The Seventh Hour

by Grace Livingston Hill

  He was babbling her name, calling out to her.

  "C'reen! C'reen! C'mon out, I say. I wantcha! Come on out'n dance! Fa lal la! Doncha hear the music? C'mon out'n get a drink! I got a bottle a' something swell. Saved it fer you! C'mon, C'reen! Wha's tha matter? Wha's getting ya? C'mon, C'reen! I'll marry ya ef ya'll come out! We'll go get married right now!"

  His voice muttered away indefinitely, and at last after pounding and rattling at the door intermittently, he groped his way back along the wall and she could hear his stumbling walk, hands on the wall.

  It was some time after he had gone out of hearing before she dared to breathe freely again, and she was cold with terror. How she wished she dared steal to the telephone and call up her brother, or one of those people she had been with during the evening, and ask for help. Well she knew they would come at once, any one of them. Especially she knew that Bruce would come, and of course, Dana. They had shown a care for her well-being that she had never known before.

  But she dared not do it. The crowed would hear her talking. They would know she was there and come to break in the door and stop her if they knew what she was doing.

  Besides, she could not bear the shame of having Dana and Bruce know what was going on in her home. She could not have them come and find her beautiful mother drunk. Especially Dana must never see her that way. Dana, in spite of all he had borne from his mother, had somehow retained an ideal of motherhood, and it would appall him so to see his mother like that. She shrank from it for him. And she wondered at herself even while she was thinking that, for she had never cared what others suffered before. She had never been willing to bear anything to save another in any way. Yet now she wanted to save that heavenly face of her brother from bearing the imprint of horror and disgust. She had been learning what love meant, and she knew he had it. Perhaps some love for him was stealing into her own brazen little heart, too. But anyway, she could not let Dana come here now and see things as they were. Somehow she must stand it and keep still till this was past. And then tomorrow she might go away somewhere and hide. Never again subject herself to such terror as this.

  But where could she go? With Lisa borrowing again from her funds, making it appear that she had given consent. Lisa could sign her name in exact imitation of hers. There was no telling but her money for the quarter was gone. There would be no more for three months. Where could she go without money?

  Of course, she might be able to do as some others were doing, get a job. But what could she do? She had never been taught anything worthwhile. She couldn't even sew. Perhaps she might get a job as a social secretary, but Lisa would make a terrible fuss about that. Everybody would talk. Oh, of course, she might try to get a job as a model. But there again Lisa would think she was an utter disgrace. She would simply have to leave town if she attempted anything like that, and even at that if Lisa ever found out where she was she would bad-mouth her at once and lose any job for her that she could possibly get. There really was nothing for her at all, unless she stayed with her mother, and it began to look very much as if that would mean marrying that awful beast of an Errol. And that she would never do, not even if she had to drown herself.

  She lay there a long time shivering and quaking in her miserable young soul, and wondering what those Shannons would think of her if they knew what torment she was in. And what would that nice red-haired Bruce think? Wouldn't he do something about it if he knew? Yes, he would, she was sure, but she was equally sure that she would rather die than let him know. She would never want to look him in his eyes again if he knew.

  Dana would do something about it, too, she had confidence enough in him now to know that. But again she could never tell Dana her shame. She had got to carry it off somehow herself. Her pride would carry her through as it always had done of course, only she was heart-sick now. And moreover she had had a revelation of another way to live. She might not have liked the other way any better if she had been brought up in it, but at least it looked better at first sight. At least those people looked happy, and when she thought it over carefully she couldn't think of one of her friends who had a radiant look like those people. Radiant and tender, that was the way they looked.

  Why hadn't she been born like other children, with the right kind of father and mother, and a home? Why couldn't she have had a grand brother like Dana, and a friend like Bruce, and lived a perfectly normal life? Why was she ever fed on wine and whiskey and allowed to grow wild?

  But the night wore on, and the air that came in her window was full of sounds, weird, jazzy sounds, out of a world she knew, sounds that brought pictures to her mind. All about her there were people making merry, without any real mirth in their hearts. She could hear the tunes to which they were dancing, the foolish babbling and wild mirthless screaming with which they punctuated the night. Hadn't she been a part of it often and often? She knew the silly languishing glances with which they were accompanied, and her soul was loathing it all. She seemed to be flung down at the bottom of a deep pit, into the mire of her life, with no way whatever to get out to the top where the air was pure. She struggled, caught her breath, and felt that she was stifling.

  Then suddenly like a clear breath of air blowing from some eternal hills there came the echo of her brother's voice singing:

  "I would love to tell you what I think of Jesus. . ."

  She had that line. She was sure of it. Then the tune trailed off vaguely to another phrase or two. "No one ever cared for me like Jesus." It rang in her heart. It pierced her through and through, and touched the sore place of her own loneliness, and terror, and fright of life.

  And now the song was banishing the other life about her. It had cleared the atmosphere. "Oh, how much He cared for me!" Ah! Could that possibly be for her? Was there a way out of all this?

  "Oh, Jesus! Jesus! Where are you?" Such a desolate little desperate prayer that didn't even know it was a prayer.

  ***

  Dana and Bruce had walked slowly, silently for the first two or three blocks toward home, and then Dana asked sadly:

  "Well, you have seen! What do you think? Is it any use? Should I have come?"

  "Yes!" said Bruce with a ring to his voice. "I'm glad you came. She was wonderfully stirred by your song. Stirred by the whole evening."

  "Perhaps." said Dana sadly. "But only because it was something new she had never seen before, don't you think?"

  "I'm not sure," said Bruce. "I thought the Spirit of God was working."

  "Well, but the effect will all be disseminated when she gets among her own crowd again." Dana had a sad, despondent manner.

  "She said she was not going among them tonight. We will go home and pray!"

  "Yes," said Dana, "I know. God can work where we cannot see, of course. When you come to think of it, wasn't it rather wonderful she should come in on us that way just as we had been talking of her?"

  "Yes. It was," said Bruce. "Perhaps that was why I felt from the first that it was God's doing. But don't begin to pull it to pieces and wonder. Just be glad we have such a wonderful God. For I think she has been greatly stirred by everything. You in the first place of course, and then the meeting, and the Shannons. They are great people, you know."

  "Yes, aren't they? But what do you suppose they thought of my sister?"

  "Thought she needed saving, likely. Kirk is always on the lookout for souls. Say, he's got a mighty fine family. It's no wonder he is such a fine fellow. It pays to have a good family."

  "Yes, indeed!" agreed Dana. "Kirk has some marvelous sisters, hasn't he? That girl that played tonight has a fine delicate touch."

  "Yes. A potato could sing with an accompaniment like that. I felt it bearing us along in that trio. My, I like to sing with you and Kirk! I almost feel as if I had a voice, too!"

  "Yes, you poor humble creature, it's a pity about you!" said Dana. "One of the finest bass voices I've ever had the pleasure of hearing, and yet you talk like that! Kirk's sister couldn't get over how deep it is. By the way, what w
as her name? I didn't catch it."

  "Valerie, I think. And what did she say about your voice, you poor beggar?" answered Bruce.

  "Why, I don't remember that she said anything special," said Dana laughing. "Well, she's a fine girl, and Kirk has plenty of people in his own household to help in his mission work. That must be wonderful. Do you know, this evening, I couldn't help wishing my father could have known that family."

  "Well, he will someday! Say, it's going to be great knowing all God's family, being related to them, isn't it?"

  So they talked as they walked along, and went back again to the experiences of the evening, till at last before they reached the house, Bruce told Dana of the conversation he had had with Coralie.

  "Well, that's great!" said Dana eagerly. "Thank you so much for taking my poor little sister on your hands, and carrying on when I had to go up and sing. And thank you for so cheerfully taking the interruption to the pleasant evening you had planned for us tonight, and my sister spoiled. I'm afraid she may unexpectedly spoil a lot of our nice times if I remain in New York."

  "That's all right with me, Dana," said the other. "I'd rather have the nice time God plans always, than any time I plan. But I mean it; I really had a good time tonight! That little sister of yours is very interesting. You'd better get acquainted with her and find out for yourself. I know, she doesn't talk your language yet, but it's not impossible for her to learn."

  "Thanks a lot, Bruce. I needed that encouragement. I was pretty down about her. And as for my mother, I don't know what to think."

  "Doesn't the fact that she has sent for you, wants to see you, give you any hope?"

  "Well, I'm afraid not, old man. You don't know how she impressed me. Just as one so hardened that nothing would reach her. So hardened that even the love of God wouldn't mean a thing to her. I suppose it is prejudice of the years, and what she did, that makes me feel so strongly, but somehow I caught no gleam of interest in her. She looked startled. I could see she recognized my likeness to Father. But I felt that when she looked at me it was as if I were, to her, one who had risen from the dead. As if when she decided to leave Father and me long ago she had killed us from her heart, and now she resented that I had come back to haunt her. I was in the nature of a ghost, if you know what I mean. I didn't see a single flash of real personal interest. Nor I didn't recognize a hint of any repentance that she had left Father. He was something that had died long ago out of her life, and all I did was to remind her of him. Even when she once acknowledged that he was 'sweet' as she called him, you could see it wasn't a sweetness she had missed out of her life, or had perhaps ever cared for deeply at any time. I suppose that fact made me resent her even more than I had before I came. To have had my father's wonderful love, and not to care, that seemed unforgivable!"

  Bruce was quiet for a moment, and then he said thoughtfully: "I suppose that is what we will be thinking in heaven someday about people who treated our Lord that way."

  Dana sighed deeply.

  "Yes, I suppose. But you know, Bruce, it has given me such a hopeless feeling about her, and I'm afraid my sister is bound to be like her."

  "I don't believe so!" said Bruce suddenly with strong emphasis. "She may be more like your father. She looks like him! And anyway, she is your sister, and we're going to pray for her! I told her we would."

  "Yes," said Dana. "And of course I'll pray for my mother with all my heart, only God hasn't given me the assurance yet that she is going to change. But I guess I'm glad I came. And now, tomorrow morning, I'm going down to see that publisher and sort of clear the atmosphere of things I have to do. Then, if nothing turns up for me to work at, I can at least go down to Kirk's mission and help him out with the singing. He needs a song leader badly, he told me."

  "That's the talk!" said Bruce. "Cheer up, brother! We have a great God, and He has allowed us to help in His great work."

  So they went up to their room to pray for Coralie.

  And as they knelt and talked to God about her, Coralie lay wondering at her strange, unwonted thoughts.

  In the living room of the apartment, Lisa was carrying on her wild party, forgetful that she even had a daughter, except when one or another of her guests would ask about her, and Errol Hunt would go rambling about trying to find her, taking another drink every time he failed.

  Back at the Shannon house the whole family sat around the fire talking. It wasn't their custom to sit up so late and talk after a meeting, especially when most of them had to be up early the next morning. But somehow this seemed a special occasion.

  While the girls and their mother went out to the kitchen to set things to rights the father and sons had sat around the fire. Norah was sound asleep on the old couch, the lamp turned low, the firelight playing shadows with her golden curls. The mother was setting the first buckwheat cakes of the season for breakfast the next morning.

  "What a lovely voice that young man has," said the mother, giving a final stir to her batter and setting a plate carefully over the top of the bowl, nestling it all in a sheltered corner of the kitchen shelf.

  "Which one?" asked Turla. "I thought they both had nice voices."

  "Yes, they had," said Valerie, "and they blended so well. Kirk's voice is a nice voice, too."

  "Of course!" said Mother. "But that Dana-man has a voice like an angel."

  "Now Mother-mine, when did you ever hear an angel sing? I thought you always taught me that angels don't sing, at least it isn't so recorded; they only discourse."

  "Well, perhaps it's Kirk that has the angel-voice then," said the smiling mother. "But I still say the Dana-man has about the most beautiful man's singing voice I ever heard."

  "It is lovely," said Valerie suddenly sobering. "I felt honored to accompany him. And he seems to have a lovely character, too. Kirk says he had a marvelous father. But Mother, what did you think of his sister?"

  "I should say she was a flat tire!" said Turla, wiping a pile of plates deftly and swiftly.

  "Say, if she didn't have crud on her eyelashes I'll eat my hat!" said Leith, suddenly appearing in the pantry doorway with a little cake in his hand.

  "Oh, my dearie!" said the mother gently. "She was just a poor little frightened lass out of her element! She didn't know what to make of it all."

  "Frightened! My eye! If she was ever frightened of anything I'd be surprised. She's tough as they make 'em, Mither-my-dear!"

  "Tough she may be, and painted she may be, my laddie, and also a flat tire to our way of thinking, but she was that frightened. I was just wearying to put my arms around her and mother her a bit! Valerie, you'll have to go after that wee bit lamb and bring her around sometime, till we see if we can't comfort her a bit and make her have blithe lights in her eyes."

  "I will, Mother dear," said Valerie as she turned out the kitchen light. Then they all trooped back into the living room and gathered around the blinking fire again.

  It was Leith who asked his father: "Dad, what did you think of that girl? Wasn't she a strange little tough nut? She's a looker of course, but they don't come that way naturally, do they?"

  "She's a perfect picture of her brother," said Turla, "and she certainly has a style to her clothes!"

  "Anybody can have style to their clothes if they don't do anything but think about them," said Kendall loftily as if he knew all about it. Then they all laughed. Kendall was just beginning to grow up, and sometimes put on knowledge as a garment.

  "I don't understand it," said Valerie. "That brother is unusually fine."

  "He had a marvelous father," said Kirk. "I heard the fellows talking about it at college. They said he was a grand man."

  "Well, if it was the father, why didn't the girl have him, too? And didn't they have a mother?"

  "I don't know," said Kirk. "Maybe the mother died and the girl was sent away to school or something. Maybe a worldly relative."

  "However, it doesn't matter," said the father. "It's not our business. But I guess that doesn't bar us from praying for h
er. Kirk, you lead us tonight in our evening prayer."

  And again earnest souls were upon their knees, praying for one little frightened, solitary girl who lay by herself hearing the echo of a heavenly song and wondering if there was anything real in it for her.

  After the Shannon family got up from their knees and went to their rooms, there were other prayers made in that house that night in which Coralie was included. The mother prayed, and the father, and Valerie. Her brother Kirk, also, for he loved Dana. And if Dana's sister needed saving, he wanted to pray for her.

  And if any of them could have seen the living room where Lisa was entertaining her guests that night, those Shannons would certainly have felt that Coralie needed their prayers.

  Chapter 10

  Dana went the next morning to see Mr. Burney.

  Not that he was expecting to get anything definite. It was just that this visit was one he had promised his employer at home to make, and he wanted to get it off his mind and be ready to go back if he felt impelled to do so.

  But Dana was utterly unprepared for the cordial welcome that he received.

  "Well, Barron, I was about to get a dog and a gun and go out and search for you," Mr. Burney greeted him cordially. "You see, my friend Randolph telephoned me about you, said he heard that one of our men had left us, and he didn't know but it might be convenient to us to know that you were in these parts and could help us out till we found a new man. So I've just been watching the door to see you come in for the last three days. Now, sit down and let's talk. Randolph has given you a high recommendation. But tell me about yourself. I certainly shall be glad if you can help us, at least for a few days till we can look around and get on our feet again."

  So they sat and talked. Mr. Burney rumpled his white hair and looked more and more pleased, deciding that he liked Dana Barron fully as much as his friend Randolph had told him he would.

  At last he touched a bell for his secretary, and Valerie walked in.

  Mr. Burney greeted her with a smile of satisfaction.