Substitute Guest (11 page)

Daryl’s heart cried out now and then in anguish. It seemed that everything had come upon her at once, and her life was ruined forever, yet as the hours went by and Lance did not return, his absence overtopped everything else. Her mind went back to the sane early fundamental things of her life, and the safe sweet home things. And if anything should happen to Lance, how could life go on! Gradually her other anguish, the one that when it first smote her seemed to her the most terrible sorrow that could ever come to her, seemed less important, a thing to shrink from, to keep from thinking about, but not to compare with her anxiety about her brother, which grew from minute to minute until somehow his peril seemed hopelessly her fault, though she knew it was not.

So she sewed tapes with trembling fingers on a pair of long stockings of Lance’s. They had bright red and orange and green stripes around them, and he never wore them because they were so loud. She made silly jokes about them, whether they would fit the stranger, as she talked in a high, unnatural voice, and tried not to look out the window nor hear the wind howling, tried not to see how fast the clock was racing. Near midnight now, almost Christmas morning, and the storm was worse than ever! Would her bright strong brother never come again?

But the mother in the shadows of the kitchen arose from her knees and went and stirred the soup. And the father coming in with a halo of snow around his white hair sang softly, clearly, with his sweet old voice:

“God’s way is the best way
,

God’s way is the right way
,

I’ll trust in Him always
,

He knoweth the best.”

“I’ve made the coffee,” said his wife. “They ought to be here soon now, don’t you think, Father?”

“Yes, soon now,” said the old voice hopefully.

“Girls, have you got those stockings ready to hang?” called the mother. “Then you’d better come out here and get the bread and butter and things on the table. It won’t be long before the potatoes are done, and the boys will be hungry when they get here!”

Daryl cast a frightened look at the clock. Three minutes to twelve, and Christmas morning would be here. Six hours the two had been out in the storm! It didn’t seem as if there was a particle of hope that they could ever get home alive! Lost in the snow on the mountain! How could Mother bear it? How would they dare to tell her? She with her faith so bright and strong! Her coffee was sending out its savory odor. And there was a sweet homely smell of roasting potatoes, with their skins all brown and crusty!

The girls put the finished stockings in a pile and gave one look at each other, and then at the clock again. They had white lips and wide sorrowful eyes!

It was just at that moment that two figures, one half bearing the other, staggered, almost fell, struggled painfully on again into the area where the Devereaux gate had formerly been located, and two wavering flashlights searched the white impenetrable gloom.

The girls paused in the living room doorway, instinctively catching each other’s hands as they heard the clock give the preliminary
whirr
to striking the midnight hour, and then because it seemed something crucial, they stood still and watched it strike. One! Two! Three! So slowly and deliberately. It seemed to be striking on their hearts! It seemed like the tolling of a death knell instead of the ushering in of a joyous Christmas morning! They would never forget it. Nine! Ten! Eleven!
Tw-el-ve!

Its last
whirr
blended with the roaring of the wind that seemed like the groping of a desperate hand outside beating and clutching for the doorknob. Then suddenly the side door of the sitting room burst open, and the two figures slipped, struggled, and fell headlong into the room, bearing the whole outside storm with them, cold and snow and bitterness! A glad wicked gale mocked them saying, “Here I’ve come back again! You thought you could keep me out, but I’m here!” And it swirled around the room, and hissed its hate against the hot oven door in sharp stinging snow; it slapped Mother Devereaux in the face, taking away her breath, and flung upon the two girls in the doorway clutching hands and looking with frightened eyes at the two who had fallen on the floor. Then it whirled into the living room and raced with wicked glee into every cranny, billowing out the delicate muslin curtains at the windows and the heavy draperies at the doors, swaying the crystal prisms on the candle sconces over the mantel, and tilting the Christmas tree irreverently, then rushed around again into the kitchen wildly. Until the strong old arms of Father Devereaux drew the two men inside and with a mighty effort closed and bolted the sturdy door.

Then out from beneath the heap of snow-covered arms and legs and heads a mittened hand feebly waved a lit flashlight until it slipped down rolling crazily to loll on the floor, and a voice, weak but still undaunted, cried huskily, “We made it, folks! MER-RY CHRIST-MUS!”

“Yes,” said Mother Devereaux as she rushed to kneel at her boy’s side, “I knew you would! I’ve got nice hot barley soup and coffee all ready for you.”

“Good work!” said Lance feebly, and then faded right out of the picture.

T
hey lifted the tall figure of the stranger and put him in Father’s big chair, and they laid Lance on the dining room couch, and then hurried to minister to them. For having arrived the two seemed incapable of anything else. The heat of the room in their benumbed condition seemed to take away further ability to move or speak. Once Alan roused to explain in a weary tone, “He fell and hurt his ankle….” But his voice trailed off vaguely again as if he had suddenly fallen asleep in the middle of the thought.

Father Devereaux brought pails and a tub of snow from the sheltered back porch. The girls rushed for warm blankets and aromatic ammonia, and then all hands went to work pulling off the frozen garments from the numb bodies, rubbing frosted cheeks and feet and hands with snow, applying restoratives at Mother Devereaux’s directions, bringing warm woolen garments, until presently the two pilgrims were thawed out and able to talk.

They told their story briefly between sips of hot soup. They were being fed by the two girls while Mother hurried the meal on the table that had been prepared just in the nick of time.

“You see,” said Lance from his couch where his father was still rubbing his stiff hands and feet, “they loaned us some snowshoes and we got tangled with those when it came to the trail down the mountain. When we tried to kick them off and go on without them we found they were frozen to us, at least we couldn’t undo the buckles with ice on the fingers of our gloves, so we decided to skirt the woods and come down by way of the fields, but that didn’t work either. Our guide rope caught on the last tree we had fastened it to and broke. We couldn’t find the trail so we somehow lost our bearings and went wandering over the country until we reached a creek. It didn’t seem to be our creek, for it certainly didn’t look familiar to me, and I didn’t know whether we were going up or down it, so that didn’t help much. Once we saw a bright light high up on the mountain but couldn’t tell whether it was the house we’d come from or another away across the valley. So there we were. How we came home or whether we are really home now or not we don’t know. It may turn out to be just a dream, and maybe we are really still lying in a snowbank with the sleet in our faces, but if it is, it’s a mighty nice dream!”

“Yes,” said Mother Devereaux gently, “I thought it would be about like that, and I was praying for you. I asked God to guide you both home safely.”

“Yes,” said Lance happily. “I knew that! I told Alan once when we got close enough together to hear each other and were resting a minute before we went on—that was after I turned my ankle and couldn’t walk so well and Alan had to sort of carry me—I said, ‘Don’t give up, pard! Mother’s down in the corner of the dining room this minute praying us through. We’ll get there yet!’”

Alan looked up with a sudden light in his eyes.

“I appreciate those prayers, Mrs. Devereaux,” he said. “I’m sure we couldn’t have got through alone.”

Mother Devereaux smiled lovingly at the stranger and patted his hand as she went by with the dish of crackly roasted potatoes.

“Yes, but Mother, you don’t know the half yet,” said Lance, suddenly eager in his enthusiasm. “You don’t know what a man I had with me. Why, Mother, after I stepped in that hole and turned my ankle I thought it was all up with me. I knew no one could reasonably find us before morning even if they sent out search parties in that storm, and by morning I was sure we would be frozen dead. Alan here had been all in for a long time, and I didn’t see how he was ever going to make it, not being used to the mountain the way I am, and then when I found I couldn’t walk alone, what did he do but just pick me up and sling me over his shoulder and struggle on. He didn’t know where he was going, and I couldn’t see to tell him. And I’m no sack of feathers to carry, you know, but he just kept on as if he had new strength. I don’t know how he ever thought he was going to find the way, but he would keep on. He wouldn’t leave me behind, and he wouldn’t take my suggestion of digging a snow hut and crawling in. He just plugged away, and somehow we got here.”

“Well.” Alan grinned. “I figured that if we kept on long enough we’d surely come to something somewhere, and I didn’t want to go alone. I felt if you had courage to go out in that storm with a stranger up that awful mountain, that I surely ought to hold out to get you home!”

Ruth looked up from her post beside Lance’s couch where she was feeding spoonfuls of soup as often as he would stop talking long enough to take one, and thought what nice eyes the stranger had, and Daryl murmured as she offered another mouthful of soup to Alan, “I shall never be able to thank you enough for saving my brother!”

Alan looked up and caught the gratitude in those lovely eyes and was startled at their beauty. Suddenly it seemed a wonderful thing to be sitting there in the old-fashioned armchair with that comfortable sense of warmth and well-being stealing over him, and that lovely girl ministering to him. It seemed to his weary senses that it was worth all the toil and hardship and cold and terror through which he had passed.

And now the meal was on the table, and the two young men declared they were able to sit up and act like men. But it was on very shaky limbs that they moved to their places.

Again Alan experienced that feeling of awe as the old man bowed his head and spoke to God.

“Lord, we cannot thank Thee enough for bringing our two boys back safely to us. We rejoice that Thou art a prayer-hearing and a prayer-answering God, and that Thou hast heard and answered us tonight. Bless this food to their needs and make us fit for Thy service. Amen.”

It warmed Alan’s heart that he should be included in the thanksgiving. “Our two boys!” As if he belonged, too! And he suddenly wished that he really did! What a circle to be in by right! It must be something like his mother’s family whom he had never known. And then a sudden memory of the house party to which he was due that night came to mind, and his soul revolted at the thought. What a contrast it would be. Drinking and dancing and unholy riotous music! How had he ever thought he could go among them? Just for the doubtful companionship of one girl, whom he wondered if he really admired anyway. Somehow the stern realities of life and death as he had faced them all those hours out there in the storm had given him a new sense of values that he felt he never would forget! Values that he did not want to forget! This home, even the brief glimpse he had had, showed that there was still beauty and love and good fellowship left upon the earth, still a real spirit of Christmas to be found if one looked in the right place for it.

In the morning of course he would have to go on his way as soon as he could get transportation. Even if he had to leave his car behind for repairs and take to the train, but that way would not lead to the house party. He was certain of that now. Tonight had opened his eyes. But of course he must get out of here as soon as possible. He must not intrude upon their Christmas, kind as these people had been. He was conscious of a relief that Demeter Cass and her crowd could not find him tonight. He was lost out of their kind and need not fear invasion even by the telephone. He would have plenty of time to think things over and find out just where he stood before he saw Demeter again; and tonight, at least what little was left of it, was his. Even with his weary body, exhausted almost to the breaking point, he was enjoying every minute of the time.

The meal was cooked perfectly.

“I don’t see how you came to put the potatoes in at just the right time, Mother,” said Daryl. “You acted as if you knew the exact minute when they would be needed.”

Mother smiled.

“I just asked the Lord to show me what to do about it,” she said gently.

“And you think the Lord gives attention to such little details as how long a potato should cook?” asked Ruth earnestly.

“Why yes, dear,” answered the mother, “if you put a matter, even a little matter, into the Lord’s hands to guide you, and trust that He will, of course He will.”

“Well, but suppose He didn’t, Mother? What would you think then?”

“I would think I hadn’t trusted Him,” said the mother promptly.

“Leave it to Mother to provide an alibi for her faith,” Lance said, grinning.

Alan caught the tender look in Lance’s eyes as he glanced toward his mother, and a great envy and hunger grew in his heart for a home such as this other young man had. No wonder he was what he was, a prince among men. It had taken him only a very few minutes out in that terrible storm to show him that, and the hours they had faced death together had bound his heart to Lance’s in a love that he felt would last forever.

And now of course the next thing in order was for him to go away, just as soon as it was light, and leave them decently to their own holiday without intruders. He sighed at the thought of going and somehow the Christmas time seemed suddenly a hundredfold more desolate to him than when he had started out in the morning. Was this only the midnight of that day? It seemed so very long, and yet all too short now that it was ended. But it was worth all the suffering and danger in the storm, just to know there was one such family on the earth today.