Miranda (Marcia Schuyler Trilogy) by Hill Grace Livingston

Author:Hill, Grace Livingston [Hill, Grace Livingston]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter XVI

MIRANDA watched through a rain of thankful tears as David escorted his guest out of the front door, and then she flew into the parlor and watched as they went arm in arm up the street and knocked at her grandfather’s door. She waited with bated breath until a candle light appeared at her grandfather’s bedroom window, and slowly descended the stairs; waited again while the two went in, and another light appeared above, showing that a hasty toilet was being made; stood cold and patient by the window during an interminable time, imagining the conference that must be going on in the Heath kitchen; and finally was rewarded by seeing three men come out of the Heath door and walk slowly down the street to the big house across the way. She noted that Lawrence Billings walked between the other two. She could tell him by his slight build, and cringing attitude as he walked, and once they stopped and seemed to parley, both the other men putting strong hands upon his shoulders.

There was another delay, and she could hear the Whitney knocker sounding hollowly down the silent street. Then a head was thrust out of the upper window and a voice called loudly: “Who’s there!” Miranda had opened the parlor window just a crack, and her heart beat wildly as she knelt and laid her ear beside the crack. In a few minutes a light appeared in the fan-shaped windiw over the front door and then the door itself was opened and the visitors let in.

Miranda waited then only to see the light appear in the front windows and the shadows of the four men against the curtain. Then she dropped on her knees by the window and let her tears have their way. “Thanks be!” she murmured softly again and again. “Thanks be!”

Whatever came now, Allan was cleared. At least three men in the town knew, and they would do the right thing. She was almost dubious about their having told Mr. Whitney. She thought he deserved to feel all the trouble that could come to him through his children for the way he had treated them; but after all it was good to have Allan cleared in the eyes of his father, too.

The conference in the Whitney house was long and Miranda did not wait until it was over. She climbed the stairs softly to her room, answered Marcia’s gentle, “Is that you, Miranda?” with a gruff, “Yes, I ben down in the kitchen quite a spell,” and closing her door went straight to the starlit window and gazed out. There was only a star or two on duty that night, fitfully visible between the clouds, but Miranda looked up to them wistfully. Somewhere under them, if he were still on the earth, was Allan. Oh, if the stars could but give him the message that his name was cleared! Perhaps, somehow, the news would reach him, and some day he might return. Her heart leaped high with the thought.

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