The White Lady

by Grace Livingston Hill

  Chapter 21

  When the minister had finished his supper, which he had not dared take at the Cedars lest he should have to give account to Mrs. Bartlett, he thought of Mrs. Wetherill and his promise to drop in and see her, if possible, before prayer meeting. If he went at once, he would have time for a few minutes there, and then he might just for once walk with Constance to the church. He dreaded to think of her going alone even early in the evening, there were so many loungers around the drugstore, and he hated to think of the evil face and more evil words of Silas Barton.

  But when he reached the old house, Norah informed him sorrowfully that Miss Constance had company from the city and would probably not be able to go to meeting that night. She told it to him with sympathy in her eyes, as if she would break the news gently, and he half understood her tone and smiled gratefully, but there was a load of nameless unrest upon him as he went up the stairs to Mrs. Wetherill’s room, where it was by no means lightened.

  The old lady was restless. She greeted him eagerly, as if she had been watching for him, and she waited not at all to relieve her mind of its burden.

  “I do not think I could do without you,” she said in her gracious, motherly way that somehow comforted his lonely heart, “and I want you to promise me something.”

  “Assuredly I will, if it is in my power,” he said kindly.

  “Well then,” she said almost childishly, “promise me that if we ever have to go away from here, back to the city to live, that you will accept a call to a church there and come and be near us.”

  John Endicott’s heart gave a mighty foreboding of evil. He felt his strength leaping from his fingertips, but he put forth his self-control and stayed it.

  “Are you, then, thinking of going away?” he asked, and his voice sounded strange, even to himself. Miss Stokes noted that his lips were white.

  “Oh, I suppose we’ll have to, now,” she said sadly. “And just as I was so happy to stay, too, but I wouldn’t have Constance know how I feel for anything. But, if you will go along, I shall not mind. That dear child would give up anything for my sake, but I do not mean she shall. You see it is this way. She and Morris Thayer have been as good as engaged for two years, and he is of a fine old family, and a very commendable young man, of course, just the one for her. But they had some little misunderstanding, and she came off here. I never knew what it was, because she did not seem to care to talk about it, but I knew all the time that she came here because of it. I was surprised that he did not follow sooner, for he has been very devoted; but perhaps it was her fault. She is very proud. But now he has come, and they are downstairs together. I think they will probably be married very soon, and of course we shall have to go home for the wedding. But we have friends in your denomination in New York, and I am sure we could get you a better church there than you have here, and then we should have you near us. You will do that for me, will you not? You have helped me so very much.”

  She put out her delicate twisted hand, and it groped helplessly for his strong one. He took it in a gentle grasp as if she had been his own grandmother, and said gravely, “Dear friend, I will do what I can for you. I will go where God sends me.”

  She looked at him a moment questioningly and then seemed to be satisfied, and he knelt to pray, but his voice was strained and full of sudden dread.

  So it was that he did not wait for Constance Wetherill to go to prayer meeting that evening but went alone through the starlight, his head bowed and his whole being saddened with sudden loss.

  It was Jennie who met him at the chapel door and looked beyond him questioningly.

  “Ain’t she coming?” she asked. “Then it’s true. Si said her beau came this afternoon from New York, but I didn’t believe him. Si always says ugly things about her because she won’t be nice to him. He just hates her, too, because she runs a tearoom. Say did you see him?”

  “See whom?” The minister’s tone was actually cold.

  “Why, her beau. Si says he was here all the afternoon and went back to supper there. Si said some horrid things about him. If they’re true, she ought to be told.”

  “Jennie,” said the minister in his pulpit tone, “it is growing late, and Miss Wetherill has been detained. Do you think you could play for us this evening?”

  And Jennie, much pleased with the honor, fluttered to the organ and wondered why the minister had seemed not to hear what she said about Miss Wetherill. Was he jealous?

  Meantime, in his inner office, back of the drugstore, Silas Barton sat intent upon his evil work. He was writing anonymous letters, and the serpent of his wrath lay coiled at his elbow, hissing into his ear more evil plots than his own revenge had dared dream. His eyes gleamed triumph, and his breath came thick as his pen wrote on, almost as if it were drunk with the thought it was conveying. He paid no heed to the noises that came from the outer room, though there were oaths and curses and a sound of loud dispute. It was Holly’s voice. Holly was drunk, and Holly was angry.

  The gentle clock on the bookcase in the inner room at the Cedars had ticked out another whole minute before Constance spoke.

  “Morris, you are mistaken about this place. It is mine. I have rented it and moved here. The tearoom is my enterprise, and it was I who waited upon the table in there a little while ago.” She paused to gather strength and see just what there was left to tell, but her listener leaned forward on the divan with distress in his face and voice. This was going to be troublesome and annoying, he feared. When girls took up fads, they were hard to manage. And girls were doing a lot of unconventional things these days. But to think of Constance Wetherill admitting that she had waited upon a table of men by her own consent! It was impossible!

  “But, my dear Constance,” he said deprecatingly, “what in the world do you mean? What have you done all this for? Do you not know that all your friends will be amazed and will think you have taken leave of your senses? It may be interesting to you to play at such things, but it is unseemly for one of your rank and station to so demean herself, even for amusement. May I ask why you have done this most extraordinary thing?” He spoke sternly, as if he had the right to arraign her.

  Constance answered almost haughtily.

  “I have done it to earn my own living.”

  “To earn your living!” cried the young man in astonishment.

  “Yes, to earn my living, and Grandmother’s.”

  “And why, pray, do you wish to do such an extraordinary thing as that? With your fortune and position, it is simply insane to go in for a thing of this sort. I know girls are trying to get in the public eye nowadays by doing wild things—running off to Europe alone in airplanes and going into interior decorating and that sort of thing, but I never thought it of you. I wonder your grandmother allows it! With all your money, Constance, it is disgraceful—ridiculous—”

  His voice was still stern. He put on his eyeglass and looked at her as if that would help him to understand this unusual state of things.

  Constance suddenly felt that she had to laugh. He seemed so utterly horrified over what to her had come to be an accepted fact, and one that did not grieve her seriously anymore. But she conquered her amusement and explained gravely.

  “Morris, we haven’t any money anymore. It is all lost.”

  She said it as coolly as if she were telling him she had torn her dress.

  Thayer looked at her, aghast. “Lost your money!” he said sharply. “That is nonsense, of course. It would be impossible! Of course your father left his estate well invested! Why didn’t you come to me? I would have had my lawyer look into things for you! Of course you have been misinformed—”

  But just at that instant the door leading to the front room burst open, and Jimmy’s head stuck in between the curtains.

  His round face was red and excited, and his hair stuck up straight all over his head. The words burst from his lips explosively.

  “The stores are on fire, an’ the church’s catchin’ fire, too. The minister’s up on th
e church roof. You better come out.”

  “You young scoundrel, don’t you know any better than to come frightening a lady in this manner?” cried Morris Thayer, facing Jimmy, who bristled up at him like a small bantam cock with ruffled feathers facing a large mastiff.

  “Constance—I beg you will sit down and not be annoyed. There is doubtless no danger. I will step out and see. Sit down and remain where you are, and let me look after things for you.”

  “I must go to my grandmother,” said Constance, breathless, brushing past the young man before half his words were out. With a grimace of triumph, Jimmy followed.

  Morris Thayer, left to himself, wandered out on the front veranda, saw that there was no danger of fire reaching in the direction of the Cedars, watched the flames idly for a few minutes, and then sauntered in once more to try to understand the new state of things.

  Constance, having visited her grandmother’s room and found her peacefully sleeping, closed all the windows and doors to secure her from any danger of hearing the noises that were going on in the street, and rushed down the back stairs and out into the night. The sentence that had caught her ear and made her heart rise with terror was, “The minister’s up on the church roof.”

  Straight out to the road she fled, through the snowy path. The light from the glaring flames fell on her and made her look like some fleeing angel in her rosy white. There was much noise and confusion, and a crowd had gathered, black against the rose-lit white of the snow crust. The whole front of the store was in flames, and sheets of fire bursting from all the windows. Across the road stood the old brick church. The moss-grown roof, which Constance had admired so often during the summer and which for fear of a leak had been carefully cleaned from snow that would have protected it somewhat now, had caught fire in several places.

  High on its precipitous slope, clearly seen against the star-studded sky, stood the minister, working with all his might to save the church. He was hatless and coatless and was drenched with water. He was spreading out wet carpets and soaking the old shingles with water.

  Soon a stream from the inadequate engine was turned on the church, and there began to be a little hope for it.

  Then came a great cry of horror.

  It was a woman’s voice, above even the chug-chug of the little country fire engine. It was Jennie’s voice, and it rose high and clear above all others.

  “Si is in there! Save him, somebody! Save my brother! He’s upstairs in the back room!”

  “What does she say?” asked John Endicott, pausing to brush back his hair from his wet forehead. “Her brother? What! Silas Barton in the building yet? Where? Where did you say?”

  The minister was going down the ladder as fast as he could while they answered his questions. They did not realize what he meant to do, else perhaps they would not have answered them so readily.

  The fire in the store had been going on for some time before Silas Barton aroused from his absorption in his work enough to realize it.

  Holly had been idle all the afternoon, and with Holly, to be idle meant to drink. He was usually good-natured when he was drunk, and the boys of the village liked to tease him and hear what he would say. It was a frequent amusement on holidays. But tonight some little word dropped by Si had been handed about by some of the drinkers, a slight forerunner of the serpent that was meant to uncoil itself upon the morrow. It had reached the ears of Holly, and drunk as he was, he was fired with anger. He came at once to the defense of the one woman and the one man in the whole town whom he looked upon as saints.

  “Who—who—who d-d-dares t-s-a-y th-th-th-at?” he stuttered, reeling into the middle of the room and rolling up his sleeves until his huge arms were bare to the muscular shoulders.

  No one cared to go very near, but no one was really afraid of Holly, for he was always jolly when he was drunk. They went on with the talk, adding to the original story and exciting him still more; and when they would not tell him who had said the vile words first, Holly suddenly surprised them all by seizing a bottle that stood on the counter and hurling it across the room at them. They dodged and cried out, but the bottle, whirling on its furious way, struck first, not them, but the great hanging reflector lamp that was suspended from the ceiling. It fell to the floor, where it exploded with a loud noise.

  Before anyone in the room was sober enough to know what to do, the room itself was in flames. There was liquor enough to feed it, and it burned up rapidly. Silas, roused at last by the uproar, came to the door, and seeing the certain destruction of the whole building, remembered a large sum of money and some valuable papers that he had left in his bedroom that morning. Stealthily, lest someone should try to stop him, he slid up the stairs and began gathering his valuables together and securing them about his person. But when he tried to go down again, the staircase was in flames, and suffocating smoke almost choked him. For an instant he staggered and almost lost consciousness. Then a draught of air from the back hall sent the smoke away for an instant, and he blindly beat his way back to his bedroom. Blackened and disoriented, he appeared for a second at the side window, and Jennie, who had been standing in horror on the sidewalk, saw him and cried out. Then he fell back out of sight.

  They helped the minister drag the ladder, for they did not understand what he meant to do until they saw it placed against the burning building; then they tried to stop him. But he was too quick for them, and they were used to obeying him. With a commanding voice, he said, “Hands off! No, I must go, not you! You have a wife and children. I have no one!”

  There was almost a satisfaction in the minister’s tone as he said that. Here, at least, was one reason why he might be thankful for his lonely condition. He might try to save this wretched man who was not ready to die. There was no question of any duty to anyone else.

  So up he went, in long strong strides, and did not know that at the foot of the ladder in the darkness, there stood a girl in white, with anxious face and agonized eyes, watching him while her lips unconsciously moved in prayer for his safety.

  The crowd on the street surged around to the side, quick to scent new tragedy, and a sudden awful quiet swept over them, with a quick drawing of breath as the minister disappeared within the blazing window. And the whisper went around from one awed observer to another that it was Si Barton for whom he was risking his life.

  Si’s boon companions were there, who had spread the hideous stories that he had concocted against the minister; Holly was there, sobered, with a red gash across his forehead and another on his arm. Jimmy was there, breathless, agonizing, adoring, wishing he might have gone along. He would have readily gone now to save both of the men, only the firemen interfered whenever he came near.

  Lanky was there, who had said the minister was a coward, and Mrs. Bartlett was there. She reflected with uneasiness that she had given the minister no pumpkin pie that winter, and he liked it so. If he came out alive, she would bake some tomorrow.

  They were all there, and they strained their eyes and prayed silently with one united breath, while the flames rolled on nearer and nearer to the spot where the ladder stood, and it began to be feared that the wall would fall.

  Then, as if a mighty hope had risen, a murmur went over the crowd; for the smoke in the window began to take form and darken, and there appeared something clumsy and blackened, and someone went up to help. It was all indistinct at first, and the crowd scarcely dared move or breathe, in spite of the fact that they were dangerously near the wall and it might fall at any moment. They watched the two men drag their heavy, sodden burden, step by step, cautiously, down the ladder, until they were low enough for waiting hands to receive him from them; and then, the minister suddenly sank and dropped silently among them like one dead.

  They carried him quickly away from the wall, and the crowd melted out of danger none too soon as the horrible flame-enveloped structure shivered, leaned, and collapsed. Mrs. Bartlett turned back, marked where the minister had lain but the moment before, and shuddered to thin
k what might have been.

  Constance, with heart beating wildly, scarcely realizing where she stood or what people would think of her, followed the men who were carrying the minister and commanded them to bring him to the Cedars. They looked at her respectfully, glanced at the house, seemed to realize that it was the most convenient place, and obeyed her. Afterward, the men who carried Silas followed and laid him on a hastily improvised couch in the library, across the hall from the tearoom. But the minister they laid in Constance’s room, among the snowy pillows.

  Morris Thayer, standing upon the doorstep, saw them coming, put on his monocle, as he always did when anything disturbed him, and said, “Why, they ought not to bring those creatures in here. This is an imposition. Somebody ought to do something!”

  Chapter 22

  It was Dr. Randall who stood beside the minister, working skillfully, grave and silent. Jimmy had searched him out among the crowd and brought him at once. Any doctor would do for Si Barton, Jimmy thought, but Dr. Randall must come to his beloved minister.

  Jimmy himself stood near and flew to the doctor’s house with messages for his wife to send rolls of antiseptic bandages and ointments, for there was no more drugstore now to run to. He flew here and there silently in incredibly short spaces of time, carrying out all directions given him, and no one challenged his right to be in the sickroom. He shed his shoes and went about with noiseless tread, his little soul filled with anguish. He had brought the minister to Constance when she was in trouble; he would have liked to bring Constance to the minister in his need, but he had no need, for she was there, softly giving directions, pulling down draperies of costly material that were in the way, ruthlessly sweeping the contents of her beautiful dressing table into a basket, that the doctor might spread out his various instruments and liniments and arrange his bandages.

  Unconscious there, amid the beauty of the room that it would have been a joy to him to look into, John Endicott lay, his face blackened almost beyond recognition, his hair and eyebrows burnt, his hands seared, his clothing smoky and torn, and even burned in places. Constance hovered near, her presence like a troubled angel’s. The doctor looked on her once and tried to smile comfortingly. It sat hard upon his grim old face, that smile, for he did not know how to comfort grown people. It was only kittens and little ones toward whom his heart could break forth in its naturalness.