“You came down that roof,” he said, pointing toward the house. “Could you go back that way if I put you up?”
“I think so.”
“Wait a minute.”
He motioned Chris.
“Prisoner all right, kid?”
“Yep. Not come to yet, but he’ll be okay.”
“Manage him alone?”
“Oh sure!”
“I’ll stay then and come up for the girl in the morning.”
“H’m!” said Chris, puckering his lips. “You can’t take her in that car and ride into town. Make talk here even if you come after her in that.”
“So it will, Chris, but I guess it can’t be helped. She ought not to stay here any longer. She’s been under a terrible nervous strain, and they are very disagreeable to her.”
“Well, you tell her to buck up. I’ll telegraph when I get to a station and have ’em send two men and a limousine out, and they can drive the other car back. Let’s see, what time is it now? About two? They oughtta be able to make it to that inn back there by nine o’clock. These folks won’t come to after this bout till eleven in the morning at least. Tell her you’ll probably be here after her between ten and eleven. That’ll give you a chance to make a respectable getaway before the folks. Tell ’em her folks back home need her or something.”
“Kid, you’re great,” said Sherwood with deep feeling in his voice. “I’ll never forget what you’ve done tonight.”
“Aw, quit yer kidding,” responded Chris quickly and sounding as if he were going to cry. “I gotta beat it back! Sure you’re all right, Cap?”
“Sure. Only I oughtn’t to let you go alone with that snake!”
“Aw, he’s nothing! Knock the tar outta him easy as pie. Don’t you worry about us. Got his clippers on him nice and tight and a bone to suck. Won’t hear a peep outta him till I get him where I want him. Got a couppla guns, too, if I need ’em. So long, Cap! Better get a little sleep on these pine needles while you wait. You gotta good long stretch before you yet, and we gotta get around and see how that ‘lection came out, yet, too.”
Chris stopped and picked up his inert burden as if Kearney had been a child and stepped off down the mountain.
Sherwood stepped back to Romayne with his arm around her, and together they watched until Chris was out of sight among the weird moonlit shadows of the wood.
Then Sherwood drew her to him once more and whispered softly: “Romayne, I love you. Will you let me take care of you the rest of your life?”
And Romayne hid her tired face against his shoulder and whispered, “Yes.”
That was a wonderful moment for both of them. They would have liked to wander out into the forest and tell their hearts to one another, and wonder over the miracle that had come to each in that moment of rescue, but Sherwood was mindful of the tongues that would need only a tiny start to make ugliness out of joy, and he called a halt in the beauty that was surging into their lives.
“We’ve got to put you right back into your room, darling,” he whispered. “Any minute someone might come out and see us, and there would be no way of explaining it all that would not be embarrassing to you. We hope we’ll have a whole lifetime of joy together, so we can bear to wait a few hours now for your sake. But when you get back into the room, have you any way of locking your door so that you cannot be disturbed till morning? I do not trust people who are drinking.…”
“Yes, I’ll put something through the key so that it can’t be turned,” said Romayne.
“Well, and you might draw a trunk or something across the door.”
“I never did send for my trunk,” said Romayne, “but there’s a desk, and some heavy chairs. I’ll fix it. But I’m not afraid now.” And she looked up at him with a look that went to his heart even in the darkness. “And besides, that awful man is gone.”
“Yes, he’s gone. You need not be afraid of him anymore. And with his going, a lot of other troubles are going to vanish also. You don’t know what he’s been to this liquor business—and other things. But I’ll tell you later. Come!”
He folded her in his arms for just one more quick embrace, and then softly they stole through the shadows close to the house, and he lifted her on his shoulders and braced her until she was safe upon the roof. Then softly, slowly she crept up, scraping her pretty little black evening dress most terribly, but what did that matter now! And when she was safely inside her window, she waved him a kiss and slipped out of sight, and Evan Sherwood disappeared into the shadows of the wood.
But he did not go far. He watched the house from a safe distance until the music at last stopped, the excited voices died away one after another, the lights appeared upstairs one at a time and blinked out again after a few minutes, and at last even the servants’ quarters were dark, and everyone seemed asleep.
Then and not till then did Evan Sherwood lie down on the pine needles and relax.
But not even then did he sleep. He did not intend to sleep. He was keeping watch over his beloved until the morning light should break. She was his beloved! He let that thought sink deeply, joyously, into his soul. She did not dislike his presence anymore. She wanted him to take care of her. She had asked him to take her away, even before she knew that he loved her. He was watching over her now with her permission. He did not any longer have to do it through other people and in secret. She was his, and he lay looking up at the pines in the moonlight and seeing a long vista of beautiful future ahead, until the moonlight paled and blushed into rosy light of the dawn. Then he got up, and after a brief reconnoiter to be sure all was well at the house, he went down to Chris’s car and climbed in, and the Humdinger went down the mountain at a great pace till it came to the inn on the highway. There Evan Sherwood got a room and shaved and made himself as fine as could be under the circumstances, and waited for his chariot to appear.
Shortly before ten o’clock there came a long-distance call for him, and Chris was on the wire.
“Well, I got my little wildcat caged at last,” he said nonchalantly. “Has the car gotten there yet? They will be in a few minutes now. I told ’em they had to make it by ten. Anything you want done back here? Who? Bronson? Oh, yep. I’ll have her available when you get here. Need me to meet you or anything? Well, so long. Take it easy on the way back!” And Chris hung up.
The limousine appeared almost on time, and Sherwood, fortified by breakfast, handed over the Humdinger to the two officers, who grinned an approving welcome with a somewhat-overdone deference, he thought, said they were mighty glad he had turned up all safe after the scare, and then without further explanation stepped on the gas and shot away. But Evan Sherwood did not notice that they had not spoken of the result of the election. It had not once entered his mind since he started on his quest. He was only impatient now to be off and rescue the princess from the castle.
Alida Freeman was standing on the balcony when he drove into sight in the great beautiful car that Chris had somewhere dug up for the occasion, a car that Evan Sherwood’s modest income could in no way have provided for years to come. She was surrounded by three or four other young people, with Mrs. Whitman and Jack nearby. Romayne was nowhere in sight. The young people were just straggling down to breakfast. It was after eleven o’clock.
“Oh, who is that stunning-looking man, Gloria?” called out Alida. “It looks like—why—I believe it is, that Sherwood fellow that’s head of that ridiculous League. They say he’s going to be the next mayor. I suppose he just went into all this notoriety for the sake of getting elected, don’t you, and when he gets the position he’ll be worth knowing. I’m just crazy about him, and Uncle Jud has promised me an introduction if he really gets the nomination. How did he come to be here? Do you know him?”
Her words were so loud that the rest of the group on the balcony turned to look as he drew up in front of the door and stopped his engine. Mrs. Whitman and Jack hastened forward to greet so interesting a visitor, wondering whom of their guests he had come to see.
“I am looking for Miss Ransom,” he said in a clear voice, purposely raised so that Romayne might hear him if she were in the vicinity.
“Oh,” said Mrs. Whitman speculatively. “She—you—”
“Yes,” said Evan Sherwood as if she had asked him a definite question. “She is my fiancée. I have come to take her home this morning.”
And then, while the astonishment was still upon the group, Romayne appeared with her suitcase and her little handbag.
“Mrs. Whitman, this is Mr. Sherwood,” she said gravely. “I am sorry to have to leave you without anyone, but it is impossible for me to remain any longer. I will try to send you someone if you are to have me do so.”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Whitman in a small voice. “You didn’t tell me.”
“No,” said Romayne, smiling pleasantly. “What difference would it have made?”
Then Evan Sherwood gathered his fiancée and her belongings into the big limousine and whirled her away through the forest into the glorious day.
“And that,” said Mrs. Whitman, turning thoughtfully away from the last look down the winding trail, “is probably our future mayor’s wife, and we shall have to invite her to everything—or move away!”
“Well, Mamma, she’s really quite attractive—you must admit,” said Gloria.
“I told you she was a peach!” said Jack glumly.
Said Alida, “I always loved her dearly, and felt so sorry for her when she went through her trouble. But isn’t it strange! I’m just crazy about him!”
They rode away into the day, and neither of them knew how long the miles had been for the glory of the way.
It was not until they rode quite into the city that they began to take account of the time and place. A noisy hurdy-gurdy was playing an old tune in wild time, and the madness of it went to their hearts.
“If a body meet a body, coming through the rye,” sang the hurdy-gurdy, and Evan turned laughing to Romayne and hummed in a clear tenor voice: “If a body kiss a body, need a body cry?”
And right there, passing in the street, he stooped and kissed her quickly.
“I guess we’ve come through the rye at last, dear,” he said, and, as if to give him glad assent, a newsboy came flinging round the street corner crying: “All about Evan Sherwood nominated for mayor by large majority!”
They stopped and bought a paper and read it on the way, and Evan turned to his smiling bride and said, “Yes, we seem to have come through, so far. Now, how soon can we be married? I want to take you to see my Aunt Patty.”
“Why, I have an Aunt Patty, too,” said Romayne happily. “At least she said I might call her that.”
Evan Sherwood looked at the sweet face and began to speak, then closed his lips again. Why not keep that for a sweet surprise? So when he spoke, he only said, “Have you?” and reached his hand to gather hers in a quick little grasp, before he stopped the car at Grandma Bronson’s house.
GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL (1865–1947) is known as the pioneer of Christian romance. Grace wrote more than one 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
Coming Through the Rye Page 28