Stranger within the Gates (26 page)

Paul turned off the Victrola with a vicious snap.

"I never used to believe that music could be immoral," he said, "but that sounds as if it came from the bottomless pit. The music of the lost!"

By this time Stan had turned on the lights, and all was as it had been before Florimel made her debut, save that every face bore a look of shock, and distinct pity for him was what Rex read as he looked around.

He stepped into the room.

"I'm sorry!" he said with a downcast glance and a voice so stern it hardly seemed like Rex. "I hope you will pardon my wife! I guess--perhaps--she didn't know any better!"

And then Mary Garland's voice came sweet and clear, with her eyes on her son.

"Oh,
my dear
!" There was gentlest protest and utmost sympathy in her voice. The tears were very near the surface, and Rex's eyes went to hers and asked her pardon silently for what he had done. The rest began to try to take up the conversation broken off so unexpectedly. And then suddenly an interruption occurred. A sharp scream from upstairs. Rex turned pale and stepped back into the hall, looking up. Was this another trick?

***

Florimel had picked herself up from the floor, angry to her heart's core. So, that was the way Rex had taken her reaction to his hatefulness. Well, he would find that he couldn't beat her by locking her in a room. Her knees were smarting and her whole being was filled with wrath, but she hadn't time now to vent it. He would be back in a minute, and she would let him see that she was perfectly controlled. He hadn't conquered her by flinging her around like a basketball. He needn't think that just because he could play basketball well, he could order her around and expect her to do just as he said. She would let him see that she was her own mistress, and she would make that mother-in-law understand that she intended to do just as she pleased. She would have a good smoke, and they would all smell cigarette smoke. Pretty soon Rex would come and order her to stop, and she would tell him a thing or two. She would tell him that if he didn't let her go down there and finish that dance out, she would get a job in a local theater the next day and show the whole town what she was. She would tell him what a good dancer she had been and how all the theaters had been crazy to get her. She wouldn't tell him, of course, that she had lost her job at the last cheap little vaudeville where she had danced and that she hadn't been able to get another anywhere and that was the reason why she had taken the job at the pie shop.

As her mind wandered over the things she planned to do, she got out her cigarette case; selected a cigarette; lit it; flung herself down in the big, luxurious chair by the window, one abandoned bare white leg flung over the arm of the chair; and lolled there enjoying her smoke.

There were other things she could do that would likely bring her mother-in-law to order in a short time. She had heard them talking during the day of the different department stores where the family had charges, and she planned to go shopping tomorrow and buy a number of things she wanted and charge them to her mother-in-law. She would somehow get that money that Mary Garland was keeping away from Rex. If she could make her hurt badly enough, in very self-protection she would have to arrange that Rex should have an income.

She was lolling back now with her eyes speculatively on the ceiling, her right arm over the arm of the upholstered chair. And then, suddenly, she smelled a scorched smell, and looking down, she saw her cigarette had scorched a great hole in those cherished old silk curtains.

She leaned over and watched the silk curl up and turn brown. She moved the little spark of fire up and down, till the curtain was marked up with scorched places.

Suddenly an evil look came into her eyes. Why not go on with that devastation and finish the curtain? Then they would have to take it down and get some new curtains, and she'd jolly well arrange it so she would do the picking out of the next curtains, whether they liked it or not. She'd show them!

She stood up where she could reach higher on the curtain, and puffing on her cigarette occasionally to keep it burning brightly, she drew a pattern of ugly crisscross marks all over that beautiful curtain, making great unsightly spots in it over the delicate roses that trailed across its exquisite fabric.

She was standing thus on her tiptoes to reach a little higher when she suddenly felt the heat of an actual flame, and before she could even draw back, she saw that the inner, delicate silk curtain had caught fire from a smoldering spot and was blazing to the ceiling. It was then she gave the first sharp scream, before she realized what she was doing.

She drew back from the heat of it and cast about her what to do, and suddenly she saw that she had not drawn back from the heat at all, but the heat had followed her, was
on herself
! The flame had caught her chiffon dress and all at once blazed about her! Clutching at herself in vain attempt to crush out the fire, she began to utter shriek after shriek in terrified horror and then started and ran about the room wildly, rushing at the door and trying to beat it down, kicking it with her frail little silver sandaled foot, then falling down and rolling on the floor in her pain and fright. The door was hopelessly locked against her exit, and her shrieks became horrible.

It was Stan who had seen the rosy light fitfully playing on the snow outside the living room window. He had been standing by the window looking out because he hated to look around the room and see the sorrow on his mother's face.

It was Rance Nelius who had covered the first embarrassing moment after Rex's apology by remarking in a casual tone, "One of those lights in the star has gone out. Here, let me fix it." And he had risen and gone to work at it. And Marcia Merrill had gone over to the tree and straightened out a line or two of the silver tinsel, just to make it all appear quite natural. But Stan hadn't looked back at them. He was watching that rosy light from the guest room window. What could it be? It seemed to rise and flare widely now almost over the path to the tennis court, and he turned a frightened face to Paul, who sat nearby.

"Fire!" he said in a choked voice. "There's a
fire upstairs
!"

It was just then that those awful shrieks began. Rex, with fear in his eyes, went tearing upstairs and unlocked that door. What had he done?
What
had
Florimel
done?

He pushed open the door, and there lay Florimel in flames at his feet, her jaunty feathers of a costume charred to a crisp and her flesh scorched and raw. She rolled over, covering her face with her burned hands and screaming with all the strength that was left in her fierce young body.

Rex snatched a handsome pink blanket from the foot of the bed and wrapped it around Florimel, caught her up, and ran with her to a room at the other side of the house, the old playroom. He put her on the bed there, calling, "Mother! Come quick!" and then he rushed back to put out that fire.

But he found Paul and Rance on the spot already. Stan was sending in the alarm to the fire department. Sylvia was there with Marcia and Fae, hastily gathering out precious things that they wanted to save from the fire and carrying them across the hall. The fine old furniture was being moved as far from the window as possible. Sylvia was coming away from the closet with her arms full of Florimel's startling wardrobe when she heard her mother call her. She dropped the garments in a heap in Fae's room and hurried to answer.

It was Sylvia who called up the old family doctor and then hurried after ointments and old linen.

The young men were beating out the fire as best they could, but it had got a tremendous start before they knew it, and now it bit into the fine old wood of the room and licked across to the furniture in spite of all they could do.

Rance had dragged out the handsome antique rug, the bed linens and mattress and pillows, and then began to take down the bed, even before the firemen arrived.

For the next hour there were strenuous times in the old Garland mansion, for the fire had crept up insidiously to the third story before anyone was aware and was biting into the rafters, the dormer windows, and taking all in its path. When that was discovered, they knew there might be a hard fight to save the old mansion.

But Mary Garland, who was having a fight of her own, did not hear about it until afterward, or she would have thought perhaps they should have taken the patient out of danger.

Florimel was in awful agony, and even when the doctor arrived, it was some time before her pain was relieved.

The doctor sent Fae to telephone for a nurse. Stan was working with the men, doing a man's part. Marcia and Sylvia were getting valuable belongings out of harm's way from fire and water.

Outside the house the beautiful blanket of snow that had been so admired that day by all who passed was trampled down to the grass. The place under the windows that had reflected so gorgeously the colors of the Christmas tree lights, and where Stan had first seen the rosy glow of the fire, was a black and trodden space, covered now by a great crowd of neighbors and passersby, the riffraff that always follows a notable fire.

Paul had flung his coat off and was working with might and main, and so was Rance Nelius. Rex vibrated between the fire and his screaming wife, nearly distracted, unable to think beyond the fact that it was all Florimel's fault; and he had brought Florimel there, therefore it was all his fault!

And once when he went into the room where Florimel was being ministered to with tender care and skill, she caught sight of him and screamed again.

"There you are!" she yelled hoarsely. "This is all your fault! You brought me here, and it was you who locked me into the room. Why wouldn't I set fire to your old curtains? Priceless curtains, you said they were. Well, I ruined them for you, and I'll ruin more if I get the chance! That's the kind of husband you are, Rex Garland! And you said you wanted to
protect
me!"

Her voice rang out wild and clear, out through the windows that were standing wide open. Out above the noises of the engine and the calls of the firemen. People looked at one another in wonder, for not many yet had heard that Rex was married and they did not understand.

But Rex bowed his young head and groaned aloud.

"Oh, Florrie, don't talk that way!" he pleaded, but she only screamed louder, and Mary Garland came near to her son.

"You'd better go away where she can't see you, Rex. She's beside herself with pain now. She isn't herself, you know. Don't worry, dear. The doctor says her burns are not serious, only very painful."

Rex went away and worked like mad among the men who were fighting the fire. He almost wished that he would get burned or killed or something, so terrible life looked to him just then!

And all the time this was going on the Christmas tree stood sweetly shining alone there within the living room, undisturbed by the tumult outside, and the Christmas star beamed out a story of the ages and a life beyond this life down here. Outside the people who stood staring could see it and remark about its beauty. And one woman who crept up close and crawled under the rope the firemen had stretched to keep the curious out, pressed her nose close to the window to see what the little town on the mantel might be. There in the spot where the little carolers just a few hours before had been singing "O Little Town of Bethlehem," they stood and stared, while the end of a perfect day, Christmas Day, was going up in smoke.

But it was over at last. The firemen and the engine and the hook and ladder truck were gone away. Heavy quilts, water soaked, were hung across the empty window spaces. The furniture was out from the beautiful guest room and scattered about in the other rooms. The doctor was gone and the nurse held sway at the old nursery where the spoiled young bride lay under an opiate, her lacerated body swathed in soothing ointments.

Paul had taken Marcia home and now was back. He and Rance Nelius, who had stayed to help, took up their station on the two couches in the living room, with only the soft blue glow of the Christmas star to light them. But Rex was huddled miserably on the top step of the stairs, his face hidden in his hands, his heart facing a swift and terrible retribution that had come so soon and so appallingly on the footsteps of his impulsive, young act.

Yet he would not hide back his youth. He had so long boasted of his ability to stand with older boys, to take his stride ahead of time, and always he had been proud of his ability to take what was coming to him, so he must take it now. He would not cry out and protest at fate. He knew it was all his own fault, but this was something he was just finding out in all its clarity.

It was his little sister Fae, sent to her room to go to bed, who finally came and dropped down beside him on the step and put her childish young arm about his neck, her face against his, her soft lips in a tender little vague kiss on his cheek. Rex, grateful for the comfort of her sympathy, roused to slip his arm about her and stoop to kiss her in return. She was young, but Fae knew that he was pleased with her comfort, and she went back to her bed glad of the look he had given her.

Before Mary Garland lay down in her soft dressing gown ready for call if she should be needed to help in the night, she knelt beside her bed and prayed for her boy and his poor silly wife, that all this fiery happening might be overruled to the glory of God and the salvation of all concerned. Then she dropped off to sleep, thinking of the beautiful things in their Christmas Day and trying to forget the unpleasant happenings. Christmas Day was over, and tomorrow would be another day. And then there was the afterward. What would it be?

The days that followed were very quiet ones for the Garland household, with the exception of the almost constant outcries from the sickroom. A few nails were driven to shut off the burned windows from wind and weather, and great insulated boards nailed across the openings; then the doors were closed and the one-time lovely guest room was alone in its desolation, no longer a cherished part of the fine old home. Everything was kept as still as possible for the sake of the invalid, but the invalid did not seem to appreciate it. She demanded action, much and often. She cried out for diversion and seemed to think they were all to blame for her condition.