Chapter XIX

Anne Truesdale, bringing another plate of angel cake that had been put aside for “the master” sighted the minister’s car through the front window, and urging the plate upon Roberta hastened to the door to meet them.

It was Greeves who was walking ahead, and she put up her hands as if in prayer and almost curtsied in her agony, her words tumbling out in true old country style:

“Oh, master Pat, I’d not be troublin’ ye, but the young ladies is in there and ye’ll have to tell me what ye want done. I’ve fed ’em an’ fed ’em, everything there is left in the house, tryin’ to keep ’em from realizin’ they’ve been insulted, an’ now you’ll just have to do something about it. It’ll be a scandal in the neighborhood in five minutes after I let them be going, for Emily Bragg has an awful tongue in her head an’ she lives next door to Arden Philips’ wife, her that was Ruby Hamilton ye ken.”

“Why, Anne, what’s the matter? Try not to be excited. Tell me what has happened? Who is in the house?”

“It’s the young ladies, the daughters of yer uncle’s old friends, Mary Truman next door, and Roberta Moffat and them, six of them, nice girls as ever was, come to call on your daughters. And Miss Athalie first kept them waitin’ an’ then she come down all in a red party dress with that bare a neck, and no sleeves at all, and a little red hat like a red hen atop her, and them monstrous cherries a dangling—”

Anne was almost sobbing as she talked, and was unaware that Bannard and Silver had come up and were standing behind her.

“Never mind, Anne,” said Greeves soothingly, “it can’t be so very bad. You say they’re only little girls.”

“’Igh-school girls, sir, an’ comin’ on young ladies. Oh, but you don’t know sir, it was werry bad, werry bad indeed, sir. She come in an’ called herself Miss Greeves, and she offered them her smoking box, an’ then she orders tea an’ walks out that imperious you’d think she was a queen, sayin’ as how ’twas late an’ she had a engagement to go to the city an’ see a carabay on a roof, sir, whatever that may be, sir. An’ she’s gone—an’ I don’ know what to do with ’em. It’ll be all over town before the night, master Pat—!”

“Is there somebody in there to call, did you say, Mrs. Truesdale?” interrupted Silver suddenly. “Why I’ll go right in!”

Silver ran up the steps and into the hall, flinging off her hat in her transit and dropping it on the hall console, tossing her gloves after it. She entered the drawing room where the embarrassed girls were huddled together, trying to get rid of napkins, eating furtive pieces of cake from the plate on the edge of the tea cart, and planning a hasty exit before any more stupefying and insulting daughters were presented to their indignant gaze.

“Oh, how lovely of you all to run over so soon!” exclaimed Silver ruffling up her hair with a merry attempt at smoothing it, “now tell me who you are. I’m Silver Greeves, I suppose you know—or perhaps you don’t. Call me Silver please, I’ll feel more at home. And what’s your name? Mary Truman? Oh, you live next door don’t you? Father was telling me about you this morning at breakfast. We’ll be friends, won’t we? Now you introduce the rest.”

She had them all chattering together in a moment more and they hadn’t an idea she was a day older than any of them. She was small and slender, and had a smile like sunshine. They liked her at once and forgot their grievances. They began to tell her as one girl about their school, and their Christian Endeavor, and their fudge party, and she entered into it all eagerly. Christian Endeavor? Of course she would join. She had been a Christian Endeavorer at home. Fudge? She loved it. Of course she would come!

Bannard stood for a moment in the doorway where he had followed to see if he could help out in the trying situation which he had easily sensed from the few words he had caught of Anne’s excited recital, and behold, this wonderful little girl had everything in the hollow of her hand. Then one of the girls looked up, Emily Bragg it was, and giggled.

“Oh, and there’s Mr. Bannard! Won’t you come to the party too? You like fudge, don’t you?”

“Indeed I do, and indeed I will,” said Bannard eagerly. “I was wishing you would ask me only I wasn’t sure whether the boys were invited or not.”

“Oh, yes, the boys are invited,” beamed Mary Truman, “they don’t know it yet but I’m going to call them up on the phone. Say, Mr. Bannard will you see Barry Lincoln? I’d like to ask him, but they haven’t any phone.”

“Yes, I’ll tell Barry,” promised the minister, and then Anne Truesdale with suspiciously red eyes bustled in and began pouring tea for the minister and Greeves. Silver jumped up and taking her father’s arm drew him around the group making him acquainted with each one, and the girls marvelled that she remembered their names so well. When they finally broke up and started home to get ready for their fudge party Silver walked with them down to the gate an arm around Mary and Roberta, her head turned backward to smile over her shoulder at the other three who were fairly tied in a knot to get closer to her, and so they took their adoring leave at the front gate to the great edification of the Vandemeeters, who felt that their heads were fairly reeling with the exciting program of the day.

“I declare, if this goes on,” said mother mopping her weary brow with her apron, “I sha’n’t get half my work done. I do hope things will settle down pretty soon.”

Over at the Silver mansion Anne Truesdale was gathering the scattered tea things, and trying to plan for the evening meal which had been robbed of several articles of its menu. Greeves stood in the front hall talking with Bannard, and watching Silver come brightly up the path, both men thinking how wonderfully she had turned the situation.

“You have no cause to worry about _her_,” said Bannard with a touch of reverence in his tone.

“I should say not,” said Greeves. “She’s—she’s—like her mother!”

“Didn’t I tell you,” said Bannard with a twinkle in his eye, “that tomorrow about this time you’d begin to see God’s way taking shape?”

Greeves’ face turned sharply toward him a heavy shadow crossing his brow.

“Don’t talk to me about God’s way!” he said harshly, “I’ve seen too much of that. What about my other girl?” and a spasm of anger went like white lightning over his features.

“That will work out too,” said Bannard reverently. “Give God His way and see.”

“Don’t!” said Greeves sharply.

“What about that man down at the Flats, that father! I can’t get him out of my head Bannard. That’s cruelty to make that little one suffer so. It’s cruelty to take her away from a father and mother like that. She isn’t going to live is she?”

“She has a chance, the doctor says. It depends a lot upon the nursing. The father and mother are wonders, but they don’t know how.”

“Do you know of a trained nurse you can get, Bannard? I’d gladly pay for one! Couldn’t we telephone to the city for one? Two if necessary. I’d like to see that child saved. Bannard if there’s anything that money can do you’ll let me help out? I’d like to make that much amends for the mess I’ve made of my life.”

Bannard cast him a quick appreciative look.

“Thank you,” he said, “that means a lot. There’ll be plenty of chances for that sort of thing. But in this case it isn’t so much a question of money as love. It would be hard to find a regular trained nurse that would fit into that household. You saw how primitive everything was. It would have to be somebody who could love them to make the service possible. I’m going down now for Mrs. Lincoln. I think she’ll spend the night there. She’s done such things before. She knows how to love.”

After Bannard was gone a shadow of care seemed to drop upon Greeves’ face even while he was closing the front door, as he remembered his younger daughter. Now his was the disagreeable task of finding out all about what she had done and dealing with her. How sickening the thought! All the advantage he had gained, or thought he had gained in the morning would be gone with the first word. His soul shrank from the contest. He was angry and disheartened. How was he to reach her and make her understand, that at least she must refrain from outward disrespect to him and his family or she could not remain under his roof? What was the secret of her strange nature that made her willing to do these astonishing things? He hurried back to the drawing room where he could hear Anne’s excited voice relating over again to Silver the chief points of Athalie’s offense. He could see how to Anne, what had been done was almost the unpardonable sin. To keep the honor and respect of the village was certainly among the first articles of Anne’s creed. With a deep sigh he pushed back the curtain and listened.

“I wouldn’t bother about it, Anne,” Silver was saying, “Athalie probably hasn’t an idea how disagreeable she appeared. She is in a different atmosphere from any she has ever been in before, and it isn’t really her fault, perhaps, that she acts so. I don’t think the girls will say much about it. We are going over next door tonight, and we’ll just have a good time and make them forget about the other. After a little when Athalie gets acquainted and gets to know the ways of Silver Sands she will want to make them like her, I’m sure she will. Just now she’s rather strange and upset in all her ideas—”

“That’s all very well, Silver,” put in the father, “but Athalie can’t publicly disgrace us. And she has openly disobeyed me it seems about the cigarettes. I can’t have that—in this house!”

“She’s been brought up to see it I suppose—”

“Oh—yes!” said her father with a look of remembrance sweeping over his face—“of course she’s seen it every day. It’s her standard. But she’s got to learn that it isn’t mine!”

“When she learns to love you, father, maybe that will make a difference,” suggested Silver shyly.

The father’s face was hard.

“I doubt if she knows how to love anyone but herself,” he said bitterly, “it was the way with her mother. Anne, will you tell Miss Athalie to come down at once to the library?”

Anne was mopping up her eyes. She seemed to take Athalie’s misdeeds as a personal offense. Sacredly all these years she had guarded the honor of the family, and now to have it trampled under foot by an alien in one short afternoon was too much. Anne could not put it easily aside. It was an outrage, like having bad boys tear up the tulip beds after Joe had newly trimmed them, or scarring the family Bible. Anne could not get over it. She came sniffing back from the pantry door with a handful of soiled dishes and her cheeks red and angry looking. When she was excited her cheeks always turned fire red.

“But she’s not here!” she affirmed indignantly, “didn’t I tell ye she’s away down the street like a big red peacock. I would have stopped her if I could but she’ll not mind the likes of me.”

“She went out?” queried Greeves startled, “I didn’t understand you before. I thought you said she went up to her room. Are you quite sure? Perhaps she’s returned and slipped up the back way.”

“I’m that sure, but I’ll go see, master Pat,” sniffed Anne, and hurried up the stairs.

In a moment she was back again.

“She’s not up stairs, master Pat. And you should see her room! It’s like a hurricane. There’s frocks and shoes just where she’s dropped them, and stockings all over the place. It’s scandalous. If there should happen a fire—”

But Greeves was already on his way to the front door.

“I’ll go out and find her,” he said in a low tone to Silver, caught up his hat from the rack and was gone.

An hour later he came back with an anxious look upon his face.

“Is she back yet?” he asked Silver who had been hovering from window to window trying to think of a way out of the dilemma for her father, wondering if perhaps Athalie hadn’t run away back to her mother, considering once more whether she ought not to go away herself and so remove one stumbling block from this wayward sister’s path.

“I met a woman—she lives next door—Weldon, Lizzie Weldon I think her name is. She said she saw Athalie go down the street toward the post office. She was standing at the gate she said and watched her out of sight. She’s one of those hawks who knows everybody’s business. I used to hate her when I was a boy. She evidently wanted to find out where Athalie had gone. It isn’t hell enough to have these things happening but we have to have a lot of vultures around picking at the bones!”

“Well, never mind, father. I wouldn’t feel too bad about it. It isn’t your fault, and things’ll come right after a while—”

“So you believe that too!” he said eyeing her keenly, “well, I must say I don’t. They’ve never come right for me yet. The thing I’m afraid of is they may confuse you with Athalie. I wouldn’t have a breath of scandal touch you, my Silver-Alice.” He came and touched his lips tenderly to her forehead. She lifted clear eyes to meet his look.

“Why, I wouldn’t be afraid of that, father. It isn’t possible.”

“What makes you so sure?” he asked, “you don’t know what old carrion crows inhabit a village like this, till they once get scent of a bit of scandal. Why even really good women, women who live otherwise a right life, will snatch up such a thing and rush about carrying it from house to house till there isn’t a tatter left of somebody’s reputation.”

Silver still looked untroubled, and shook her head.

“It can’t be,” she insisted, “there’s a promise, don’t you know? Listen! ‘No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord.’”

He looked at her as a man looks at a beloved woman who has just uttered some sweet fallacy concerning which he does not wish to undeceive her. His eyes grew tender with admiration and yearning.

“You are like your mother,” he said with a strange embarrassment in his voice. “If only—” and then he stalked to the window and stood looking out for a long, long time.

Dinner was late that night while Molly made short cake for the strawberries, but when they sat down Athalie had not yet arrived.

“It’s very strange!” said Greeves looking at his watch anxiously, and he went himself to Athalie’s door and switched on the light to make sure she was not hidden somewhere to evade them all.

He made Anne tell over again what she had heard.

“She said it would be that late,” insisted Anne, “and she was going to the roof garden and a carabay! I’m sure that was what she said, _carabay_!”

Greeves looked thoughtful. What was that Athalie had said about somebody in the city bringing her out the first day? Giving her presents, going to give her a theatre party? Surely the child couldn’t have gone in town to meet him without leaving any word. It was absurd. Nevertheless he kept bringing out his watch and looking at it nervously.

Silver too, seemed worried.

“Perhaps we better not go to that little affair tonight, father, unless Athalie comes in before it is time for us to start.”

“No, that would be foolish,” he said. “Of course you must go. We will both go. Truman was an old friend of mine. I’d like to see him. She will come in before long of course. She is doubtless hiding not far away just for a freak. She is a strange child. I do not understand her.”

But at eight o’clock Athalie had not arrived.

“There is no use fretting over it,” said her father as he walked restlessly up and down, realizing that he was more angry with her than worried. Why should he worry about a child whom he neither wanted nor loved? And yet for that very reason something in him rose and prodded his conscience. Why didn’t he care? Why hadn’t he looked out from her birth that she was the kind of a child for whom he would have to care?

He went to the telephone and called up Bannard.

“That you, Bannard? Say, that strange child of mine is still at large. Have you any way of finding out whether she took a train to town this afternoon, without exciting interest on the part of the whole countryside? Good. I thought you could. I suppose it is foolish to worry. She certainly seems able to look after herself, but somehow I feel responsible. Darned responsible! Thanks. Yes, we’re going over. See you in a few minutes.”

Greeves and his daughter went to the neighbor’s, and Bannard went out to find Barry, but Barry was not to be found. His mother was gone to the Flats for the night to care for the Italian baby, and there was no sign that Barry had been home at all. Bannard sauntered down to the station and enquired of the agent who was just closing up, whether he could remember if Mr. Perry went to the city on the four o’clock train, and the agent said no, there hadn’t a soul gone on that train. It was late and he had to hang around waiting to give the engineer a message. There never was much travel in the afternoon—only a man and a boy took the six o’clock train and the seven didn’t even stop. It only stopped in Silver Sands for flagging anyway unless there was somebody to get off.

He sauntered into the drug store and bought a tooth brush taking plenty of time in the selection, and the soda clerk was relating a tale about the “jane who took two chocolate fizzes and a banana split that afternoon. Some red bird!”

He dropped in at the fire house to ask the chief if the first of the month would suit the fire company to have their annual service in the church, and keeping his ears open, gathered another straw or two more of evidence.

“An ankle like a square piano!” Uri Weldon was saying with his coarse laugh.

“I wonder she didn’t scare the birds!” said another. “Some bathin’ suit fer a country walk!” Then the front legs of the respective chairs came down reluctantly and the men straightened up to greet Bannard gravely. Everybody liked Bannard. There was nowhere in the town he might not go, nowhere that he would be unwelcome. Young though he was he had that Pauline trait of being all things to all men, though it must be owned that the men at the fire house were all just a trifle afraid every time he came that he was somehow going to save some of them, and take them away from all that life held dear. They had no doubt in their minds but that he could “save” them if he once got them in his clutches.

Slowly progressing up the street, stopping at Mrs. Hoskins to enquire if her nephew in the city had received the letter of introduction he had procured for him he learned incidentally as he had thought he would, that Athalie Greeves had passed there that afternoon about half past four “in a scandalous rig,” had gone to the drug store “and it’s the second time, Mr. Bannard, the second time in two days, and all those young boys always hanging around the drug store;” had gone on from the drug store down the village street as far as she could see from the gate and passed out of sight without returning.

“And I threw my apern over my head and ran out to look,” added the good woman, showing that she always did her duty by whoever passed, that nothing should be missing out of the general report of the day.

“And I think her father ought to look after her better’n that, don’t you Mr. Bannard? A young girl like that! And a stranger in the town. Folks might misunderstand her. Don’t you think it’s queer we never heard that he had any daughters before?”

Bannard finally reached Truman’s, but he had little to tell Greeves about his daughter except that she had not gone on either train to the city, and that she had been seen walking down the village street, and had bought a soda at the drug store.

“I wouldn’t be in the least alarmed, though,” he added in a low tone, “there really isn’t anything much can happen in the town. They’re a friendly lot, even the pryingest of them. She’ll probably turn up at home before long.”

Just at that moment the dining room door opened and in came the next act of the charade that was in progress, led by Silver who seemed to be the prime mover in every feature of the evening. The girls simply surrounded her and adored her from the start. Bannard watched her and his eyes lit up with that strange wonder he had felt when first he saw her the day before. A wonderful girl! A real unspoiled girl in the modern world. He thought of how she had gone into that sorrowing home in the afternoon and entered into the need; and now here she was the centre of all this merriment, and just as much at home, and just as self forgetful.

It was remarkable that part she was taking in the act, playing her delicate features into the contortion of a haughty woman of the world. She was talented! But of course she would be. With such a father! And that spirituelle look must have come from the mother. He remembered the exquisite painted face.

Then eager voices claimed him to come and join the group for the next word and he was drawn away to the other room.

“Oh, have you heard how the baby is?” a low vibrant voice asked as he passed her in the hall.

So she hadn’t forgotten! She was in all this, a part of it, but she had thoughts for the anxious home.

“She is holding her own,” he said, “I took Barry’s mother down there a little while ago. She will stay all night. You don’t know Barry’s mother yet. She is a strong arm to lean upon, a cool hand on a fevered brow. She knows how to do things without seeming to, and she loves people.”

“Oh, that is good!” said Silver, “tomorrow I will go and take her place awhile if I may.”

“It will not be necessary,” he said looking his thanks, “but—you may if your father does not object.”

“Object?” she looked surprised. “Oh, he could not object to that. Of course I will go.”

The company clamored for Silver and she was swept laughingly into the other room, but the minister felt that somehow between them a bond had been established that was very good to think upon. Only two days and he felt this way about her! But she was an unusual girl. Then he heard her ringing laugh, smiled into the eyes of the boys who were pummelling him to tell them the best way to act the word “penitentiary,” and plunged into the matter before him.

At half past ten they all went home, most of the company being of high school age and not allowed late hours. The half-past was a special dispensation on account of its being Friday night and no lessons tomorrow. The minister walked down the street with Greeves and his daughter and stepped in a moment to learn if the prodigal had returned, or if his further services as detective would be required.

They found Anne Truesdale sitting in the dark drawing room watching the street. She would not have owned to anybody, least of all her master, that she was praying for “that huzzy” but she was. Somehow Anne’s sense of justice wouldn’t allow her to let even a girl like that be wandering alone in the world in the darkling night without even a prayer to guide her. She deserved all she might get but oh, think of the disgrace of it all in the town. Anne didn’t know that she really cared more for the disgrace in the town than she did for the young girl’s soul in the dark.

But there! See how all our motives are mixed! Anne was praying for her! That was something gained. Anne had begun to feel her responsibility, and leaven of that kind always works. It may take time on a cold day, but it always works at last.

When the three discovered that the missing one was still absent they stood and looked at one another in dismay, with that helpless air that always says: “What is there that I can do next?”

Then sharply into the silence of their anxiety there rippled out the insistent call of the telephone.

Greeves hurried into the library to answer it, and the others stood breathless, listening, to his voice.

“Hello!”

It was a man’s voice that answered:

“I want to speak to Miss Athalie Greeves.”

“Who _is_ this?” asked Athalie Greeves’ father sternly.

“Well, who are _you_?” The voice was insolent.

“I am Athalie’s father and I insist upon knowing to whom I am speaking.”

“I’m one of her mother’s friends. You wouldn’t know me. Call Athalie. She’ll tell you who I am. I want to speak to her!”

“It will be necessary for you to explain to me first.”

“Why? isn’t she there?”

“What is your business with her, sir?”

“Is she there or not?” said the ugly voice.

“She is _not_,” said the father coldly.

“Oh, well, I’ll call up again!” said the voice, and immediately the wire was cut off.

Patterson Greeves turned toward the two who stood in the doorway and looked with a helpless dazed expression for a moment, then hung up his receiver with a troubled air.

“That is very strange!” he said. “Somehow I get the impression that that man knew Athalie was away—or was trying to find out—”

“It is strange,” said Bannard. He made no pretense of not having heard. The voice on the telephone had been loud enough to be heard out in the hall. “I wish Barry were here. I’ll go out and look for him. If she isn’t heard from by the time I get back we’ll begin to do something. Don’t get frightened. It’s probably only some school-girl prank. Barry will very likely be able to find out where she has gone. He’s a regular ferret. I never saw a boy like him.”

Meantime Barry, out in the night, was having troubles of his own.