guest who was to have occupied that room didn’t come!” She managed a gracious smile to cover the bleakness in her statement, and suddenly Alan remembered the telephone conversation he had heard just outside his door while he was dressing for the expedition in the storm. And all at once he longed to comfort her.

  “And may I be a substitute guest?” he asked. “At least until the other man can get here? He’ll be coming later, I imagine.”

  “No,” said Daryl quite decidedly, “he won’t be coming later.” She shut her lips thinly again. “At least, if he does, he won’t be staying,” she added with finality, and Alan found himself strangely glad that she felt that way.

  But Lance looked up in surprise.

  “What’s that, Daryl, Harold not coming? That’s hard lines. The storm keep him back?” His voice was very polite, but they all remembered that Lance had just got in from a six-hour battle with the storm, on foot, while Harold had a car and reasonably good highways all the way.

  “No,” said Daryl quite calmly, as if she were facing the truth and did not wish to hide it, “he went somewhere else!”

  The mother looked up.

  “Why don’t you explain, dear, that his employer had a gathering at which he expected his presence?” she said apologetically.

  Daryl opened her lips to speak and then closed them tightly. Alan could see that she did not want to talk about it.

  “Well then,” he said cheerfully, “if you’re willing to accept me as a substitute guest, I’ll be happy to endeavor to fill the assignment, but I still suggest you let me sleep on the couch and not make extra trouble for you.”

  “Man, don’t you know this house has rooms upon rooms, and they’re always in a perpetual state of being ready for guests? My mother just loves company. Don’t get difficult. That room you dressed in is yours as long as you’ll stay. Am I right or not, folks?”

  “You’re right of course, son,” said Father Devereaux. “You’ll find all your things from your car there, Mr. Monteith. I took the liberty of getting Bill Gates to tow your car into the village for repairs, and we brought your suitcases and packages in so you wouldn’t have to go out in the storm to get them when you got back.”

  “Say, you’re kind,” said Alan Monteith, greatly touched. “It’s like having a father again and being taken care of. I’d almost forgotten how that felt!”

  “I hope you’ll let us recall it to you often after this,” said the old man genially.

  “Well, I certainly would like to,” said Alan heartily.

  “Okay, that being settled, let’s go!�
� said Lance. “Where are the stockings? Let’s get to the next act, or I’ll fall asleep again.”

  Lance limped over to the living room with Ruth, his hand resting on Ruth’s shoulder, and her eyes were shining and happy as she looked up to him. Alan watched them a second, caught the stricken look on Daryl’s face, and drew himself up from the chair, hurrying stiffly over to her side.

  “Say, what is this stocking business? You’ll have to induct me into its principles. I haven’t hung my stocking up since I was a little kid and Mother helped me pin it on the wall over the register, which was the only chimney we had in the apartment where we lived.”

  Daryl flashed a sympathetic look at him and welcomed his company with a smile.

  “Here’s your stocking,” she said, affecting a cheerfulness he knew she did not feel, for he saw the purple depths in her big, troubled blue eyes.

  He took the long brightly striped stocking.

  “My stocking?” he said, pretending to study it. “I don’t just seem to remember it. Was that ever my stocking?”

  “No, but it is now,” Daryl said with a laugh. “See, it’s marked ‘Pilgrim and Stranger Man,’” she said, pointing to a marker fastened to its top with a safety pin. “We couldn’t remember what you said your name was so we called you ‘Pilgrim and Stranger.’”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t fit anymore,” said Alan gravely. “I’m no longer a pilgrim or a stranger. We’ll have to change that. I’ve been sort of adopted into the family, but I guess it’s a little soon to presume upon that. Suppose we make it ‘The Substitute Guest’? How will that do? Do you mind?” He looked up suddenly, keenly, his fountain pen out ready to write, and studied her eyes. Lovely eyes. He never had seen such eyes.