Astra (29 page)

And then he saw the Tom Hatchley person steal across the road and mount the steps of the Everson house, with something dark like an overcoat over one arm. Then he saw two other shadows detach themselves from the darkness and blur into the shadows of the Everson place, quite near the front steps. The time had come then. It seemed to be very still on that street at the moment, as if the vicinity were waiting for something. Then he heard the soft purr of a bell. It must be they had rung the doorbell.

And now he could see Astra rise and lay down her book. She was going to answer the door herself. They wouldn’t have to wait to ask for her. That was making it easy.

He could see the light on her gold hair as she passed under the chandelier in the middle of the room. He watched and he listened keenly, and he felt his heart beating too rapidly. He hoped they wouldn’t be too rough with her. After all, she was related and had been in his house almost like another child of his family. He wouldn’t like to have Clytie in such a position. Although, of course, they had promised not to hurt her.

Then he saw the light stream from the front door, and the quick motion of the black cloth being thrown. The light in the hall was snapped out suddenly, leaving utter darkness.

Then a confusion of sounds. A bus stopped at the next corner behind him, one block over, and there came brisk steps walking down the street. Oh, they must hurry. Someone was coming! There might have to be some rough work after all. But one of those men had said he was an expert at such things. He could put that man out of commission with a swift blow. It was no one that Marmaduke knew, so what was the difference?

And now they were coming down the steps, swiftly, a great black bundle in their arms. There was no outcry. It was not like Astra to cry out. Astra always took everything quietly. Now the man who was carrying her was running, swiftly and silently, down the stone flagging to the street. There were other sounds breaking on his consciousness, a muted car with piercing lights, a red car. The police! The sudden sound of a gun, a flash down low, near the feet of the man who was carrying the black bundle, the quick collapse of the struggling bundle. The kidnapper had been shot in the feet!

In sudden panic, Marmaduke flung wide the door of his rented car and plunged out onto the sidewalk! Straight into the arms of a sturdy policeman, who had been silently standing there, no telling how long. Duke had never thought to hear handcuffs snapped onto his aristocratic wrists, but there he was, fettered! Caught in this net by which he had hoped to catch Astra! Oh, he mustn’t be caught! He had papers in his pockets that would incriminate him if he were searched! He
mustn’t
!

He struggled. He tried to protest. He was only a private citizen waiting for a friend to come out of a house. He had nothing to do with this affair that was going on. This shooting! He knew nothing about it!

But the policeman paid no attention.

“Come along with me. You can explain all that and prove it down at the station house when you get there!” And he marched the elegant Marmaduke firmly back to a police car waiting around the corner.

But the swift steps that he had heard coming from that bus had broken into a run, and almost as soon as the man with the bundle fell, the young man was there, lifting up the frightened girl, asking her if she were hurt.

Another officer who had appeared from out of the shadows spoke to him.

“Hello, Mr. Cameron! You here? You didn’t get hurt, did you? We had word there was a bird here trying to pull off a little something on the side, and he happens to be a bird we’ve been watching for a long time, a killer, so we came quick!”

There were more bullets flying now. Tom Hatchley was down and out, and no chance of that new car for some time ahead.

There were other patrol cars coming and quite a disturbance in the quiet street.

But Astra was in the arms of her beloved, and over and over again in her mind ran the words,
“No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper … the heritage of the servants of the Lord.”

“Better take her in the house, brother,” advised Cameron’s policeman friend. “There’s goin’ ta be plenty of action before we’re done. One pretty bad bird is still at large, I’m afraid.”

So Cameron bore his beloved into the house and closed the door on the outside world, and Astra looked into his dear eyes with joy and gladness, and for some minutes Cameron could not put her down. He just stood there holding her close in his arms, his face against hers.

And then the Albans came in to find out what all the noise and shooting was about, and they looked in amazement at the handsome young man standing there holding Astra as if she were the most precious thing in the world.

Then Astra roused to the occasion and introduced Cameron, and they had a happy little rejoicing and thanksgiving together, till by and by the Albans retired and the street got quiet. Astra and Charles had a real talk, with their arms about one another, sitting in the deep chair where Astra used to sit sometimes with her father when she was a little girl growing up.

“And now,” said Cameron, when he at last got up to go, “you’ve got to get some rest, and tomorrow I think we had better be married. I can’t stand the strain of not knowing what is happening to you, with things like this going on.”

He looked pleadingly down at her, and she laughed up into his eyes.

“All right,” she said. “Tomorrow is my birthday. I shall be of age, and I can do as I please, so I’m willing, but you’ll have to excuse me from having a swell trousseau or a big wedding.”

“That’s all right with me,” he said, smiling. “I only want you, not an impressive wedding. We could get our wonderful minister from the little church, or have it in the church, or here at this place. This is a lovely house. Would the people here, the Albans mind?”

“They’d better not. It’s my house,” Astra said, smiling. “But I know they’ll love it. They are sweet people. And these are my own things, mine and father’s. I’ve been getting it ready for you to see.”

“It’s wonderful!” said Cameron, as he looked all around with eyes of deep appreciation. And then he looked up at the picture. “And is that Father?” he asked gently. “How great to have a picture like that!” Then suddenly he took her close in his arms, and bowing his face against hers, he closed his eyes.

“Dear God,” he prayed, “help me to guard and care for this dear child as her own earthly father would have wanted me to do, and help us both to walk in Thy ways, till we come home to You and Father and Mother, and my father and mother. Amen.”

The kiss that sealed their promises was sweeter than anything either of them had ever known.

It was the next morning quite early that Cameron had his talk with his sister Rosamond. She called him up very early.

“Charlie, I want you to tell me where you got that servant you had to look after my children Christmas Day while I was away. I haven’t any nurse, and I can’t stir an inch anywhere without one. These children just clamor for that girl they call Astra. So as you seem to have been the means of my losing both cook and nursemaid, I think it’s up to you to dig her out and secure her for me. Who is she? Did you know anything about her? But anyway, I want her, no matter who she is. I never saw Harold so amenable to reason as he has been since she was with him that one day.”

“Astra?” said Cameron coming out of a deep, sweet sleep of happiness to answer her. “Yes, I know who she is, and where she is, but I’m afraid I can’t secure her for a nursemaid for your children, because you see, I’m marrying her tonight. Do you want to come to the wedding?”

“Marrying! Why Charles Cameron! You’re joking! You can’t marry her. She’s only a servant! You can’t disgrace our family by marrying a servant. That’s worse than even our father did for his second wife. She at least was of good, respectable family! Charlie, you wouldn’t make all your sisters a laughingstock to all their friends? You can’t marry her!”

“Oh, but I am,” laughed Cameron joyously. “Eight o’clock is the hour, I believe, and the wedding supper just after. My only stipulation is that you bring all the children.”

“But Charlie! You’ll break my heart. To have you marry a servant, when I had found such a good, suitable match for you, so capable and so beautiful and so wealthy! And you to take up with a poor little servant girl who has worked for a pitiful wage.”

“Are you referring to that poor pasty-faced Camilla as the girl you so kindly provided for me? Well, if you were, just think again. I wouldn’t marry her if she was the last woman left on earth, and I had to go lonely all my life. Money and beauty don’t count unless you love, and I never could love her. But you’re woefully mistaken about Astra, dear sister, she never was a servant in her life. She’s the daughter of the great Dr. Everson, the noted scientist, and she’s traveled all over the world with her father. She’s a graduate of three colleges, and she’s done some rather notable writing herself. We’re going to be married in the house that her grandfather built, and where her father and she herself were born, and if you don’t agree it is a nice house after tonight, I’m off you for life. Now, will you help me get ready for this wedding or have I got to do it all myself?”

“Oh Charlie! You simply take my breath away! Why do you try to have it so soon, if all this is really true? Why don’t you make a real affair of it?”

“Because neither Astra nor I care a red cent for ‘affairs’ of that sort. We’re just having a plain little wedding. I have to go back to Washington tomorrow for a few days, and I want to take my wife with me. We’re not going to accommodate the general public. We’re getting married, and if our relatives would like to be present they can come; otherwise we’ll go on without them. I’m calling up my stepmother and a few of my friends. Mr. John Sargent, Astra’s guardian, is on his way home from Florida by plane and expects to be here. So will Astra’s lawyer, Mr. Lauderdale, and his wife, and a few others of that ilk, and if that isn’t enough for you, then stay at home and sulk, for I’m getting married tonight. Now, could you call up our sisters and brothers for me and inform them what’s going on and that they are invited, or must I take time out and do it?”

“Oh, I’ll do it of course, Charlie. But Charlie, I’m going to invite Camilla. I think she has a right to come, after the way you treated her. Besides, I would like to have her see that everything is all right, if you really think the house will be fine enough. Anyhow, I’m going to invite her.”

“Help yourself, Roz, only get to work quick and invite the others who live at a distance first. So long! See you tonight, and don’t forget to bring the kids or else we won’t let you in.”

So Rosamond had the time of her life inviting people to a wedding of which she would have highly disapproved but a short time before, and when she finally reached Camilla, she certainly enjoyed herself telling the story.

“Not the daughter of that famous Dr. Everson! You don’t mean it, Roz! Well, I think that’s about the meanest thing Charles ever did to a play a joke like that on you, letting you think she was a servant!

“And that explains that marvelous portrait I saw, then. And of course the house is unique. Everything about it is real. It explains, too, why I was so puzzled about a lovely girl like that being a servant, but I thought she was just a nightclub dancer or a fashion model or something like that!”

“Well, I thought perhaps you’d enjoy coming to the wedding and seeing the whole show. I understand she’s fabulously rich, my dear! Of course, Charlie didn’t tell me so, but from other things he’s said, I imagine it’s true. But how do you suppose she’ll manage a wedding with only a day to prepare?”

“Oh, well I don’t imagine it’ll trouble her much. She’s that kind. She’d just as soon wear a sports dress or even a bathing suit, perhaps; although, no, I think she’s prudishly modest. She may have an old wedding dress salted away. Her great-grandmother’s or something. If she were not so frank and free from airs, I’d be frightfully ashamed to go after having asked her, really begged her, to be your maidservant. However, wonders never cease. I wonder how Charles will get along with such a frightfully religious person. I never thought he was particularly religious himself.”

“Well, I’m not sure,” said Rosamond. “Maybe that’s what has always been the matter with him. Maybe he was religious and didn’t know how to express himself. Maybe that’s what has made him so kind to that old frumpy stepmother! He’s even asking her to the wedding himself.”

“Oh, is she coming? Well, that settles it. I always wanted to see her. I’ll come. And really, after this, Roz, I’ve got to get busy and polish up some of my old discarded sweethearts, for Charlie’s deserting me this way leaves me high and dry. Do you know, Roz, I really was almost fond of Charlie!”

“Oh yes?” said Rosamond significantly. “Well good-bye, I’ll see you tonight.”

And so there was a hasty gathering of the Cameron clan, and of the Everson friends, invited by telephone, and some by telegraph. They came one and all, with very few exceptions. By train and trolley and bus they came, by plane and car and one even by bicycle.

Astra wrote a sweet note to Miriam and Clytie.

And then after it was written she decided to send it as a telegram. They would feel more as if they had not been entirely left out. They received it about the time the ceremony began. Clytie read it sullenly with smoldering eyes.

“Seems as if some people have all the luck!” she remarked to her mother in a sort of wail.

But Miriam, as she read, was taken back through the years to the time when Astra’s mother had taken her, a motherless child, into her home and made her happy, and there were tears upon her cheeks. For a great trouble rested upon her heart. She did not know just where Duke had gone—in an airplane one night without warning—nor what he had gone to do, and she was greatly worried about that. Sometimes she suspected that Duke’s ways were not always the ways of righteousness. If she had known that he was at that moment forlornly in a cell by himself, reflecting on the ways of the wicked as he had never done before, and realizing that the incriminating letters that had been found upon his person when he was arrested would probably keep him in confinement a good many of the best years of his life, she would not have been any happier.