Crimson Snow (9 page)

“You are
what?
”

“Sven, there is no time for this,” said Hilda firmly. “We must find Erik. You can tell me everything, later, and forbid me to marry Patrick, and whatever else you are thinking, but now, tell me: When did Mama last see Erik, and where?”

“That's my girl,” said Patrick in an undertone, and the love and admiration in his voice made Hilda feel, suddenly, like a queen on a throne. Oh, she could tackle anything with Patrick at her side!

Sven frowned. “He was—but we must talk about—”

“Later, not now.
Erik.
Tell me.” Hilda grasped Patrick's arm.

Sven glared at Patrick. “I—oh,
ja,
later, then. Erik was—you know there has been no school this week, ever since his teacher was found killed?”

Hilda nodded.

“So Erik has been going to work all day at the firehouse.” Sven shot Patrick another angry look. “And today he saw a newspaper that said school would begin again a week from Monday, after Miss Jacobs's funeral. And when he came home, Mama says, he said at the supper table that he would not go back to school. He is very sad and angry about his teacher, Hilda.”

Again she nodded.

“Of course Mama said he must go to school. She says Erik was very naughty, then, and talked back to her, and refused to go back to school, ever. She explained why he must, but he became more and more angry.”

Hilda could well imagine. Sven was, of course, relating only Mama's side of the story, but Hilda could almost hear the shouts. Mama's “explaining” had probably not been phrased in terms of cool reason, and Erik—well, all the Johanssons had more than their share of Swedish stubbornness, but Erik was the worst. “Yes,” she said. “They fought. What happened then?”

“Erik refused to say he would go to school, and at last he lost his temper completely and said he would run away. Mama sent him to his room then, without his supper, and she locked him in.”

Hilda groaned. “And he got out the window.”

“He did. When Mama went to see him later, and give him something to eat—for you know, Hilda, that Mama can be strict, but she is loving, too—when she went to his room and unlocked the door, he was not there, and the window was wide open, letting in the snow.”

“It is snowing?” Hilda had been too busy all evening to look out the windows.

“It is snowing hard. It has been since nightfall.”

Only then did Hilda notice that the rug was wet from Sven's boots, and his coat and hat were sodden.

“But Sven! This is bad! If he is out in a snowstorm, why do we stand here and talk?”

“But it was you—”

Patrick, who had stood by silently, broke in. “We can't go any quicker than now, but we must go. Hilda, should you tell Mrs. Sullivan you're leavin'?”

Hilda looked at the clock on the mantel. “It is after ten o'clock. She will be sleeping. I will tell Colonel George. He will still be in his office, or the library. I will be back in a moment.”

Hilda would ordinarily have shied away from telling the master of the house that she was going out, especially at night. However, this was not an ordinary time. Events were falling about her head thick and fast, but the supreme event was that she had just committed herself to marriage. She was wearing Patrick's diamond ring on her finger. With calm step and utter confidence, she approached the open door of Colonel George's office, knocked, and went inside.

He looked up from what he was reading. “Yes, Hilda? I hope Mr. Williams hasn't taken a turn for the worse.”

“No, sir. That is, I do not know, sir. I have heard nothing since the afternoon. I am sorry to disturb you, but someone had to be told that I am leaving the house, perhaps for the night. My little brother has run away again. He is distressed because it is his teacher who has been killed. It is snowing very hard; we are afraid for him. I will take a key to the back door, and I will turn off all the lamps downstairs, but there will be no one to answer bells or see to the rest of the lights when you go up. You will not forget to turn off the gas, will you, sir?”

And with a little curtsey, she turned and was gone.

Colonel George sat for a moment with his mouth open. Finding that he could no longer concentrate on the journal in front of him, a treatise on the automobile, he sighed, stood, and turned off the lamps in his office. Methodically he went around the main floor of the house, turning off every gas fixture, and then, stumbling in the dark, he groped his way to the upstairs hall, where the sconces were still lit. He turned those off, too, and went to his bedroom.

Mrs. George put aside the book she was reading. “You're retiring rather early, George. Are you not feeling well?”

He sat down on the bed, heavily. “I don't know what the world's coming to, Ada. Hilda just came to my office and announced she was taking off for the night. Going out in a blizzard to hunt for that rascally little brother of hers, who's gone missing again. Never a hint of ‘May I?' or ‘By your leave' or anything else. Told me I'd have to fend for myself, there's nobody to answer bells, and to be sure and turn off all the gas before I went to bed! I don't know why I keep a pack of servants around this place if I'm going to have to do the work myself!”

“Now, George. Hilda is very reliable. She'll come back when she can. Come to bed.”

“It was her attitude, though!”

“Surely she wasn't disrespectful. She's always so correct.”

“Not disrespectful, exactly,” he grumbled, loosening his tie. “Just—I can't put a finger on it. Over-confident, maybe. That girl has changed, Ada, and not for the better.” He took off his jacket and flung it over a chair.

Mrs. George said nothing more, but a suspicion arose in her mind. Hilda had been seeing a good deal of that fireman of hers, lately. Even the mistress of the house sometimes heard the servants' gossip. Surely Hilda wouldn't…no. Mrs. George let the uncomfortable idea drift away as she reached again for her book.

Hilda, meanwhile, had struggled out into the storm, which had grown much worse while Sven had been in the house. They had not been out five minutes before Hilda's skirts were heavy and sodden. Her face was numb. She could scarcely see where she was going, and she would have fallen several times had it not been for the sturdy arms of Sven on one side and Patrick on the other.

“Look here,” Patrick shouted above the wind, “this won't do. Stop a minute.”

He pulled her into the relative shelter of a house, and Sven, perforce, followed. Leaning against the wall of the building, they simply stood for a moment, catching their breath.

“Now listen to me, both of you,” said Patrick when it was easier to speak. “It's a blizzard out here.”

“It is nothing,” Sven insisted. “In Sweden—”

“But we're not in Sweden, are we? We're in South Bend, Indiana, and we don't have the kind of clothes they wear in Sweden, and we could freeze to death out here tonight!”

The wind howled. Snowflakes swirled. Sven decided not to argue the point.

“So,” Patrick went on with dogged persistence, “there's no point at all in us goin' off tryin' to find Erik in this. He could be three feet away and we'd not see him. And he's not a fool.”

“But we go to Mama's house,” said Hilda, “to talk to her, and try to get an idea where he is.”

“We could die before we get there,” retorted Patrick. “I'm serious. You can't see your hand in front of your face out here. So I figure we'd best do some thinkin'. Sven, when does your ma reckon he left home?”

“She does not know. Probably before the snow started to fall so hard. She did not think he would go out in a storm. But—”

“So he went, and he wouldn't have just run off. He would have gone to a place. Where, Hilda?”

“I am t'inking. A friend's house, maybe. Not a train. They do not run so late, I t'ink, and he would not have enough money. Or—Patrick, the firehouse! The stables!”

“That's what I'm thinkin',” said Patrick with satisfaction. “He loves the horses, and he'd be safe enough there. Nobody'd catch him, neither, if he hid when any fireman came in. It'd be cold, of course, but he could bed down in the straw and do well enough. And he could think things out while he was there, decide what he's goin' to do.”

“Yes,” said Hilda. “Yes, that is where he must be. That is where we should go.”

“Where we're goin', my girl, is back home. Your home, I mean. Tippecanoe Place. If I can find it, that is.”

“But we cannot abandon Erik!”

“I should say not!” said Sven furiously.

“I don't mean to abandon him. Have you forgotten, darlin' girl, that the firehouse has a telephone?”

Hilda
had
forgotten. She was never allowed to use the instrument at the Studebaker mansion, except on rare occasions to answer it if it rang when Mr. Williams wasn't around the house. She had never in her life placed a telephone call, but there was a first time for everything.

She took Patrick's arm again. “The snow is not falling so hard now. The house is that way, I t'ink. Let us hurry, before the storm is worse again.”

They struggled back. The streets and sidewalks were deeply drifted. Walking was treacherous.

Clinging tightly to Patrick's arm, Hilda rounded a corner and saw the great house looming on the next corner. The nearby arc light lit up the snow, but couldn't reach across the broad lawn to the house itself. It brooded on its hill like a dark mountain, the blackness relieved only by one pale rectangle high in the tower—Colonel and Mrs. George's bedroom. There was probably a light in Mr. Williams's sickroom, too, but it was on the other side of the great, dark house. Hilda shivered, and not just from the cold. This house that had sheltered her for years seemed suddenly ominous. As they approached, the one pale light went out.

In the basement entryway the darkness was complete, until Patrick found a match and kindled the gaslight. Then shadows dispersed and familiarity returned, but still Hilda shivered.

“Cold, darlin' girl?”

Hilda saw Sven frown at the endearment. She ignored him. “A little cold,” she replied. “John will have damped down the furnace for the night, and I am very wet.”

Patrick grimaced at the mention of John's name. John Bolton, the coachman and general handyman, had for years been a casual rival for Hilda's attentions. Patrick pulled her closer. “You'd best get out of your wet things and then into bed. It's nearly eleven. Just show me where the telephone is. I can talk to the firehouse and make certain Erik is safe and sound.”

“No, Patrick. I mean, yes, I will show you the telephone, and I will be happy if you will make the call. I do not know how. But I must know, before I can go to bed, that he is safe. And I must lock the door after you.”

“I, too, must know!” Sven tried to make it a roar, but the effect was spoiled by a sneeze at the end.

“Of course!” Patrick smiled at them both, to Sven's obvious annoyance. “That's what we'll do. Hilda, go on up and get yourself into warm things while I make the call. Then I'll leave Sven here to tell you the good news, and I'll be off.”

“Oh, that is good, Patrick,” said Hilda, starting up the back stairs before Sven could object to the plan. “The telephone, it is in Colonel George's office. I will go to my room and change my clothes.”

She heard the
ting
as the receiver was raised from the hook, and Patrick shouting at the operator, and then she went on up the stairs. She wanted to listen to what was said, but it was more important to leave Sven and Patrick alone. Sven was going to have to get used to the idea that Patrick was now one of the men of the family.

She was exhausted, she found as she reached her room. Not only was she up later than usual, not only had her work been exacting all day, but she had been through so many emotional peaks and valleys that she felt wrung dry. She would have preferred to shed her wet clothing and fall into bed, but there were duties yet to be done.

She dropped her apron, skirt, and outer petticoat on the floor, where they lay in sodden puddles. She simply could not muster the energy to hang them up properly, and Mrs. Sullivan would be too busy tomorrow to scold her for her carelessness. There was a clean uniform skirt in her drawer, and Hilda could wash and iron the apron early in the morning, before she had to put it on. For now she pulled the clean skirt on over the thin inner petticoat. It clung to her figure in a most improper way, but she was far too tired to worry about that. Her wet boots and stockings cast aside, she thrust her feet into worn crocheted slippers and wearily trudged downstairs again.

Patrick was still there, just hanging the ear-piece back on the hook.

“Is he there? What did he say? Is he all right?”

“He's there. They let us talk to him. I gave him an earful, and so did Sven—in Swedish. I told him to stay where he was till the mornin' or I'd skelp him, and I reckon Sven said much the same.” Patrick grinned reassuringly at Hilda. “Not that what we said would keep him where he was, but it's snowing hard again, and they've given him a proper bed. They'll keep an eye on him, so you've no need to worry. Then tomorrow—”