by Peggy Gaddis
She lifted pitiful eyes to Cathy and said unsteadily, “Oh, Cathy—look. I found him over there in the bushes beside his mother. She’s dead. Is he—oh, Cathy—”
“He’s dead, Elaine.”
Elaine’s arms tightened about the tiny body and she cried out raggedly, “Oh, Cathy, how—how awful!”
Behind her Mark said quietly, “Buck up, Elaine. Here, let me have the little fellow.”
Elaine said, her voice choked with sobs, “Oh, Mark—I never knew about things like this. Oh, I knew they happened, and I guess I said, like most people, ‘How terrible.’ But it’s like a hideous nightmare. Oh, I wish I could wake up and find out it was.”
Cathy’s arms were about her, and Elaine was weeping hard, her slender body shaking.
When Mark came back, he carried two thick mugs of steaming coffee, and Cathy said, as her shaking hands gripped one of them, “I never knew how wonderful just a cup of coffee could be!”
Mark looked at her sharply. “You haven’t had breakfast, of course,” he said almost accusingly.
“There wasn’t time.” Cathy sipped it eagerly.
Elaine had conquered her tears to some extent and was docilely sipping the coffee. Mark looked down at the two girls curiously.
“How did you happen to be here?” Cathy had time now to ask the question.
“I was leaving this afternoon—first train I could get,” he explained brusquely. “The hotel was hit, not seriously damaged, and—well, there seemed to be plenty of work for everybody who’d escaped injury.”
He looked down at Elaine and said with appalling frankness, “You’re the one I’m surprised to see here.”
Cathy expected Elaine to resent that with her usual hot temper. Instead Elaine answered meekly, “I know—I’m surprised myself. I guess I—well, when the storm struck and I saw the fire, I thought it would be exciting. And the next thing I knew, I was knee-deep in something I’ve read about and heard about but never experienced before.
“I saw people do heroic things—beautiful selfless things—risk their own lives to help people they don’t even know. I guess I sort of grew up about this kind of thing tonight. Pretty painful business, of course.” She tried desperately to achieve a bit of her old flippancy but without success.
Cathy looked up at Mark and surprised on his face a look of almost startled tenderness. It was not a look directed at herself, but at Elaine. It was as though he had never seen Elaine before, but now that he had, he liked very much what he saw.
Elaine was quite unconscious of his look. She was still sitting hunched on a heap of bricks that had once been a neat, tidy little home, and she was sipping absently at the rapidly cooling coffee, as though her thoughts were so intent on other things that she had forgotten the two beside her.
Mark seemed to feel Cathy’s eyes on him and he looked at her and smiled faintly, almost an abashed smile.
“She’s pretty nice at that,” he said quietly.
Elaine stirred, brought herself back from her exhausted abstraction and looked anxiously at Cathy.
“Do you know where Bill is?” she asked swiftly, as though she had just remembered.
“Bill? I haven’t seen him—have you? Cathy asked Mark.
He shook his head.
“He wasn’t at home when the storm struck,” said Elaine, steadying her tired voice with an almost visible effort. “I ran into his room to call him, and the bed hadn’t been slept in.
“I thought maybe,” she said with the tiniest possible hint of her old self coloring her voice for a moment as she looked at Cathy, “that you might know where he is.”
“He left my house last night before ten o’clock,” answered Cathy quietly.
Mark looked quickly at the two girls and then he said cheerfully, “Oh, well, in the sort of confusion and chaos we’ve had, he could have been within twenty feet of us and none of us have seen him.”
“I suppose so,” Cathy agreed, and tried to rid her mind of an uneasy fear. Bill would turn up. Bill was quite all right. There was a hint of rising panic in the vigor with which she insisted on that, but she had no time nor thought to give to the fact. There was so much to be done.
Chapter Twelve
The Red Cross took over, and the amateur rescue squads relaxed. Some of them were sent home to rest while the others put themselves under the command of the efficient director. What few homes were left in this part of town were overflowing with refugees, and soon tents began to appear in the meadows outside the town, and small cook fires began to lift their blue smoke into the air.
Mark, Cathy and Elaine looked over the scene, and Mark looked down at the exhausted girls and said briskly, “What you two need and are going to have is good hot baths and about twelve hours’ sleep. Let’s get going!”
Elaine turned swiftly to Cathy.
“Come home with me, Cathy?” she begged. “You, too, Mark. There’s plenty of room and you can be comfortable.”
“Thanks, Maggie will be wondering about me,” Cathy protested.
Elaine laughed. The laugh sounded almost gay and the sound of it startled her so she put her hand over her mouth, wide-eyed.
“Golly, I never thought I’d laugh again, only the thought of Maggie being worried about you—Cathy, your house is literally bursting at the seams with kids. Maggie has been rounding them up and taking them home with her and parceling them out among her neighbors, until I’d venture to say that at least ninety percent of the small fry is in that neighborhood. And Maggie’s having so much fun looking after them, I doubt if she’ll miss you. Come on, Cathy. You need sleep and you’ll find it at my house—but not at yours.”
“She’s right, Cathy,” Mark said.
“You’re coming too, Mark. The hotel’s damaged so that you couldn’t go back there. Inspectors are going to have to examine all the buildings in the path of the storm before anybody can move back into them,” said Elaine firmly. She slipped a hand through each of their arms and drew them with her.
Cathy told herself wryly that she was much too tired to argue, even with Edith Kendall; and since it took two to make a fight—She reminded herself that she was becoming light-minded with fatigue and offered no protest as Elaine gently pushed her into the station wagon.
The handsome, stately home of the Kendalls had missed the full force of the storm, though it, too, showed signs of the ordeal.
As they came into the living room, Mrs. Kendall was coming down the stairs, and she called out, “Is that you Elaine? Is Bill with you?”
“No, Aunt Edith—I haven’t seen Bill,” Elaine answered as Mrs. Kendall reached the doorway. “But I’ve brought Cathy Layne and Major Graham to breakfast. And then they want hot baths and a good bed and quiet for at least twelve hours.”
Mrs. Kendall’s eyes flashed a little as she looked at Cathy, but with an effort she made herself speak with a sort of cold graciousness.
“I’m glad to have you both. I’ll see to having food prepared immediately. Elaine, show them to whatever rooms you wish.”
Upstairs Elaine showed Mark to a room, and led Cathy across the hall. She brought Cathy pajamas, a robe, slippers, a new toothbrush from the guest closet, and assured herself that Cathy had everything to make her comfortable before she took herself off.
Cathy luxuriated in a steaming bath and a cool shower afterward. She donned the pink pajamas, knotted the belt of the soft pink robe about her slim waist, and came into the bedroom to find a maid setting down a well laden and very appetizing tray on a small table beside the chaise longue.
She had finished her meal and was relaxed and peaceful, too weary almost to make the effort to get into bed, when there was a knock at the door. Thinking it the maid come to remove the tray, Cathy called, “Come in.” And then she got to her feet politely as Mrs. Kendall came in.
“Sit down, do,” said Mrs. Kendall almost crossly, her voice slightly thickened and not quite steady, her eyes red-rimmed. “Where is he?”
Cathy said quietly, “If you mean Bill—�
�
“But of course I mean Bill—who else could I mean?”
“Then I’m afraid I haven’t the slightest idea. I haven’t seen him since last night, a little while after dinner.”
“Don’t lie,” snapped Mrs. Kendall harshly, and had the scant grace to flush a little beneath Cathy’s look. “Oh, I know the whole thing is a put-up job between you. His disappearing like this is simply his way of forcing me to consent to his marrying you. He came to me last night and said that he wanted to be engaged to you.”
Cathy caught her breath.
“Engaged?” she repeated incredulously.
“Oh, of course he wants to marry you,” said Mrs. Kendall shortly. “He informed me that he intended to go right away with you immediately, today, and be married. But of course, for a man in Bill’s position, and social standing—well, that simply isn’t to be thought of for a moment. I tried to make him see reason. We quarreled bitterly and he said he was leaving for good.”
As though she resented breaking down before someone whom she quite frankly considered her enemy, Mrs. Kendall forced herself to a measure of composure.
“I’ve come to tell you that you must send for Bill and tell him to come home. That I shall finally give my consent to this marriage, much as I dislike to do so,” she said with an effort at recapturing her old arrogant manner.
“I don’t know where Bill is, Mrs. Kendall,” said Cathy levelly. “And what’s more, I told him last night that I do not wish to marry him.”
Mrs. Kendall stared at her.
And then she demanded, “After being in love with Bill all these years and practically hounding him—why should you suddenly decide you don’t want to marry him, now that he has worn me down until I’ve been forced to consent?”
Cathy gave it to her straight.
“I’m afraid the truth of the matter is that I don’t seem to care much for the fact that Bill was willing to let you dominate him to such an extent. Surely he should be man enough to make up his own mind.”
Mrs. Kendall stiffened.
“Bill and I have been very close,” she said sharply. “Bill is grateful to me—feels under obligation. He has had every possible advantage that money could provide.”
“Except the privilege of making up his own mind about the most important matter in his life.”
Mrs. Kendall said curtly, “I’ve given my consent. What more do you want?”
“A little late, don’t you think?”
Edith Kendall’s eyes flashed with alarm.
“Oh, but you mustn’t throw him over now, Cathy. He’d never forgive me—he’d hold me responsible. And Bill’s all I’ve got to love. Why—why, I’d die without him! He’s like my own son.” She was suddenly pathetic and tired and pleading, but Cathy steeled herself against her.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Kendall, but Bill knows that I do not want to marry him,” said Cathy. And felt an almost hysterical impulse to crazy laughter. Marry Bill? She was already married to him, a marriage which she knew would shock Mrs. Kendall to the depth, so very “unsuitable” would she feel that it was to Bill’s “important social standing.”
Suddenly Edith Kendall was weeping; the ugly, painful tears of a woman middle-aged and deeply ingrained in the tradition of cold reserves. Weeping stormily, with hard wracking sobs.
“Don’t take him away from me, Cathy,” she pleaded. “Don’t make him hate me! He will hate me if you don’t marry him now. Please, Cathy—I’ve been beastly to you, I know, and you have a perfect right to despise me—”
“I don’t despise you, Mrs. Kendall,” said Cathy wearily and quite honestly. “I think you’ve been terribly wrong, but after all, you were doing what you thought was right.”
Mrs. Kendall looked up hopefully.
“Then you will send for Bill and tell him everything is all right, so that he will come home?” she begged.
Cathy made a little gesture of helplessness.
“But honestly, Mrs. Kendall, you must believe me—I haven’t the faintest notion where Bill is.”
Mrs. Kendall was watching her, fearfully expectant, conviction dawning unwillingly.
“You really don’t know where he is, Cathy?” she asked after a moment.
“I don’t, Mrs. Kendall—I wish I did,” answered Cathy gently. “But he’ll be all right. Try not to worry about him. Hadn’t you better try to rest a bit? You didn’t get much sleep and your nerves are badly shaken.”
Almost humbly Mrs. Kendall nodded. “I suppose so,” she answered huskily, for the moment like a docile, bewildered child. “I couldn’t possibly sleep, of course, but I could go and rest—and I know you need sleep.”
She trailed off at last and Cathy dropped onto the bed, too exhausted even to pull the light covers up or to remove the thin robe she wore. She was puzzled by Bill’s behavior; she had told him as convincingly as she knew how that she was no longer in love with him and that she did not want their marriage announced; that as soon as she had her new assignment to duty, she would get a divorce. Yet he had come straight from her to his aunt, had announced his intention of marrying Cathy and had quarreled with his aunt and gone off. Where?
By now, the story of the disaster that had wiped out a fair section of town would be in the newspapers and on the radio; no matter where Bill was, he would be bound to see it, and if he were able, he would come straight home again as fast as he could.
Cathy was so exhausted that even in the middle of her troubled thoughts she sank into a deep, dreamless sleep, from which she woke only in the late dusk. Confused, she looked at the clock and saw that it was almost eight. Outside, the summer night was soft and fragrant with the dew-wet scent of roses and new-cut grass.
She slid out of bed, wincing at the painful twinge of strained muscles. She bathed again, soaking out some of the aches, and came back into the bedroom to find a maid hovering about the room, tidying things.
“Miss Elaine sent you some things, miss. Dinner has been held back until you and Miss Elaine and the Major are ready.” The maid indicated filmy underthings, a delicate white dress, very simple and smart, and silver-strapped sandals that were little more than heels and paper-thin soles, strapped across so that they were adjustable.
“That was very kind of Miss Elaine,” said Cathy pleasantly, and eyed the garments appreciatively. “But I really should be getting home.”
“But Mrs. Kendall sent the chauffeur out to your home, miss, and explained to Mrs. Westbrook that you were here and that you were quite all right. Mrs. Westbrook sent word back that everything was fine with her. The chauffeur says there are dozens of children being cared for in all the houses there and that it looks like a public school at recess time.”
Cathy laughed at the picture.
“Then Maggie is perfectly happy. She adores children,” she said lightly.
“Shall I help you dress, miss?” suggested the maid.
“Thanks, I can manage,” answered Cathy. “I’ll be right down.”
The maid went out, and Cathy stepped into the clothes Elaine had sent. She admitted to herself as she faced the mirror that the selection was good; the simply cut white gown, with its off-the-shoulder decolletage was very becoming, and while it fitted rather loosely, its cut was one that minimized that defect. She nodded at her reflection and hurried downstairs, anxious not to keep the others waiting.
The silver sandals made no sound on the thickly carpeted stairs. She reached the doorway of the drawing room, unheard—and paused there, taken back by what she saw.
Elaine, in a gown of soft blue, her arms and shoulders bare, her curls pinned high in a smart and sophisticated coiffure, sat in a deep, golden-brocade chair. Mark, still wearing the shirt and trousers in which he had worked but which had obviously been cleaned and pressed since then, stood leaning above her. Elaine’s lifted face was lovely, her eyes soft and warm, her red mouth curled in a sweet smile; and Mark was looking down at her with tender admiration.
It was a simple but telling scene; it w
as obvious that these two had gone a long way toward friendship, and perhaps something even warmer, since they had met in the horror of the morning’s storm wreck. Cathy, watching them, felt an odd stab at her heart that made her turn sharply away, still unseen, and slip out of the front door and along the terrace toward the garden.
She was ashamed of herself for that little momentary stab of jealousy. Because unless she was in love with Mark, what right had she to be jealous? And she wasn’t in love with him!
She was startled suddenly by the sound of a car coming up the drive, and for an instant the yellow beam of the lights lay full on her, blinding her. The next moment the lights had passed on, the car had stopped, and someone was running to her across the drive.
“Cathy!”
It was Bill’s voice, sharp and urgent with an anxiety that had endured until the strain had become almost unbearable. It was Bill’s arms that gathered her hard and close against him, and Bill’s cheek was against her hair.
“Oh, Cathy, Cathy—are you all right, darling? Maggie said you were but she hadn’t seen you since an hour after the storm struck. When she told me you were here with Aunt Edith—good Lord, Cathy, I probably broke every speed record in the state getting home.” He was speaking huskily and holding her a little away from him so that he could look down at her. His fingers beneath her chin tilted her face upward until he could set his mouth on hers in a hard, eager kiss.
“Didn’t I hear Bill’s car?” Mrs. Kendall cried. “Oh, Bill darling, is that you? Are you all right, Bill?”
Bill laughed and took one arm from about Cathy and put it around his aunt, holding them both close to him.
“Of course I’m all right, Aunt Edith. I’m sorry that you were worried about me,” he assured her, kissing her cheek lightly. “I tried to telephone or wire you, but of course all communications were cut off until just a little while ago; and I was so close to home then that I just kept pounding along, unwilling to stop long enough to try to phone.”
“But, Bill, where have you been?” Mrs. Kendall clung to him, still tearful, still aggrieved, but with her eyes shining with happiness.
