Lizette Weldon hurried up the five stairs to her bay window landing and turned her head from side to side to try each ear and identify the voice. An hour later, Aunt Katie, unable to stand it any longer quietly slipped through the hedge with her smelling salts and asked Anne Truesdale, who was slamming things around in the dining room with pursed angry lips and streaming eyes, if she might go up.
“Please yerself!” said Anne, jerking a chair into place. “She’s not worth it, the nasty little tyke! Let her cry herself sick if she wants. She and I are two people!”
So Aunt Katie went up with her smelling salts and talked kindly in a low, soothing tone, but Athalie knocked the bottle across the room and took on more wildly than ever, and finally Aunt Katie departed with a sigh, saying to Anne in the kitchen as she went out: “The poor thing! The poor willful thing!”
The weeping kept steadily on for an hour longer. Then Anne’s patience gave out, and she went up with a glass of ice water and threw it in Athalie’s face, but the girl only strangled and choked and cried on the harder, so Anne went down, half frightened, and wondered if she ought not to call the doctor.
But at last the sounds died away, and Lizette and the Vandemeeters were able to get a little rest. It was growing very late, but Greeves and Bannard had not returned. Anne sent Molly and Joe to bed, with instructions not to undress but be ready for any call, and herself put out the lights and took up her watch by the front drawing room window. Once she thought she saw a face peering round the lilac bush, but she knew it must be her eyes after all the excitement, so she put the thought away. Before long she dozed off, and the town slept.
When the morning dawned and the sun finally penetrated the lilacs and shot into the drawing room window Anne Truesdale sat up and blinked.
“I must have dozed off,” she said shamedly to herself. “I wonder if the master has come. I’ll just slip up and see if that tyke is asleep.”
But when she reached Athalie’s room there was nobody on the bed. With a growing fear she hurried from room to room, thinking perhaps she had changed her bed as once before, but found no sign of her, and on the pillow in her father’s room was a little blistered note, dramatically left open, written large:
Dear Dad: I’ve gone to find my sister. I won’t come back without her. I’m sorry. Athalie.
When Greeves read that, a few minutes later, having come in with Bannard after an all-night fruitless search, he sank his haggard face in his hands and dropped into the nearest chair.
“My God! What have I done to deserve this?”
“Dearie, dearie,” said Anne to Molly, “he’s swearin’ again. I guess mebbe there’s a pair of ‘em. Mebbe she mightn’t to be so much to blame after all, takin’ after him as she does.”
In the library the tray of breakfast that Anne had brought stood untouched.
“What shall I do, Bannard? What shall I do? I have lost them both—”
“I tell you, man, you must pray! If you ever prayed you must pray now. Get down on your knees quick and tell the Lord you’re a sinner. He’s the only One can straighten this out.”
And Patterson Greeves dropped down on his knees and prayed: “Lord, I have sinned! I have sinned against Thee and against both my children. It is right I should be punished, but don’t let them suffer. O Lord, forgive and help and save!”
And while he prayed, the telephone rang. Bannard answered it.
“Is that you, Father?” a sweet voice called that thrilled him with its familiarity.
“Oh, Silver, is that you? Are you all right?” said Bannard, his whole soul in his voice, and did not notice that he had called her by her dear name.
“Yes, your father is here. We have searched all night for you. Your father is quite broken by anxiety. Is Athalie with you? Yes, she’s gone. She apparently went sometime in the night. She left a note saying she had gone to find you and would not come home without you.”
“Oh, the dear child! I’ll come right home. I just got the message Father phoned to the lawyer. I’m sorry I’ve caused so much trouble.”
“Where are you now? The city? Good. There’s a train in a few minutes that doesn’t come through. You take it, and I’ll meet you at the junction with the car.”
Barry had come in while the conversation was going on, and he turned a startled face to Anne in the doorway.
“Athalie gone?” he asked. “Aw, gee!”
Anne handed him the note that Greeves had dropped on the floor. He read it with softening eyes then turned to Anne and said in a low tone: “Say, you get me a shoe or something of hers. I’ve got the dog here. He’s good on following a scent. I’ll see what I can do.”
Anne obeyed, and Barry departed with instructions for Anne to tell Bannard when he had finished telephoning.
Greeves was still on his knees, his face buried in his hands. Bannard stepped over and put his hand upon the man’s shoulder.
“Silver is found,” he said gently. “She’s coming right home on the next train. I’m to meet her at the junction. Will you go with me?”
He had forgotten for the moment that Athalie was gone.
Greeves roused and stood up, his face white and deeply marked. There were tears upon his cheeks.
“I must go and find my other girl,” he said hurriedly. “My poor wronged child!”
Chapter 30
It was growing light enough to see the way around her room when Athalie Greeves, dressing in whatever garments she found lying around the room, and not stopping to even wash her poor swollen face, climbed softly from her window and swung herself down the pergola trellis and to the ground.
She hadn’t an idea of where she was going or what she was going to do. Her one thought was to find her sister. It had come to her in the long sobbing hours of the night that that was one thing she could do before she died to atone for all her misdeeds. She could find and give Silver back to her father and so show him that she was going to die.
This strange, wild emptiness that filled her being, this utter weakness and collapse was unlike anything she ever remembered before, except once when she was a very little child with the measles and had cried herself to sleep because Lilla was afraid to kiss her good night. Lilla had gone to a party and left her with the nurse. Lilla was afraid of catching the measles.
She stumbled down the gray morning street like a wraith in her rubber-soled shoes. There was only one way to go, the way she had always gone on her pilgrimages, out through the town, the long sleeping silent street, and down the empty road to the bridge. She was a little afraid of the sound of the water under the bridge in the dark that way, but what did it matter? She would be dead pretty soon, and there would be plenty of things down there to be afraid of. This one thing she must do. Perhaps if she could get to the city she might find Silver somehow. She hadn’t an idea what a walk to the city would mean. And there were no trains so early.
So she walked on through the lifting night into the gray of the morning hardly able to see out of her swollen eyes, drawing each breath like a sob, stumbling and hurting her feet, crying out with the pain without knowing it.
She did not notice two shadowy figures a little way up the hill in the bushes nor hear a suddenly hushed whisper. She was walking as in a dream with only one thought in mind: to find Silver.
Suddenly as she swerved unsteadily around the curve of the road something large and solid and soft like a bag of sand seemed to come from somewhere up in the air and struck her on the side of the head. She crumpled like a lily and went down in the road, with everything growing suddenly dark again around her.
When she roused again she was lying on a hard place like the ground, only with stone walls all around her and a match flaring in her face. She saw two ugly faces above her, one old and lined, with grayish hair and sagging features, the other round and hairy and wicked looking, and she heard the old one say: “It ain’t her at all. It’s the other one!”
“I’ve come to find my sister,” she piped up feebly and then was gone
again.
A long time after, she seemed to see the two men sitting by a box with about an inch of flaring candle between them, and one was writing with a stump of pencil.
“Say they must put the money under the stone and go away back up to town and stay there or the girl won’t ever turn up. Say that, Jerry, and better make it twelve, it’s no use havin’ all the trouble without some returns. Seein’ we missed out on the other gal, make it twelve thousand. Not a cent less.”
Later they stumbled out together, and a rush of air brought a breath to her lips. She heard one say to the other as they went out: “It beats me, Jerry, where the other one went. She must a ben a spirit fer I had her shut in an’ padlocked and not a stone is touched. Nobody couldn’t a come an’ let her out fer the lock wasn’t hurt. I don’t know what to make of it.”
Far off a dog was barking. It made her think of cool water with little darting fins and a bank with mosses on it. Nuts falling down and red branches. A dog barking, coming nearer. Rushing feet, a heavy body falling. The dog barking wildly. Sounds of a struggling down the hillside and then a wild, piercing whistle sweet as thrushes. Where had she heard that whistle before? Ah! Now she knew. The day they went to the baseball game, and Barry—it was Barry! If she only could call, perhaps Barry would help her find Silver, but the sound stuck in her throat and came out a sob. There it was again, that sweet whistle, and the sound of an automobile horn down on the road. Voices. Someone coming on. Voices again!
“Mr. Bannard, come and help me tie up this guy. It’s the old tramp that’s been going around for several weeks. Got a handkerchief? Sure, that’ll do. Here, you hold his hands. Buddie’s got the other fellow by the seat of the pants. I guess he’ll keep all right. They were sneaking round here looking mighty suspicious. I wanta see what they’ve got in that hut. Chief has been looking for a hooch still round these parts. It might be in there!”
Oh, why couldn’t she cry out? They would go away pretty soon. There. The dog was coming nearer. He seemed to be just outside the wall. “Buddie, Buddie!”
Ah! The air again! The door had been broken open! She opened her eyes, gave a long shuddering sob, and closed them again. It didn’t seem to matter now that they had come. She hadn’t found Silver, and she heard her father’s voice! She had failed!
And then she heard Silver’s voice. Was she maybe in heaven? No, heaven was not built of stone walls, she was sure. She struggled with her eyelids once more and looked. It was Silver, looking down with that sweet smile. With all the power that was left in her body she summoned her will and crept to her sister’s feet. It seemed a long way, though it really was only an inch or two, and she laid her tired hands around Silver’s feet and pressed her hot lips to Silver’s little dusty shoes. Then she slipped off again, this time she thought for good.
Till she suddenly heard Barry’s voice. He was down on his knees beside her with an old tin cup of water.
“Say, kid, drink this, it’ll do you good. And say, kid, brace up, you’ll make it yet!” Then she looked up, and they were smiling, just as if they loved her, and her father took her hand and smoothed it. Why, he didn’t hate her anymore! The hate was all gone everywhere, just love left, and she was happy.
They left the tramp and his friend in the hut with the padlock securely fastened and carried Athalie down to the car. She wasn’t sure but that she was dead, and they were taking her to her funeral, but she was happy, so happy. Barry and the minister had made a chair and were carrying her down the hillside, while her father held her hand and Silver carried her feet gently, under her arm. It all seemed so wonderful.
They put her in the car and drove her home and laid her on a couch in the library while they all stood around talking, asking her questions that she couldn’t answer. Barry was telephoning to the chief of police and the minister talking to Silver with that light in his eyes. Her father holding her hand and looking at her and saying: “Dear little girl!” Just like that! “Dear little girl!”
It was all just what she had dreamed a home would be.
Then Bannard: “Well, I guess we’ll go home now. You all need to get a good sleep, and then, well, ‘tomorrow about this time,’ let’s celebrate.”
Greeves looked up and smiled.
“That’s all right, Bannard, we’ll do it, but I’d just like to begin now by saying that after this I belong to the Lord, soul and body. I have been a poor miserable sinner living for myself and railing out that there wasn’t any God, but He answered my prayer when I was in distress, and now I mean to live for Him and for my children the rest of my days, so help me the God that I have blasphemed!”
Anne Truesdale, listening nearby, said aloud to her soul: “It’s come, it’s come, it’s come! Th’ verra windows of heaven is open. Praise be!”
GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL (1865–1947) is known as the pioneer of Christian romance. Grace wrote more than a hundred faith-inspired books during her lifetime. When her first husband died, leaving her with two daughters to raise, writing became a way to make a living, but she always recognized storytelling as a way to share her faith in God. She has touched countless lives through the years and continues to touch lives today. Her books feature moving stories, delightful characters, and love in its purest form.
Love Endures
Grace Livingston Hill Classics
Available in 2012
The Beloved Stranger
The Prodigal Girl
A New Name
Re-Creations
Tomorrow about This Time
Crimson Roses
Blue Ruin
Coming Through the Rye
The Christmas Bride
Ariel Custer
Not Under the Law
Job’s Niece
Tomorrow About This Time Page 30