Romance Classics (145 page)

Cathy called, “Come on in, Maggie. I’m not asleep.”

She pulled on the bedside lamp as Maggie came in and dropped into the chintz-covered chair near the bed.

“My land, you still awake, child?” She sighed and rubbed her hand over her face and grinned. “I’m so tired it’s all I can do to keep from going to sleep here in this chair. Did you and Mark have fun?”

Cathy’s mouth twisted a little.

“Oh, yes, we had a lot of fun—until Bill arrived,” she said wryly.

Maggie looked at her, puzzled.

“What did Bill want? I mean, you probably had a date with him—” she wondered aloud.

“No, my guess is that
Miss Stovall
probably thought if Bill came in unannounced, he might step into a—er—situation,” said Cathy. Then suddenly, to her own surprise, she heard herself saying quietly, “You see, Maggie, Bill and I are married.”

Maggie sat very still for a moment, and some of the warm, healthy color went out of her good-humored, plump face. But her eyes still met Cathy’s. There was bewilderment and a deep hurt in them, but loyally she tried to conceal it, and her tone was gentle when she spoke.

“Well, Cathy, it’s your business and Bill’s. I always thought
I’d sort of like to see you married, but I don’t suppose when people elope there’s any time to invite wedding guests.”

Cathy’s eyes misted and her chin trembled.

“We’ve been married almost six weeks, Maggie,” she said shakily. “We had a secret wedding and a secret honeymoon, but when Bill thought Mark was beginning to like me, it stopped being a secret.”

“Secretly married!” Maggie whispered the words to herself. “Because of Edith Kendall, of course.”

And then she straightened and her eyes blazed with anger. “But, good grief, Cathy, what were you thinking of? Where was your pride—your self-respect? You’re as good as Edith Kendall—a darned sight better. How could you possibly marry a man who wasn’t willing to acknowledge you publicly? Cathy, you make me ashamed of you!”

Cathy cowered beneath the bitterest tone Maggie had ever used to her, but she met Maggie’s eyes humbly, and nodded.

“Go on, Maggie—say it all. I deserve it!” she said unhappily. “I guess I was just so much in love with Bill that whatever he wanted was what I wanted, too.”

Maggie had herself under control now and she said grimly, “I’m sorry I said all that, Cathy. After all, it’s your own life and you have earned the right to live it the way you want. Only—well, I’m sorry.”

Cathy shook her head. “I’m the one to be sorry, Maggie—and ashamed. And I am—both.”

Maggie was quiet for a moment and then she asked, “How did Mark take it?”

Cathy’s teeth set hard in her lower lip before she could answer.

“He was hurt, of course, and angry—as he had every right to be.”

Maggie nodded. “Yes, you owed it to him, Cathy, to tell him the truth—and don’t tell me you’d promised Bill. You had no right to keep such a promise as that.”

“I know it now,” Cathy admitted, and her smile was tremulous. “Now that it’s too late, I’m becoming ever so wise. I know so many things I didn’t know until now—when it
is
too late.”

Maggie sighed and pulled herself to her feet, her eyes avoiding Cathy’s.

“Well, it’s too late tonight for any more conversation, as
tired as I am,” she said resignedly. “Try to get to sleep, Cathy, and we’ll talk things over in the morning. Though I don’t suppose there’s any reason for you to talk things over with me. Undoubtedly you and Bill have already made your plans.”

“We have,” Cathy said levelly. “I’m asking for a divorce.”

Maggie stood stock-still for a stunned moment, and then she whirled about and stared at Cathy with wide eyes.

“A divorce?”

Cathy nodded. “Silly, isn’t it? I make a fool of myself by getting married secretly, and now that my bridegroom is willing to announce our marriage, I want a divorce! I must be a very light-minded, shameless hussy, Maggie.”

“Hush such talk,” Maggie flashed at her. “You’re just waking up to the fact that Bill isn’t the little tin god on wheels you have always insisted on believing him! That’s all.”

Cathy’s eyes flew wide and she gasped.

“Maggie! I thought you liked Bill!”

Maggie nodded. “I did—until you came back this time and he began courting you as though you were some cheap little back-street creature that he couldn’t afford to be seen with in public. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” she went on in another tone. “I liked Bill—until I met Mark. Mark may be ten times the man Bill will ever be. You know that, don’t you?”

Cathy nodded humbly. “Yes—I know that.”

“Some more knowledge you’ve gained. I guess it isn’t too late for it to benefit you,” said Maggie, and went out, closing the door gently behind her.

Cathy switched out the lamp and drew aside the curtains. There was no moon, she noticed listlessly, and black clouds were scudding across the sky. It had been very hot; unseasonably hot, everybody had said, and the summer drought had come earlier this year. Cathy told herself that she should be heartbroken at the death of all her dreams—and yet she wasn’t, somehow. Her feeling was one of conscious relief. Her love for Bill and their secret wedding had been a great strain; now she was free of that strain and she could only feel the inexpressible freedom that such relief brought her. Perhaps later, when the present numbness wore off, she would suffer; but now she was aware only of a loosening of the reins.

She drew a deep sigh, and instead of lying awake half the
night as she had fully expected to do, she turned on her side, tucked her hand beneath her cheek like a child, and fell into a dreamless slumber.

The darkness was thick about her when she was shaken back to sharp consciousness by Maggie’s hand on her shoulder and Maggie’s frantic voice in her ear.

“Wake up, Cathy. Wake up and get some clothes on before we’re blown away. There’s an awful storm!”

Dazedly, Cathy tumbled out of bed and began pulling on her slacks, almost before she was awake. She could hear it now—the roaring of the wind in the tossing trees; a dull, menacing roar like the sound of an express train advancing at a terrific speed.

Even as she pulled on her thin sweater, Cathy was saying soothingly, “It’s all right, Maggie darling. It’s only a thunderstorm.”

“It’s a cyclone, Cathy—I know it. Hear that wind?” babbled Maggie, clinging to Cathy so that she had difficulty getting her bare feet into loafers. “Come on in the closet, Cathy.”

“Maggie, that’s the worst possible place to go,” Cathy tried to soothe her. “If lightning
did
strike the house—”

“Oh, don’t say that, Cathy—don’t even think it,” moaned Maggie, and now she was almost hysterical. “Oh, listen to that awful wind!”

A crackling, reverberating roll of thunder sounded so close overhead that Cathy jumped a little and Maggie screamed. And then they both stood still, caught up in the sheer elemental fury of the wind. The express train swooped over them, lingered for a moment that seemed hours long, and then went roaring on past them. Then again came that terrific flash of lightning, followed seconds later by another crash of thunder that seemed to rock the little house to its foundations.

“There, now! It’s gone,” Cathy comforted Maggie.

“Gone? Oh, Cathy, we only got the outer edge of it. There’s terrible damage somewhere close. It sounded as though it struck close.” Maggie was fighting her own panic, trying desperately to pull herself together.

The darkness that gripped them made the storm seem all the more terrible, and as Cathy reached out and switched on the light Maggie cried out in sharp protest, “Oh, Cathy, don’t
turn on the light. We might get struck by lightning—electricity is dangerous.”

Cathy gave her a little shake, and her voice was sharp.

“Snap out of it, Maggie! You’re behaving like an idiot,” she ordered. “Can’t you hear it? The thunder is much farther away. The wind has died down a little. It’s over, Maggie.”

She caught her breath on a little gasp as there was a hard pounding on the front door, and then a man’s voice called loudly, “Miz’ Westbrook! Hi, Miz’ Westbrook—are you all right?”

Cathy stumbled to the front door and opened it on their next-door neighbor, Wilbur Krantz, in shirt and trousers, his feet bare, his face white with excitement.

“Must a’ hit somewhere in town. There’s a fire—see there?” he babbled swiftly. “Wanted to see if y’all were all right. I’m going in to town to see if I can be of any help-must be bad there. Reckin they got the full force. Wasn’t that some wind?”

Cathy and Maggie stared, as the man raced away, at the reddish glow toward town that was deepening and growing more ominous every moment.

“Lightning!” said Maggie in a soft, terrified breath. “Something’s been hit.”

Cathy said swiftly, “Yes, and Maggie—I’m going in, too, to see if I can be of any help. If that storm struck the town in full force, then there’s work there for everybody that can lift his hand.”

The thought that there might be people who needed her help rallied Maggie as nothing else could have done.

“Yes, of course. I’ll get my first aid kit, Cathy, and get some clothes on. Can you start the Betsy-Bug?” she panted. Cathy assented and ran out into the darkness.

The rain was still falling, but more gently now, the sort of rain farmers and people with cherished gardens had prayed for for weeks; a slow, gentle soaking rain that would revive plants. But it would not be of much service in putting out a stubborn fire, Cathy told herself soberly, as she swung open the garage door and coaxed the sleeping Betsy-Bug to reluctant life.

All up and down the little suburban street lights were flashing on, and people in all stages of dress and undress were huddled on verandas and at open windows. There was the
sound of many cars of the type and vintage of the Betsy-Bug being brought to life. Excited voices called to each other for news; rumor grew in a breath and advanced at leaps and bounds. Mr. Krantz roared off as Maggie and Cathy drove out of their driveway and into the road; and by the time they had turned toward town, they had become one of a rapidly lengthening row of cars, all heading toward town where the angry red glow in the sky was growing more and more ominous.

Now they could gauge something of the extent of the storm’s havoc. It had cut through the town sideways, catching the main part of the business section, the modest middle-class homes on its edge, some of the finer homes, and cutting a wide swath through the very heart of Cypressville’s equivalent of a slum.

The small old homes were crushed as though by a giant’s fist. Here and there among the ruins fires smoldered; defective wiring had yielded to the storm’s fury; a gasoline tank, struck by lightning, had added its own horror, and everything within a wide radius of it was in flames.

Rescue workers were already busy, unorganized, working in a sort of desperation that retarded their own efforts. There were injured, terrified people already brought out of the ruins. Cathy went swiftly and competently to work, while Maggie, recovered from her own fear and horror by the sight of so much that needed to be done, began gathering up the lost and bewildered children, some of them still half asleep.

Cathy was rolling a bandage about a woman’s lacerated forehead when a voice beside her said crisply, “Good work—whoever you are.”

Cathy looked up swiftly into the tired, tense face of a man in the sort of white coat that a hospital staff doctor wears.

“I’m Cathy Layne—Lieutenant in the Army Nurse Corps,” she told him, and tucked the bandage expertly into place.

“Thank the Lord—can we use you!” said the man prayerfully. “I’m Dr. Stevens of St. Vincent’s. Can you carry on here for a while? We’re shorthanded, and they’re coming into the hospital in truckloads.”

“Of course,” Cathy answered, and passed to the next patient, a child who had been brought out of a wrecked house.

She worked smoothly, efficiently, steeling herself to the ugliness of what she saw. The rescue squads were working more
efficiently now, as their dazed horror began to lessen, and they could see better what must be done.

The rain had ceased, and gradually the gray light brightened and the sun came up.

To Cathy, straightening her weary body, easing her aching back, the first ray of sunlight that fell across the white, twisted face of a woman whose life had run out beneath Cathy’s swift, capable hands was something shocking and incredible. It seemed almost indecent that the sun should come up, bright and burnished from the rain; that the leaves should look newly green, fresh-washed, and that they should stir happily in the little breeze that came with the sun’s rise. How could nature tear the world apart with her fury one moment, and the next present a bright, smiling face innocent of all evil?

“Think there’s a chance, Nurse?” asked a grimy, sweat-stained man who laid a crumpled body on the ground before her.

Cathy jerked her head up and looked into the dark, grimy face and gasped, “Mark!”

His tired face was lit by the flash of white teeth in the darkness of his exhaustion and grime, and he answered, “Kind of like old times, isn’t it, Cathy?”

There was bitter cynicism in his voice and Cathy’s tired face tightened a little as she bent above the woman he had laid down before her.

“I’d say she has a fighting chance, Mark, if we can get her to the hospital fast!”

“Right,” said Mark swiftly, and turned away.

Midmorning came, and there was the heartening word that the first members of a Disaster Unit of the Red Cross had arrived, and the frantic tension under which all the uninjured had worked so desperately eased a little. There was comfort in the knowledge that trained people, accustomed to these
terrifying conditions, were beginning to appear. Some sort of order could now be expected to emerge from the chaos.

Cathy paused a moment to flex muscles aching with weariness, and to fight a moment’s faintness. A girl was coming toward her, picking her way carefully through the debris, her arms carefully cradling a tiny bundle, and Cathy saw, with amazed unbelief, that the girl was Elaine. Her blue slacks were torn and mud-stained, and her thin, short-sleeved shirt was almost in ribbons. Her tangled blond hair framed a face white and strained, with a smudge of smoke and dirt that made her look very unlike the exquisitely groomed, arrogantly lovely girl Cathy had known.