Astra

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “Lady,” he said in an apologetic tone, “would you kindly tell me something. I saw you go into that house across the way. Would you kindly tell me if there is someone there named Astra?”

  Camilla Blair faced the young man with an appraising eye.

  “Yes, there is,” she said coldly. “I suppose you are in love with her or something. But I may as well tell you since you have asked about her, that you will be wasting your time going after her. She is a very determined and opinionated young woman, and you really wouldn’t have a pleasant life with her. She’s a servant in that house, you know.”

  The man gave Camilla a startled glance.

  “Thank you, lady,” he said. She had told him all he needed to know when she told him Astra was living there.

  “I would advise you to go away and forget her. She really is not worth wasting your time on.”

  “All right, lady. Thank you very kindly, lady.” He slouched off in the opposite direction.

  Later that afternoon, the same man could be seen making his way toward the Philadelphia airport and hovering about until a plane from the west came in. Marmaduke Lester, with great pomp and ceremony and many bags, deposited himself on the ground and walked away, following the general direction of the sleuth.

  Chapter 20

  An hour after the arrival of the airplane, Marmaduke Lester attired himself inconspicuously and entered a shabby old automobile parked in a desolate spot on the outskirts of the city. The man who had watched outside the Everson house and held conversation with Camilla was driving, and the third passenger was one Tom Hatchley, the unworthy son-in-law of the meek little woman living in the Willow Haven stone cottage that Astra had so lovingly provided for her to use in her declining years. Oddly enough, this son-in-law, still intent upon the purchase of a new car, and ready to take up with anything that would further that end, had been an easy subject of Duke’s henchman, who had rooted out the facts and had sought out his man in a tavern, had watched him awhile, and then approached him with a proposition.

  “I don’t want no killin’ job,” said Hatchley with a shift of his cunning eyes. “Understand that! I’m connected with good, respectable people, an’ I wantta live right!”

  “Oh no, its nothin’ like that!” said the sleuth from the west. “This is only a little persuasive matter, for her own good. To work it right, we have to isolate her for a little and get a chance to make her see reason. Then everything will be fine. Now, what we want of you is to make contact. In the early evenin’, sometime when there won’t be nobody on the street to holler. We want ya to go to the door and put up a story, and then before she can say a word, quick, snap a black cloth over her head and carry her down to our car we’ll have parked handy. There’ll be two of us besides you to watch out and tell ya when ta go, and there won’t be scarcely a bit o’risk. O’ course there’s plenty o’ dough in it fer ya ef ya do the job right. What’s that? Jail? Naw! You look like a bird who could do a slick job, and there’s no cops around in that neighborhood at that hour of the night. We’d liketa pull it off very soon if possible, and we’ll be back of ya and pertect ya. You can vanish as soon as ya get her in the car. There’ll be another fella waiting in the car. He’s the agent from out west, and he’s some bird. He knows his onions, an’ I guess there’s no law he don’t know how ta trip up. He’s a member of one of the biggest racket gangs on the west coast. Now, can we depend on ya? Take it or leave it; we gotta get goin’. The bird that’s bossin’ this comes in on the plane tomorra mornin’!”

  “What’s this here girl’s name?” asked Tom cautiously, just before he gave his word he would take the job.

  “Everson,” said the other man, “but doncha breathe it to a soul. She’s got high up kin an’ ya might get inta trouble.”

  “You don’t mean Miss Astra Everson, do ya?” asked Tom in astonishment. “Because my mother-in-law used ta work fer her mom, and I gotta personal grudge against her. She done me a mean trick. Spoiled my plans. Boy I’d liketa get even with her, all right. Sure, I’ll take the job. How much you say you’ll pay?”

  And that was the way Tom got into the matter.

  “I got a plan all righty!” he told his new employer the next day. “I’ll tell her my wife’s mother is awful sick, and she sent me ta ask would Miss Astra come and see her. She’s near ta die and has ta tell her something she oughta’ told her long ago. We cud take her right up ta the old lady’s house. It belongs ta Miss Everson, ya know, an’ give her the works there. I’ll have the old ’un out of the way. Nobody’ll ever find out where the girl is till it’s all arranged!”

  Thus did the fertile brain of Tilly’s son-in-law help to plot the way for Duke Lester. And so it was that Duke found himself in this sordid company, riding along from the airport in the shabby car. To tell the truth, this whole job was a little out of Duke’s line. He wasn’t used to taking part in what he called the “dirty work” of his own crooked schemes. He usually hired deeper-dyed crooks than himself to carry out his purposes, so now he felt distinctly uncomfortable. What would his persnickety wife and spoiled daughter say if they could see him now, riding away like this, through the city and out into the pleasant suburbs on such a mission?

  So that was the ancestral mansion of the Eversons? Not so bad. Then Astra’s money must be a tidy sum, to carry a house like that on its list! She was established there already! Well, he’d soon spoil her plans!

  And so they drove on out of sight of the house and into a world of their own to wait for evening shadows to gather, when their plans could be carried out.

  Meantime, Rosamond and Camilla were having a telephone talk.

  “Well, I found her, but that was all,” Camilla was saying. “She’s a servant all right, and she’s working in a swell house in a swell neighborhood, real old substantial people, I should judge. I’m afraid you’ll have a time getting her away, even if you pay a criminally enormous sum. But you’ll have to do the getting yourself. I’ve exhausted my efforts in finding her, and I did my best to get her to come and see you, but she practically laughed in my face. She said she wouldn’t leave where she was and what she was doing for anybody or anything. And I warn you, if you do get her, you’ll be sorry. She’s an insolent piece, and you never will stand for her.”

  But Rosamond took down the address and determined that she would go tomorrow and find out about the girl. She couldn’t go today, because she had a very important meeting of a committee belonging to her club. But she thanked Camilla and laid aside her worries on the score of no nurse for the present. She was sure she could coax any living girl away from her employer if she went about it the right way. And she always knew the right way.

  After Astra had closed the door behind her disturbing guest, the day went forward more calmly. She took time to go by herself and snatch a Bible verse to live through its hours, and to talk to her Lord, and ask help and guidance in every happening.

  The verse she came upon in her hurried reading startled her, because she had been so upset by Camilla’s visit. It was: “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.”

  She said it over to herself several times as she went on through the day, glad to rest the matter of this disagreeable enemy of hers entirely in His keeping and just forget it.

  So the day came to evening, and evening brought another message from Cameron. He had to take a later train than he had planned and would not get to her house until a little after nine. Might he come to her then?

  And the hours crept slowly, happily by.

  The shabby car came to find a parking place among a dense patch of shrubbery in the little park across from the Everson house. Cousin Duke, in another car which he had hired for himself, and driven himself, took up his stand at the curb in front of a vacant house a short distance from the point of immediate interest, yet where he could vie
w operations without being observed. He arranged himself in the shadow, with a hat drawn down over his eyes and a collar turned high about his chin.

  From where he sat in the darkness, he could see Astra sitting near the window, reading. She looked so bright and happy, that his fury rose. She was going to be a hard customer to deal with, he was afraid. But, of course, she would yield to reason if he worked the thing in the right way. And it must be done quickly, for it wouldn’t do for Miriam to find out about this. Miriam could be pretty determined at times and make the world most uncomfortable for him. This must be done thoroughly and done tonight, for tomorrow was Astra’s birthday. He ought to have started sooner. It was all Miriam’s fault that he didn’t, because she was so slow to remember dates and things.

  Once he noticed a police car drive by and turn into the park, but listening, it seemed to him he heard it drive away far in the distance.

  And then he saw the Tom Hatchley person steal across the road and mount the steps of the Everson house, with something dark like an overcoat over one arm. Then he saw two other shadows detach themselves from the darkness and blur into the shadows of the Everson place, quite near the front steps. The time had come then. It seemed to be very still on that street at the moment, as if the vicinity were waiting for something. Then he heard the soft purr of a bell. It must be they had rung the doorbell.

  And now he could see Astra rise and lay down her book. She was going to answer the door herself. They wouldn’t have to wait to ask for her. That was making it easy.

  He could see the light on her gold hair as she passed under the chandelier in the middle of the room. He watched and he listened keenly, and he felt his heart beating too rapidly. He hoped they wouldn’t be too rough with her. After all, she was related and had been in his house almost like another child of his family. He wouldn’t like to have Clytie in such a position. Although, of course, they had promised not to hurt her.

  Then he saw the light stream from the front door, and the quick motion of the black cloth being thrown. The light in the hall was snapped out suddenly, leaving utter darkness.

  Then a confusion of sounds. A bus stopped at the next corner behind him, one block over, and there came brisk steps walking down the street. Oh, they must hurry. Someone was coming! There might have to be some rough work after all. But one of those men had said he was an expert at such things. He could put that man out of commission with a swift blow. It was no one that Marmaduke knew, so what was the difference?

  And now they were coming down the steps, swiftly, a great black bundle in their arms. There was no outcry. It was not like Astra to cry out. Astra always took everything quietly. Now the man who was carrying her was running, swiftly and silently, down the stone flagging to the street. There were other sounds breaking on his consciousness, a muted car with piercing lights, a red car. The police! The sudden sound of a gun, a flash down low, near the feet of the man who was carrying the black bundle, the quick collapse of the struggling bundle. The kidnapper had been shot in the feet!

  In sudden panic, Marmaduke flung wide the door of his rented car and plunged out onto the sidewalk! Straight into the arms of a sturdy policeman, who had been silently standing there, no telling how long. Duke had never thought to hear handcuffs snapped onto his aristocratic wrists, but there he was, fettered! Caught in this net by which he had hoped to catch Astra! Oh, he mustn’t be caught! He had papers in his pockets that would incriminate him if he were searched! He mustn’t!

  He struggled. He tried to protest. He was only a private citizen waiting for a friend to come out of a house. He had nothing to do with this affair that was going on. This shooting! He knew nothing about it!

  But the policeman paid no attention.

  “Come along with me. You can explain all that and prove it down at the station house when you get there!” And he marched the elegant Marmaduke firmly back to a police car waiting around the corner.

  But the swift steps that he had heard coming from that bus had broken into a run, and almost as soon as the man with the bundle fell, the young man was there, lifting up the frightened girl, asking her if she were hurt.

  Another officer who had appeared from out of the shadows spoke to him.

  “Hello, Mr. Cameron! You here? You didn’t get hurt, did you? We had word there was a bird here trying to pull off a little something on the side, and he happens to be a bird we’ve been watching for a long time, a killer, so we came quick!”

  There were more bullets flying now. Tom Hatchley was down and out, and no chance of that new car for some time ahead.

  There were other patrol cars coming and quite a disturbance in the quiet street.

  But Astra was in the arms of her beloved, and over and over again in her mind ran the words, “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper … the heritage of the servants of the Lord.”

  “Better take her in the house, brother,” advised Cameron’s policeman friend. “There’s goin’ ta be plenty of action before we’re done. One pretty bad bird is still at large, I’m afraid.”

  So Cameron bore his beloved into the house and closed the door on the outside world, and Astra looked into his dear eyes with joy and gladness, and for some minutes Cameron could not put her down. He just stood there holding her close in his arms, his face against hers.

  And then the Albans came in to find out what all the noise and shooting was about, and they looked in amazement at the handsome young man standing there holding Astra as if she were the most precious thing in the world.

  Then Astra roused to the occasion and introduced Cameron, and they had a happy little rejoicing and thanksgiving together, till by and by the Albans retired and the street got quiet. Astra and Charles had a real talk, with their arms about one another, sitting in the deep chair where Astra used to sit sometimes with her father when she was a little girl growing up.

  “And now,” said Cameron, when he at last got up to go, “you’ve got to get some rest, and tomorrow I think we had better be married. I can’t stand the strain of not knowing what is happening to you, with things like this going on.”

  He looked pleadingly down at her, and she laughed up into his eyes.

  “All right,” she said. “Tomorrow is my birthday. I shall be of age, and I can do as I please, so I’m willing, but you’ll have to excuse me from having a swell trousseau or a big wedding.”

  “That’s all right with me,” he said, smiling. “I only want you, not an impressive wedding. We could get our wonderful minister from the little church, or have it in the church, or here at this place. This is a lovely house. Would the people here, the Albans mind?”

  “They’d better not. It’s my house,” Astra said, smiling. “But I know they’ll love it. They are sweet people. And these are my own things, mine and father’s. I’ve been getting it ready for you to see.”

  “It’s wonderful!” said Cameron, as he looked all around with eyes of deep appreciation. And then he looked up at the picture. “And is that Father?” he asked gently. “How great to have a picture like that!” Then suddenly he took her close in his arms, and bowing his face against hers, he closed his eyes.

  “Dear God,” he prayed, “help me to guard and care for this dear child as her own earthly father would have wanted me to do, and help us both to walk in Thy ways, till we come home to You and Father and Mother, and my father and mother. Amen.”

  The kiss that sealed their promises was sweeter than anything either of them had ever known.

  It was the next morning quite early that Cameron had his talk with his sister Rosamond. She called him up very early.

  “Charlie, I want you to tell me where you got that servant you had to look after my children Christmas Day while I was away. I haven’t any nurse, and I can’t stir an inch anywhere without one. These children just clamor for that girl they call Astra. So as you seem to have been the means of my losing both cook and nursemaid, I think it’s up to you to dig her out and secure her for me. Who is she? Did you know a
nything about her? But anyway, I want her, no matter who she is. I never saw Harold so amenable to reason as he has been since she was with him that one day.”

  “Astra?” said Cameron coming out of a deep, sweet sleep of happiness to answer her. “Yes, I know who she is, and where she is, but I’m afraid I can’t secure her for a nursemaid for your children, because you see, I’m marrying her tonight. Do you want to come to the wedding?”

  “Marrying! Why Charles Cameron! You’re joking! You can’t marry her. She’s only a servant! You can’t disgrace our family by marrying a servant. That’s worse than even our father did for his second wife. She at least was of good, respectable family! Charlie, you wouldn’t make all your sisters a laughingstock to all their friends? You can’t marry her!”

  “Oh, but I am,” laughed Cameron joyously. “Eight o’clock is the hour, I believe, and the wedding supper just after. My only stipulation is that you bring all the children.”

  “But Charlie! You’ll break my heart. To have you marry a servant, when I had found such a good, suitable match for you, so capable and so beautiful and so wealthy! And you to take up with a poor little servant girl who has worked for a pitiful wage.”

  “Are you referring to that poor pasty-faced Camilla as the girl you so kindly provided for me? Well, if you were, just think again. I wouldn’t marry her if she was the last woman left on earth, and I had to go lonely all my life. Money and beauty don’t count unless you love, and I never could love her. But you’re woefully mistaken about Astra, dear sister, she never was a servant in her life. She’s the daughter of the great Dr. Everson, the noted scientist, and she’s traveled all over the world with her father. She’s a graduate of three colleges, and she’s done some rather notable writing herself. We’re going to be married in the house that her grandfather built, and where her father and she herself were born, and if you don’t agree it is a nice house after tonight, I’m off you for life. Now, will you help me get ready for this wedding or have I got to do it all myself?”