Ransom (19 page)

“I'm glad!” said Christobel simply. “Father may need a lot of money to ransom Rannie.”

“Belike he will!” said Maggie, heaving a quick sigh.

Then Maggie brought paper and string and boxes that she had somehow managed to locate in spite of her brief stay in the house, and presently Charmian's personal property was all under cover and the room put in exquisite order again.

Christobel drew a long breath of relief when they had finished. Somehow the spirit of Charmian and of death seemed to be exorcised at last, and she no longer dreaded to look around the room. It was just a room now, no longer a reminder of the tomb. Or, was it possible that during that afternoon even a tomb had lost some of its horror? Christobel went downstairs, wondering.

No one ate any dinner that night, though Maggie had prepared a tempting meal. There was an influx of officers into the house, a hurried consultation in the library, and officers telephoning in different rooms where extra instruments had been installed. There had been a definite statement that a car answering to the description of the Kershaw car had been found in the river several miles below the city. It had evidently gone over the embankment. There was a body in the car, but they had not yet been able to lift the machine enough to be sure whether the man was young or old. There was a rumor that there were several young people in the car. And the late afternoon papers came out with wild headlines and suggestions of possibilities. One might have thought by these accounts that Rannie Kershaw was a man of the world with a wild record behind him.

Mr. Kershaw and Philip went out with the officers very soon after the message arrived, the father with a white drawn face, and Christobel, after dutifully drinking a glass of milk upon which Maggie with tears insisted, stole into the darkness of the little white room beyond the great velvet parlor and knelt down beside the white velvet cushions to pray.

There was only the light that sparkled through the lovely crystal blossoms from the street arc lights and sifted through the room like silver splinters. One fell across the pagan doll sprawled on the floor near the kneeling girl and lighted a curious dim picture, perhaps for the angels to look upon.

So Christobel prayed while her father went to the river to wait and watch for what should come, and presently she began to pray for her father.

“Oh, Father in heaven, let my precious father on earth come to believe, and to trust you!”

Over in the library the telephones rang, the officers tramped in and out, and the dim empty rooms echoed words back occasionally across the great black and silver and scarlet room in the dark, but they could not hurt Christobel any longer, because whatever came, she was hid in the “secret place of the Most High.”

And then there was a sound of a car outside, of footsteps coming with measured tread, and with one final cry to her new Father in heaven, Christobel sprang to her feet, with her hand upon her heart, and waited, saying over to herself that whatever came was all right, because God was doing it.

B
ut the man drowned in the river was not Rannie. So much was established beyond a doubt. He was short and thickset, and dressed in coarse garments. The car was not the Kershaw car, and this clue, too, had failed.

Christobel felt a great joy when she heard them talking about it in the hall, but when she caught a glimpse of her father's face after that long cold wait by the river, the wait that ended in the morgue, she knew that the heavy burden of her brother's disappearance bore down heavier than ever before upon his shoulders. After all, death was better than some things, and the agony of suspense was perhaps the most terrible thing one could bear, especially when hope flickered and seemed about to pass out.

So Christobel stole back to the white velvet room and knelt alone again and prayed far into the night.

The next day a grim, silent, dogged determination seemed to settle down over the house. Desperate, that was the word that described Mr. Kershaw, and desperate Christobel would have been also if it had not been for her experience the afternoon before. She recognized that and longed that her father might find the Source of help that had been shown to her.

Quite late in the afternoon Mr. Kershaw came home with a stranger, a loudmouthed, flashily dressed, illiterate person. Christobel looked at him half fearfully, wondering if he could be connected with the kidnappers, if kidnappers they were who had taken Rannie away. But presently, as she hovered out of sight and saw her father taking the man from room to room, heard his loud exclamations of delight, and noted her father's grim silence, she began to surmise that this man was a possible purchaser for the house, and in spite of her anxiety, her heart gave a little spring of relief. Oh, if they could get out of this house, which was connected with nothing but loneliness and death and horror! If there could be a real place called home for Rannie to come back to, how wonderful it would be!

The man came back just before dark and brought a woman and two girls about her own age with him. They were showily dressed and went about, evidently gloating over the splendor of the rooms.

This time Philip was present and went around with Mr. Kershaw. Christobel kept out of sight but not quite out of hearing. She could catch some of the exclamations and comments upon the different articles of furniture, and especially the lofty, condescending tone of the daughters as they endeavored to instruct their mother in modern fashions and customs.

Christobel could see the weariness in her father's white, lined face, the utter disgust at their remarks, and his quiet reserve unless a direct question was asked of him. She could see, too, that Philip was taking the heaviest burden of the matter from him, answering questions of the mother and daughters, explaining the furnishings that were not understood. Christobel found herself wondering how he knew some of the things he told them, Philip Harper coming from the shabby old brick house on Seneca Street. For there was an ease and grace about Philip that made him a good salesman now, and the feminine strangers were evidently filled with deep admiration for him.

But oh, it was terrible that in the midst of their frantic trouble they had to stop to dicker with people like this. Christobel felt deeply for her father.

Then came the question if they could have the house, furnishings and all, just as it stood, and when they could have possession? They were evidently eager to bind the bargain and move in as soon as possible.

“He'll likely be a bootlegger got sudden rich!” whispered Maggie, coming out of the pantry for a peep at the strangers and stealing up behind Christobel.

Philip came seeking her presently, and she heard her father say, “I think we can get out by the end of the week. I shall have to consult my daughter. I'll ask her if there is anything she wants to reserve. If not, it is as I stated, everything but the furniture in the master bedroom, second floor front, and a few books and pictures and personal belongings.”

So Christobel came out of her seclusion for a moment and stood with her father at the back of the hall while Philip took the strangers upstairs to look once more at the reserved furnishings of Mr. Kershaw's room.

They all came noisily down again in a moment, at least as noisily as anyone could on the thick Turkish rugs that covered the stairs.

“It's all right,” said the man loudly. “The wife says there ain't a thing in that room worth having. We'll have to get new things for that room, but I guess that won't bother us any.”

Christobel retreated once more from the prying eyes that would have studied her coldly and curiously, and the bargain was bound, to be consummated in the presence of a lawyer the next day.

Christobel and Maggie went down to Seneca Street the next morning and began to clean the old house.

There was a certain relief and pleasure in having something really necessary to do.

But Maggie would not let her nursling put her hands in water. She said it would roughen them. And though Christobel protested and wanted to do whatever Maggie was doing, she saw that it gave the faithful old nurse such pain, that she finally consented to confine her labor to looking out for clean sheets and table linen and getting out blankets and airing them on a line in the old backyard where she used to play as a child.

Maggie had a regular system for housecleaning. The kitchen had to be cleaned first, and she lost no time in getting all the dishes out and piling them on the tables in the dining room and kitchen while she washed all the shelves in the china closets and cupboards.

Then she let Christobel help with drying the dishes and putting them back. The girl did it most reverently, for she remembered helping her mother put away the clean dishes when she was a little girl.

The gas and water had been turned on before they came, so there was plenty of hot water, and when they went back to the big house that night they left behind them a clean kitchen and cupboards. Curtains of starched cheesecloth, yellow with age but crisp as the day Maggie had packed them away in the big sideboard drawer, were hanging at the windows. The kitchen, at least, was ready to live in.

When Christobel went back in the late afternoon, she began to hope and pray that there might have been news, wonderful news of Rannie while she was gone, but her father's face was as white and drawn as ever, and the three policemen who sat at the library desk with three telephones beside them seemed as busy and anxious and aloof as they had been the night before. There was nothing definite to tell, though the evening papers again flaunted rumors wild and tragic and unfounded, and people still kept coming to bring what they thought were new clues about the lost boy.

After dinner Christobel took refuge again in the little white room, for since the prayer yesterday, it seemed to have lost its alien air and have become a sanctuary. The doll, too, had disappeared, for Maggie, in her scrupulous rounds, had told herself it was an outlandish, heathenish hussy and had tucked it away behind some books in the angular boxlike case of inlaid wood that Charmian had called a bookcase. She'd stood a priceless sofa pillow up in front of it for safekeeping.

So Christobel sat beside the crystal light and looked out on the street with eyes that unconsciously scanned every passer, hoping to see Rannie, and constantly she prayed her little untaught prayers.

Philip found her there late in the evening and came and sat beside her.

“Are you all right?” he asked anxiously, studying her face in the flickering light of the street that came in over the crystal flowers.

“Yes, I'm all right,” said Christobel softly. “I've just kept trusting all day, or I couldn't have stood it.”

“Bless you, child,” he breathed, and it seemed like a benediction. “Keep on praying. I'm praying for you all the time. Don't forget that. I may have to go away tomorrow on an errand for your father, but I will be praying all the time I am gone.”

“You are such a comfort to Father,” she said. “He told me.”

“Thank you for telling me. I want to help all I can. Is it going to be hard for you to leave this magnificent home?”

“Oh, no, I'm so glad to go,” said the girl quickly, with a little involuntary shudder. “I never felt at home here. In fact, neither Rannie nor I were ever here more than a day or two at a time. This house was bought for my stepmother. I don't believe even Father ever was fond of it. I have been longing all these years to go back to our dear home on Seneca Street, and now I'm so glad we can go. If Rannie were only here I would be happier than I have been since before my own mother died. Maggie and I were down there nearly all day getting the house cleaned. We finished the kitchen, and tomorrow we do the dining room and then the bedrooms. If I wasn't so sorrowful about Rannie, it would be lovely fun. It is so wonderful to touch the things my mother owned.”

“It is wonderful of you to feel that way about leaving a palace like this. I am so glad you are that kind of girl. One would have expected you to be spoiled by wealth and the world. I am glad you are real,” said the young man, with deep admiration in his eyes. “And so glad,” he added in a low tone, “so glad you know my Lord.”

“I shall always owe that to you,” breathed Christobel earnestly.

“It's a great joy for me to know you feel that way,” said Philip, watching the lovely outline of her head against the brightness of the windows. “There is no joy on earth like being allowed to help someone find the way to Him.”

The suddenly a call came distantly from the hall.

“Mr. Harper? Is a Mr. Philip Harper in the house? Mr. Kershaw wants him on the phone.”

Maggie came bustling down the hall to find him.

“Coming!” said Philip, hurrying across the big room and meeting Maggie at the threshold.

He came back from the telephone booth in a moment, his overcoat on, his hat in his hand, and smiled at her gravely as she stood in the doorway waiting to see if there were any new developments.

“I'm off,” he said in a low tone. “It's a good lead. It may mean something real. I may be gone several days. But pray! Pray hard. ‘With God all things are possible'!”

Then he was gone, and Christobel crept back to the white sanctuary to pray. It was all so new and strange to her, to feel that God was really watching over the affairs of the earth and caring for individuals. She had to reassert her faith whenever she prayed on her own account. But somehow she felt when she prayed for Philip that it was more sure, for he had known God for a long time, whereas she was only a beginner in faith.

The next day Maggie and Christobel worked on the dining room. It was to them both a great boon to have something legitimate in which to absorb themselves. Otherwise the long strain would have been terrible. For even the old nurse was suffering intensely from the anxiety about the missing boy.

They washed the paint, they took out the rug and hung it on a line, and gave a passing boy a quarter to come in and beat it and sweep it clean. They scrubbed the floor and washed the windows—at least Maggie did, and she set Christobel to ironing out the creases from the sweet old embroidered muslin curtains that belonged at the windows.