The Street of the City

by Grace Livingston Hill

  About that time out on the ice two figures walked again with their eyes toward the little brick house.

  “Well, how did you make out, Mike?” asked the tall man whose name was Granniss. “Get in touch with the owner?”

  “No, not yet. He’s gone west on business. May be back tomorrow or next day, they weren’t sure.”

  “M-m-m! Well, we haven’t any time to spare, Mike.”

  “I know, sir. I tried to find out the man’s address. I meant to wire him or find out what train he might be on, but got nowhere. Nobody knew where he’d gone or what for. But they said his brother-in-law was coming home tomorrow and he might know, so I’ll try again tomorrow.”

  “Better make it snappy, Mike, for I got wind of another place I might get if this one fails.”

  “I’ll do me best, Granniss; devils can’t do no more, you know.” Mike snickered apologetically.

  “Yes, I know, but you’ve got to do better than any devil if you want to work for me, Mike. Understand?”

  “Okay,” said Mike sullenly, and tried to think what he should offer next as an alibi.

  “Say!” said Granniss. “Isn’t that the house over there where that light just went on in the front room? Why, there’s a man standing up at the window doing something to a curtain. I thought you said there weren’t any men in the family, just two women. I thought you said that was the reason we wouldn’t have any trouble working this racket.”

  “I didn’t hear of no man there,” said Mike. “Mebbe it’s just some workman they hired.”

  “If they are poor people as you thought, they wouldn’t hire a man to put up their curtains, would they? They’d put them up themselves.”

  “That’s right,” said Mike, perplexed. “Well, mebbe it’s some neighbor or the grocery boy or something. Mebbe it’s some man works at the plant where the girl works.”

  “That’s bad,” said Granniss, “her making friends so soon. We don’t want any man in on this, not if we’re going to carry it through quickly. A man might block things and hold us up.”

  “Well, I couldn’t say who he is. I never heard about any man. Mebbe some more of them movers come back to bring something.”

  “Well, there’s no time to waste,” said Granniss determinedly. “It seems to me you could have found that owner somehow, or his agent. I don’t believe you half tried.”

  “Say, look-a-here! I guess it’s as much to me as it is to you to get this thing started quick.”

  “Okay. See you get a hustle on and get some action. I ought to have things underway by the end of this week.”

  The two men drifted by on the far side of the river, and when they finally turned to go back again, the front room of the little brick house was dark and a skater shot by them and disappeared into the shadows up-river, but the memory of a man putting up window curtains in the distance stayed in the minds of those two men as they went on to find their parked car, and caused the man Granniss to call to the other as he left him that night.

  “You make sure you find out something about that lease, even if you have to go to the owner’s office and pump his office boy or his secretary for information. There’s always a way to find out things if you just know enough to pave your way with a little dough. I’ve surely given you enough to use that way, and I want it used! Understand, Mike?”

  “Okay!” said Mike heartily.

  Val Willoughby got back to his aunt’s home a little after ten o’clock and was soon called to the telephone by the butler who was still on duty. Again it was Marietta’s indignant voice that challenged him.

  “What’s the idea?” she demanded haughtily. “Are you trying to avoid me? Here I’ve spent another whole evening racing after you. I even went so far as to drive down after you at the plant at what I judged to be closing hours and waited endlessly without success. Nobody knew where you were nor when you would return, if you did. Now I should like to know where one finds you. Are you always completely disappearing?”

  “Why, I’m sorry, Marietta. Nobody told me you were looking for me. Where were you? What time?”

  “I was parked right outside your office door for at least an hour, from quarter of five on, and then I chased you everywhere I could think of. What on earth do you do with yourself, and when do you usually leave the office?”

  “Why, I don’t have any special time. But usually around five unless there is a lot of work. Sometimes, I told you, I’m needed there nearly all night. But I’m not always in the office. I’m here and there and everywhere.”

  “So I understand,” said the girl coldly. “Just where were you tonight?”

  “Tonight I was out on an errand,” said Val firmly. “It took more time than I had expected. But now, Marietta, what was it you wanted? I’m sorry I should have been so unavailable when you wanted to get me. Is there anything important that you were so anxious to find me?”

  “There certainly is,” said the girl haughtily. “I was delegated by our district committee to contact you and find out if you would undertake to organize and be warden of the air raid group in this neighborhood. You were unanimously chosen to do that, and when they found I knew you, they asked me to give you the papers and tell you what was wanted of you. It certainly hasn’t been an easy job locating you. As this is a request from the citizens in our neighborhood, and not a private plan of my own, I suppose you’ll be a little more affable about it than you were about my request last night.”

  “Well, Marietta, I’m sorry I wasn’t affable last night, but what you asked was utterly out of the question. And as for this, it is equally impossible. I am a worker, you know, under government orders, and my time is not my own. I would seldom be available at the times when a warden was wanted. Remember my work is defense work!”

  “Well, I certainly think that is perfectly ridiculous. You can’t be busy all the time!”

  “Not all the time, of course, but enough of the time so that I could not be depended upon for any other job that was important. But really, Marietta, don’t you do anything but go around contacting people for jobs? Isn’t there some small favor I could do for you for old time’s sake that would make you understand I am not merely trying to be rude?”

  “Why, yes, there is. I’d like you to take me to the orchestra concert tomorrow night. Then perhaps we’d have a little time between numbers to talk seriously.”

  Val made a wry face at the telephone, but answered in a pleasant voice.

  “Well, now that’s a simple request. Yes, I could try to do that. Of course you have to understand that if something should come up at the plant I might have to get a substitute at the last minute. But I’ll really try, Marietta, and you know I enjoy symphony concerts extremely. It ought to be a very pleasant occasion, and I’ll do my very best to appear at the right time. I’ll ask my aunt if I can borrow her car.”

  “Don’t bother,” said Marietta. “I have a new one of my own that I want to show you. I go everywhere in it, semi-officially you know. And as I want to talk over some of my defense plans I shall count that a trip for the country’s good. All right, Val, and get here at quarter to eight. That’ll be plenty of time. Now I’ll say good night and let you get some much needed rest, or you’ll fall asleep at the Academy of Music. Good night!”

  Val turned from the telephone with a sigh. So, that was that! He’d be as nice to Marietta as possible, but he would make her understand that he had no time this winter to attend her on her various activities. He could still hear her insistent voice ringing in his ears as he went about preparing for bed. And it flashed across his mind that there was a vast difference between her and that little Frannie who was so merry and sweet. Was that the reason why he enjoyed helping her so much, and why the picture of the simple little home lingered so pleasantly in his memory?

  Chapter 7

  But Marietta did not dismiss the subject of the conversation she had just held with the young man as easily and quickly as he had done. She flung herself down on her luxurious chaise lounge wit
h a petulant look on her face. She had won, it is true, a whole evening to herself with Val Willoughby—with reservations—for she didn’t at all feel sure of him even now, since he said he might have to call up and cancel any engagement he made. But what was one evening? The excuse he gave of work seemed to her altogether too trivial for a young man from his class in society. He might have an important job, yes, but he wasn’t a day laborer, was he? He surely could get someone else to take his place when there was need. And wasn’t courtesy and precedent of real need? It was just unthinkable that a nephew of Mrs. Robert Haversett should be so tied down to any kind of a job, even for defense, that he couldn’t take time off for social duties, and she didn’t mean to accept that excuse any longer.

  She would go to some man of importance in the defense world and find out just how much Val’s talk really meant. Of course there was some other reason. Couldn’t it possibly be a girl? Another girl than herself? She couldn’t believe that. If she chose to run after a man and honor him with her smiles, of course he would prefer herself to any other girl. That went without saying. She had grown up in that belief and had never seen reason to doubt it. Well, if it was another girl, she must find out the girl and deal with her. There was usually a way. But of course the main thing was to make herself important to the man. She would have to work fast if she had only this one evening to start with, and that cluttered up with music, besides. He would likely be stuffy about talking while the music was going on, too. Well, she would have to do her best. She must just keep him on her mind until she found the way to conquer him.

  It was the next day when she was talking with one of her friends at a committee meeting that she began her work. Deborah Hand was one of those girls who always asked questions and managed to find out a great deal about this and that, so Marietta began to talk about the old crowd, but didn’t mention Val Willoughby herself. She knew better than to begin that way if she wanted to find out anything really worthwhile about a person, and also retain her own prestige and importance. But it wasn’t long before Deborah got around to thinking of him herself.

  “Do you see much of Val Willoughby since he came back to our neighborhood?” she asked and fixed her keen gray eyes on Marietta knowingly. She and several others of their group had spoken of it a number of times lately, wondering if Marietta had renewed her attentions to Val and if he was succumbing nicely.

  “Oh yes,” said Marietta casually, as if it were to be expected. “I see him or talk to him almost every day. He’s looking awfully well, don’t you think? But he’s so horribly busy he can hardly ever get off. Isn’t this war simply horrid, driving some of our men to the ends of the earth and keeping the rest of them so busy you can hardly get to speak with them?”

  “Yes, I suppose the war is responsible for the lack of young men these days,” sighed Deborah. “Well, let us hope it will soon be over.”

  “Yes, it will be a relief when it’s over,” said Marietta, “but you know I’ve been really interested in what we are all doing. It makes quite a change from the regular monotony of life. And then the uniforms are so attractive on some. I just love mine. And it’s awfully interesting to be doing something really important. Something men respect you for doing, don’t you think?”

  “Oh yes,” said Deborah listlessly, “but somehow I’m not so awfully interested. I just loathe making bandages and studying all those first aid things. I never can remember whether you stand up a person who has fainted or lay them down, and it’s gruesome to have to lie down and let them bandage you up as if you had been hurt. I had to do that the last time, and I thought I should die before they finally undid me and let me act like myself. Personally I think it’s silly, don’t you? I never would even try to revive somebody who had fainted. I’d just ring the bell for my maid and make her do it, or send for a doctor and a nurse.”

  “Well, you know if there was a raid you couldn’t always get your maid. She might even be hurt herself. Really I think it’s a good thing to know what to do. You could at least tell somebody else what to do.”

  “I suppose you could,” said Deborah. “Well, personally I hope it’s soon over, though if the people in charge want to keep on playing the game I suppose it will last as long as they want it to. But to go back to the crowd. I’m glad Val Willoughby is looking well. I haven’t really seen him close enough to tell. Only twice skating on the river with a girl. I thought perhaps it was you till they got nearer to the house and I saw she was smaller than you. She’s a tiny little thing, graceful as a wand, and skates like a bird. Do you know who she is? They go down in the morning together and skate back around five or five-thirty. At least, I’ve seen them twice now, and they do skate divinely together. Last evening I happened to be up in our attic looking down the river at the sunset, and I saw them coming back. They went to a redbrick house on the opposite bank. I thought I’d remember to ask you the next time I saw you who the girl was.”

  Marietta had fine control over her facial muscles. She never by so much as a flutter of any eyelash gave evidence that she was astonished at the news she was receiving. The smile on her face was one she often locked there on occasion, not to be lifted till called for, and she turned with imperturbable serenity upon her friend Debbie.

  “Why, could it have been one of the Haversett nieces? You know they are growing up fast, and they perfectly adore their uncle Val. Even when they were almost babies they fairly dogged his steps, everywhere he went. I used to think they were a perfect nuisance, myself. You never could go anywhere with Val but they were underfoot.”

  Deborah looked thoughtful.

  “Oh, perhaps it was one of them,” she mused, “but—he stooped over and unfastened her skates, and she went up the steps and into that little brick house that has been empty so long. He went up the steps, too, and went in. You know someone is occupying that house now. Some working people, I suppose.”

  “Oh, very likely they were going after a cleaning woman then, for her mother.”

  “But I thought those nieces were off at boarding school somewhere.”

  “Why, yes, they were,” said Marietta calmly, “but they often come home for the weekend, or a party here among their set, or something like that, you know.”

  “Oh! Well, that might have been the explanation. But if you ask me, that girl didn’t look like either of those nieces. She seemed older, more sophisticated. Well, perhaps not sophisticated, I wouldn’t use that word for a girl that lived on that side of the river—not in a little tumble-down house like that brick one. However, I saw him go skating with her twice, and that wouldn’t be likely to happen with his nieces twice, would it, and have them stop at the same place? Well, I don’t know. I always thought Val Willoughby was a pretty decent sort of a fellow, with such an aunt and all, but of course boys do go wrong and get silly over a pretty face. Of course, I didn’t see this girl close by, and she might not be pretty at all, but I did think his attitude looked very attentive.”

  “Nonsense!” said Marietta sharply. “Val Willoughby isn’t at all that sort of fellow. I know him too well. He hates anything sordid like that. I’ve heard him say so. And besides, remember how well I’ve known him since childhood. That would be practically impossible, for Val to have an affair with a common sort of girl.”

  “Yes—well, I thought you knew him pretty well, and that’s why I mentioned it. I knew you would know whether it could be so or not. And then, of course, if he was tempted by some pretty face that works in his office or something, I thought perhaps we ought to rally around him and keep him out of temptation. We might get up a skating party and go down to meet him nights or something. I imagine that would drive away any little cheap girl that was attempting to interest him.”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary in the least, Deb. I tell you I know Val! And anyway if one attempted to break up anything that way and take him by storm it would simply work the other way with him. We’d have to be very subtle about anything we did. He’s sharp, Val is, and he’d see right
through anything like that and resent it. No, Debbie, I’m certain there’s some very simple explanation to all this. I’ll try and find out about it myself. I’m going out with him tomorrow night, and I’ll ask a few simple questions that will bring the situation out in the open. If there’s anything going on, I’ll nip it in the bud, and don’t you worry about it. I know Val too well, and he knows better than to try to deceive me. We’ve known each other too long and too well.”

  “Well, I shall be just dying to find out who it was he has been skating with,” said Deborah Hand. “But I’m not so sure as you are that Val isn’t capable of a little sly flirtation now and then. That holy look he wears so much would crack sometime if he didn’t have any chance to relax now and then.”

  “You’re talking as if Val were a hypocrite,” said Marietta, “and he’s anything but that. It shows you don’t know him very well.” Marietta’s tone was cold and indifferent in the extreme.

  “Oh well, you needn’t take that tone, my dear,” said Deborah indignantly. “One would think it was a personal matter with you, and I never thought you cared enough for him for that.”

  “Of course not,” said Marietta with contempt in her voice, “but you know really, he is a very old friend, and I don’t like to hear him maligned.”

  “Well, I didn’t malign him, my dear. I just said I saw him with a strange girl and I wondered who she was. But, of course, you know Val Willoughby always was kind to every stray kitten he found in the alley. Always insisted they had a right to play with us all as much as if they were one of us. Don’t you remember that child of the scrub woman who always had to play hide and seek with us on Wednesdays because Val thought she was lonely? But you know, Marietta, that’s a dangerous position for a young man to take. If he carries that out in his life his wife will certainly have plenty of heartaches. And somebody ought to warn him. He’ll get into something very unpleasant if he doesn’t look out. A breach of promise case or something like that. You know those cabaret beauties are utterly unscrupulous.”