Substitute Guest
© 2013 by Grace Livingston Hill
Print ISBN 978-1-62029-393-5
eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-62416-467-5
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-62416-466-8
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.
All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Cover image © Faceout Studio, www.faceoutstudio.com
Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio
44683, www.barbourbooks.com
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.
Printed in the United States of America.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
About the Author
Chapter 1
Late 1920s
Eastern United States
It was the day before Christmas, and it had been snowing hard all day.
They began in the early morning, shortly after seven, large feathery flakes sliding down as if they were only playing. They soon grew larger, swirling fantastically, like children holding hands, chasing one another through a fairy world, now this way now that, whimsically, with no regular meter or rhythm.
In just no time at all the ground was covered, and then the snow settled down to business, imperceptibly changing into fine stinging grains, slanting down with swift, accelerated measure, beating into every crack and cranny, packing firmly into an impenetrable mass. The wind rose gradually, drifting the falling particles into solid walls of stubborn whiteness. Before noon it became apparent that the intention was something more than just a winter snowstorm.
Children came rollicking out with their sleds, bundled in bright scarlet or green or blue, reveling in the snow, shouting to one another with muted voices that seemed amazingly to have lost their resonance, deadened in this strange, padded atmosphere. Until even their young ardor was baffled by the increasingly bitter cold and the pitiless slant of whiteness that shut them from one another, and one by one they drifted from a suddenly frightening world, into the warmth and brightness of the fireside, to careful mothers who kissed their little cold wet faces, dried their smarting wrists, and folded them in warm garments with comforting embrace.
But the snow went steadily on.
Alan Monteith drove into the first of the storm, wending his way between the largest of the lazy flakes, a bit thrilled at the thought of snow for Christmas. He was still young enough to thrill over snow.
Not that Christmas meant so much to him anymore. Christmas was a home day, and his family was all gone except a married sister who was touring Europe on her wedding trip. Christmas didn’t seem like Christmas in an apartment hotel with only a city office for change. Oh, of course he had friends, and there were plenty of social engagements. He was on his way to one now—a colossal house party in a fabulously expensive home on a vast estate ninety miles or so away. But it didn’t suit Christmas, not in the least, not his inherited traditional Christmas. There would be excitement and hilarity; there would be amusement and a wealth of unique variety. There would be luxury of eating and drinking and apparel, but it would not be Christmas, not real Christmas.
Still, there would be Demeter Cass! Would that make up for the lack of a real Christmas? Demeter with her hair like ripe wheat, her strange sea-green eyes under long golden lashes, and her red, red lips. There was a lure of mystery about Demeter. It was not merely the beauty of the flesh either. She had intellect and an uncanny insight into men’s minds. Was she psychic? A siren without doubt. Yet, couldn’t she be tamed? There was thrill and lure in the thought of taming a beautiful creature like Demeter, sophisticated to the last degree. But could one ever hope to build up a happy future around a girl like Demeter? A future that would have in it an old-fashioned Christmas somewhere? Or were Christmases, the kind that used to be when he was a child, gone forever?
He wove his way among the city traffic skillfully, where late Christmas shoppers were even so early in the morning thronging the streets for a last frantic dash after forgotten gifts. He stopped in front of an office building, parked his car hurriedly, and took the elevator up to the tenth floor, walking down the marble corridor to a door that bore in gold letters the inscription: MALCOLM SARGENT, M.D.
He marched in, past the white-gowned nurse who presided at a desk to guard the noted doctor, greeted her pleasantly, and tapped at the inner door like one privileged.
“Doctor alone?” he asked the nurse casually.
“Yes. It isn’t quite time yet for patients.” She smiled. “And he’s expecting you.”
Monteith was one of the favored few who walked in at all hours and found a welcome.
The door was opened almost instantly.
“Well, you are prompt!” said Dr. Sargent cordially. “Did you get it through all right?”
“Of course!” said Alan. “Didn’t I tell you I would?”
He settled down into the chair offered and pulled out an official-looking envelope from his inner pocket, handing it over to his friend.
“Well, I am relieved!” said the doctor. “When I heard about that uncle on his way back from California who had to sign to make it legal, I thought my plans were all up! Did he get here in time, or what did they do?”
“He arrived yesterday afternoon and was tickled to death to sign.
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