Miss Marilla tiptoed softly up the hall, and listened at the door of the spare bedroom. It was time her soldier-boy woke up and had some dinner. She had a beautiful little treat for him to-day, chicken broth with rice, and some little bits of tender breast-meat on toast, with a quivering spoonful of currant jelly.
It was very still in the spare room, so still that a falling coal from the grate of the Franklin heater made a hollow sound when it fell into the pan below. If the boy was asleep, she could usually tell by his regular breathing; but, though she listened with a keen ear, she could not hear it to-day. Perhaps he was awake, sitting up. She pushed the door open, and looked in. Why! The[112] bed was empty! She glanced around the room, and it was empty too!
She passed her hand across her eyes as if they had deceived her, and went over to look at the bed. Surely he must be there somewhere! And then she saw the note.
“Dear wonderful little mother!”
Her eyes were too blurred with quick tears and apprehension to read any further. “Mother!” He had called her that. She could never feel quite alone in the world again. But where was he? She took the corner of her white apron, and wiped the tears away vigorously to finish the note. Then, without pausing to think, and even in the midst of her great gasp of apprehension, she turned swiftly, and went down-stairs, out the front door, across the frozen lawn, and through the hedge to Mary Amber’s house.
[113]“Mary! Mary Amber!” she called as she panted up the steps, the note grasped tightly in her trembling hand. She hoped, oh, she hoped Mary Amber’s mother would not come to the door and ask questions. Mary’s mother was so sensible, and Miss Marilla always felt as if Mrs. Amber disapproved of her just a little whenever she was doing anything for anybody. Not that Mary Ambers’ mother was not kind herself to people, but she was always so very sensible in her kindness, and did things in the regular way, and wasn’t impulsive like Miss Marilla.
But Mary Amber herself came to the door, with pleasant forgetfulness of her old friend’s recent coolness, and tried to draw her into the hall. This Miss Marilla firmly declined, however. She threw her apron over her head and shoulders as a concession to Mary’s fears for her health, and broke out:
[114]“Oh, don’t talk about me, Mary. Talk about him. He’s gone! I thought he was asleep; and I went up to see if he was ready for his dinner, and he’s gone! And he’s sick, Mary. He’s not able to stand up. Why, he’s had a fever. It was a hundred and three for two days, and only got down to below normal this morning for the first time. He isn’t fit to be out, either, and that little thin uniform with no overcoat!”
The tears were streaming down Miss Marilla’s sweet Dresden-china face, and Mary Amber’s heart was touched in spite of her.
She came and put her arm around Miss Marilla’s shoulder, and drew her down the steps and over to her own home, closing the door carefully first so that her mother need not be troubled about it. Mary Amber always had tact when she wanted to use it.
[115]“Where was he going, dear?” she asked sympathetically, with a view to making out a good case for the soldier without Miss Marilla’s bothering further about him.
“I—do-don’t know!” sobbed Miss Manila. “He just thought he ought not to stay and bother me. Here! See his note.”
“Well, I’m glad he had some sense,” said Mary Amber with satisfaction. “He was perfectly right about not staying to bother you.” She took the little crumpled note and smoothed it out.
“O my dear, you don’t understand,” sobbed Miss Marilla. “He’s been such a good, dear boy, and so ashamed he had troubled me! And really, Mary, he’ll not be able to stand it. Why, you ought to see how little clothes he had! So thin, and cotton underwear! I washed them and mended them, but he ought to have had an overcoat.”
[116]“Oh, well, he’ll go to the city and get something warm, and go to a hospital if he feels sick,” said Mary Amber comfortably. “I wouldn’t worry about him. He’s a soldier. He’s stood lots worse things than a little cold. He’ll look out for himself.”
“Don’t!” said Miss Marilla fiercely. “Don’t say that, Mary! You don’t understand. He is sick, and he’s all the soldier-boy I’ve got; and I’ve got to go after him. He can’t be gone very far, and he really isn’t able to walk. He’s weak. I just can’t stand it to have him go this way.”
Mary Amber looked at her with a curious light in her eyes.
“And yet, Auntie Rill, you know it was fine of him to do it,” she said with a dancing dimple in the corner of her mouth. “Well, I see what you want; and, much as I hate to, I’ll take my car[117] and scour the country for him. What time did you say he left?”
“O Mary Amber!” smiled Miss Marilla through her tears. “You’re a good girl. I knew you’d help me. I’m sure you can find him if you try. He can’t have been gone over an hour, not much; for I’ve only fixed the chicken and put my bread in the pans since I left him.”
“I suppose he went back to the village, but there hasn’t been any train since ten, and you say he was still there at ten. He’s likely waiting at the station for the twelve o’clock. I’ll speed up and get there before it comes. I have fifteen minutes. I”—glancing at her wrist-watch—“I guess I can make it.”
“I’m not so sure he went that way,” said Miss Marilla, looking up the road past Mary Amber’s house. “He was on his way up that way when—” and then Miss Marilla suddenly shut her[118] mouth, and did not finish the sentence. Mary Amber gave her another curious, discerning look, and nodded brightly.
“You go in and get warm, Auntie Rill. Leave that soldier to me; I’ll bring him home.” Then she sped back through the hedge to the little garage, and in a few minutes was speeding down the road toward the station. Miss Marilla watched her in troubled silence, and then, putting on her cape that always hung handy by the hall-door, walked a little distance up the road, straining her old eyes, but seeing nothing. Finally in despair she turned back; and presently, just as she reached her own steps again, she saw Mary’s car come flying back with only Mary in it. But Mary did not stop nor even look toward the house. She sped on up the road this time, and the purring of the engine was sweet music to Miss Marilla’s[119] ears. Dear Mary Amber, how she loved her!
The big blue soldier, cold to the soul of him, and full of pain that reminded him of the long horror of the war, was still sitting by the roadside with his head in his hands when Mary Amber’s car came flying down the road. She stopped before him with a little triumphant purr of the engine, so close to him that it roused him from his lethargy to look up.
“I should think you’d be ashamed of yourself, running away from Miss Marilla like this, and making her worry herself sick!” Mary Amber’s voice was keen as icicles, and the words went through him like red-hot needles. He straightened up, and the light of battle came back to his eyes. This was GIRL again, his enemy. His firm upper lip moved sensitively, and came down[120] straight and strong against the lower one, showing the nice line of character that made his mouth beautiful.
“Thank you,” he said coldly. “I’m only ashamed that I stayed so long.” His tone further added that he did not know what business of hers it was.
“Well, she sent me for you; and you’ll please to get in quickly, for she’s very much worked up about you.”
Mary Amber’s tone stated that she herself was not in the least worked up about a great, hulking soldier that would let a woman wait on him for several days hand and foot, and then run away when her back was turned.
“Kindly tell her that I am sorry I troubled her, but that it is not possible for me to return at present,” he answered stiffly. “I came down to send a business telegram, and I am waiting for an answer.”
[121]A sudden shiver seized him, and rippled involuntarily over his big frame. Mary Amber was eying him contemptuously, but a light of pity stole into her eyes as she saw him shiver.
“You are cold!” said Mary Amber as if she were charging him with an offence.
“Well, that’s not strange—is it—on a day like this? I haven’t made connections yet with an overcoat and gloves; that’s all.”
“Look here; if you are cold, you’ve simply got to get into this car and let me take you back to Miss Marilla. You’ll catch your death of cold sitting there like that.”
“Well, I may be cold; but I don’t have to let you take me anywhere. When I get ready to go, I’ll walk. As for catching my death of cold, that’s strictly my own affair. There’s nobody in the world would care if I did.”
[122]The soldier had blue lights like steel in his eyes, and his mouth looked very soldier-like indeed. His whole manner showed that there wasn’t the least use in the world trying to argue with him.
Mary Amber eyed him with increasing interest and thoughtfulness.
“You’re mistaken,” she said grudgingly. “There’s one. There’s Miss Marilla. She’d break her heart. She’s like that; and she hasn’t much to care for in the world, either. Which makes it all the worse what you’ve done. Oh, I don’t see how you could deceive her.”
“Deceive her?” said the astonished soldier. “I never deceived her.”
“Why, you let her think you were Dick Chadwick, her nephew; and you know you’re not! I knew you weren’t the minute I saw you, even before I found Dick’s telegram in the stove saying he couldn’t come. And then I asked you a lot of questions to find out[123] for sure, and you couldn’t answer one of them right.” Her eyes were sparkling, and there was an eager look in her face, like an appeal, almost as if she wanted him to prove what she was saying was not true.
“No, I’m not Dick Chadwick,” said the young man with fine dignity. “But I never deceived Miss Marilla.”
“Well, who did then?” There were disappointment and unbelief in Mary Amber’s voice.
“Nobody. She isn’t deceived. It was she who tried to deceive you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean she wanted you to think I was her nephew. She was mortified, I guess, because he didn’t turn up, and she didn’t want you to know. So she asked me to dinner to fill in. I didn’t know anybody was there till just as I was going in the door. Then I had to go and get sick in the night, and dish[124] the whole thing. I was a fool to give in to her, of course, and stay that night, but it did sound good to have a real night’s sleep in a bed. I didn’t think I was such a softie as to get out of my head and be on her hands like that. But you needn’t worry. I intend to make it up to her fully just as soon as I can lay hands on some funds—”
He suddenly broke into a fit of coughing so hoarse and croupy as to alarm even Mary Amber’s cool contempt. She reached back in the car, and, grasping a big fur coat, sprang out on the hard ground, and threw the coat about him, tucking it around his neck and trying to fasten a button under his chin against his violent protest.
“You’re very kind,” he gasped loftily, as soon as he could recover his breath. “But I can’t put that on, and I’m going down to the telegraph-office now to see if my wire has come yet.”
[125]“Look here,” said Mary Amber in quite a different tone, “I’m sorry I was so suspicious. I see I didn’t understand. I ask your pardon, and won’t you please put on this coat, and get into this car, and let me take you home quick? I’m really very much troubled about you.”
The soldier looked up in surprise at the gentleness, and almost his heart melted. The snarly look around his mouth and eyes disappeared, and he seemed a bit confounded.
“Thank you,” he said simply. “I appreciate that. But I can’t let you help me, you know.”
“Oh, please!” she said, a kind of little-girl alarm springing into her eyes. “I sha’n’t know what to say to Miss Marilla. I promised her to bring you back, you know.”
His eyes and lips were hardening again. She saw he did not mean to[126] yield, and Mary Amber was not used to being balked in her purposes. She glanced down the road; and a sudden light came into her eyes, and brought a dimple of mischief into her cheek.
“You’ll have to for my sake,” she said hurriedly in a lower tone. “There’s a car coming with some people in it I know; and they will think it awfully queer for me to be standing here on a lonely roadside talking to a strange soldier sitting on a log on a day like this. Hurry!”
Lyman Gage glanced up, saw the car coming swiftly; saw, too, the dimple of mischief; but with an answering light of gallantly in his own eyes he sprang up and helped her into the car. The effort brought on another fit of coughing, but as soon as he could speak he said:
“You can take me down to that little telegraph-office if you please, and drop[127] me there. Then nobody will think anything about it.”
“I’ll take you to the telegraph-office if you’ll be good and put that coat on right, and button it,” said Mary Amber commandingly. She had him in the car now, and she knew that she could go so fast he could not get out. “But I shall not stop there until you promise me on your honor as a soldier that you will not get out or make any more trouble about my taking you back to Miss Marilla.”
The soldier looked very balky indeed, and his firm mouth got itself into fine shape again, till he looked into Mary Amber’s eyes and saw the saucy, beautiful lights there; and then he broke down laughing.
“Well, you’ve caught me by guile,” he said; “and I guess we’re about even. I’ll go back and make my adieus myself to Miss Marilla.”
[128]A little curve of satisfaction settled about Mary Amber’s mouth.
“Put that coat on, please,” she said, and the soldier put it on gratefully. He was beginning to feel a reaction from his battle wit............