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Authors: Grace Livingston Hill

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BOOK: Kerry
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The money to pay for Kerry’s tuition ran out before the two years were over, but Kerry won a scholarship, which carried her through to the finish of her coursework; and she stuck to her study in spite of her loneliness and longing to be with her father and her beautiful mother.

When she joined them again it was in London, and she was startled to find that her father had been growing old. There were silver edges to his hair, and lines in his face that had been there only occasionally before she went away. Now they were graven deep.

The book, he told her, was almost done. It needed only copying. He must look up a typist. But first he must try to write something for the papers that would bring in a little extra money to pay the typist. They really had spent a great deal that season because the mother had not been feeling well, and had to have a better hotel, and luxuries now and then.

Then Kerry surprised her father by telling him that she had learned typing at the school so that she might help him, and they only needed to find a cheap second-hand machine to rent and she would begin the work at once.

It was a great joy, those days she spent working with her father. Neatly the pages mounted up, page after page, with all the little notes put in so carefully, just where her father had marked them on his diagram. She even managed to sketch a couple of diagrams for him, and her cheeks glowed at his praise.

All the little scraps of paper on which he had written his notes, all the bits of yellow paper, white paper, blue paper, backs of business letters, even brown wrapping paper that had been scrupulously saved and used in the precious manuscript were marshaled, number by number, scrap by scrap, until they were all there in orderly array, the fruit of his labor and scholarship. Her father! How proud she was of him.

She was almost seventeen when she began to help her father in the final stage of his book. It was about that time that Sam Morgan had appeared on the scene.

But nothing could take away her joy in the life she was living with her father. Not even a louse! She brushed him off from her thoughts as she might have whisked away an insect.

Her mind was opening up now. She saw, as she copied day after day her father’s great thoughts, how really wonderful he was. She began to comprehend what a stupendous work he had undertaken. She began to take a deep personal interest in it, and its success. She even ventured a suggestion one day about the arrangement of certain chapters, and her father gave her a quick proud look of admiration. Kerry had a mind. Kerry had judgment. He drew a sigh of quivering delight over the discovery.

“Kerry,” he said to her one day, “if anything should ever happen to me, you would be able to finish my book!”

“Oh, Father!” Kerry’s eyes filled with tears of terror at the thought.

“No, but dear child, of course I hope nothing will happen. I expect fully to finish it myself. But in case the unlikely should happen, you could finish it. You have the mind. You have the judgment. You understand my plan, you can read my notes. You could even talk with the publishers, and if there were any changes to be made, you could make them. In a technical book like this there might be changes that would have to be made under certain circumstances, and it would be disastrous to the work if the writer were gone, if there were no one else by who could understandingly complete what had to be done. Listen, Kerry. There are some things I must yet tell you, and then I can go on with my work less burdened, knowing that if anything happened to me, you and little Mother would have plenty to keep you in comfort. Because, Kerry, I have assurance from other men in my line that such a book as this is going to make its mark, and to be profitable.”

Then Kerry, with aching heart, listened to his careful directions, even took down notes and copied them for future reference, “If anything happened.”

One day Kerry’s father looking up casually between dictation, said, “Kerry, I’m leaving the book to you. Understand? If anything happens to me, Mother will have our income of course. That is understood. But the book will be yours. I’ve filed a will with my lawyer to that effect. I think Mother will not feel hurt at that. She rather regards the book as a rival anyway, and she will understand my leaving you something on which you have worked. You see, Kerry, Mother would not understand what to do with the book. Her judgment is not—just—well—she is all right of course. Only I would prefer your judgment to be used in the matter of the book. And you will understand that whatever comes from the book in the way of remuneration is to be all in your hands. You are not to hand it over to Mother to handle. She is a beautiful little mother, and we love her, but she would not have the judgment to arrange about the book, nor handle any money.”

Then Kerry put down her work and came over to her father’s side.

“Father, are you feeling worse than you did last summer?” she said anxiously. “Did you go to the doctor the other day when you went out to walk alone? Tell me the truth please.”

“Yes, I went to the doctor, Kerry, but only to ask him to give a thorough examination. I always feel that is a good thing once in a while. I wouldn’t like to get—high blood pressure or anything—at my age, you know.”

“And did you have it?” Kerry asked anxiously. “Tell me what the doctor said. Father, please! I’ve got to know.”

“Why, he assures me that I am doing very well,” evaded the father glibly. “Says I’m ninety percent better off physically than most men who come to him.”

She was only half reassured, and went back to her work with a cloud of anxiety in her heart.

Six months later her father lay dead after a sharp, brief heart attack, and the world went black around her.

The world went black for Kerry’s mother, too, in a material sense. She insisted on swathing herself in it in spite of Kerry’s strongest protests.

“Father didn’t like people to dress in mourning, Mother!” pleaded Kerry. “He said it was heathenish!”

“Oh, but your father didn’t realize what it would be to us, Kerry, to be left alone in a world that was going cheerfully on, and not show by some outward sign how bereaved we were! Kerry, how can you begrudge me the proper clothes in which to mourn your father. That was one thing about him, he never begrudged me anything he had. He always spent his last cent on me! You must own that!” And the widow sobbed into a wide, black-bordered handkerchief for which she had that morning paid two dollars in an expensive mourning shop in London, while Kerry sat in the dreary hotel room mending her old glove to save a dollar.

“But Mother, we haven’t the money!” said Kerry patiently. “Don’t you realize it’s going to take every cent of this three months’ income to pay for the funeral? You’ve insisted on getting everything of the best. And violets, too, when they’re out of season and so expensive—and such quantities of them! Mother, Father would be so distressed for you to spend all that on him now that he is gone! You know he needed a new overcoat! He wore his summer one all last winter through the cold because he didn’t want to spend the money on himself—!”

“Oh, you are cruel! A cruel, cruel child!” her mother sobbed. “Don’t you see how you are making me suffer with your reminders? That is just the reason I must do all I can for him now. It is all I have left to do for him.”

It was on Kerry’s lips to say: “If you had only been a little kinder to him while he was alive! If you had not thought so much about yourself—”

But her lips were sealed. She remembered her father’s words:

“She is the only little mother you have, Kerry! And you will always remember that she was the most beautiful little mother in the world, and that she gave up everything she might have had for me!”

Well, she might have done it once. Kerry almost had her doubts. But she certainly had lived the rest of her life on the strength of that one sacrifice!

But the indignation passed away as her mother lifted her pitiful, pretty face helplessly. Kerry turned away in silence, and the mother went on ordering her black. Satins, crepes, a rich black coat, a hat whose price would have kept them comfortably for a month, expensive gloves, more flowers, even mourning jewelry and lingerie. Now that she was started there seemed no limitation to her desires. As the packages came in Kerry grew more and more appalled. When would they ever pay for them?

But over one matter Kerry was firm.

“Of course it is your money, Mother, and I’ve no right to advise you even, but you shall not spend it on me! Get what you want for yourself, but I’m not going to have new things! I know Father would tell me I was right!”

There was a battle of course, but Kerry could not be moved, though later she compromised on a cheap black dress of her own selection for the funeral. But her mother battled on every day.

“Of course, Kerry, I don’t blame you for feeling hurt that your father only left you that old book. It was such a farce! He knew that we both knew it was worthless. I’ve known it for years, but there wasn’t any use in saying it to him! He was stuck on it, and wouldn’t have been good for anything else till it was out of the way. But it must have hurt you to have him leave it as a legacy, as if it were a prize. If I were you I would throw it in the fire. You’ll have to eventually of course when we pack, and it’s only around in the way, a lot of trash!”

“Mother!” Kerry’s indignation burst out in a word that was at once horrified and threatening.

“Oh well, of course! I know you are sentimental, and will probably hang on to the last scrap for a while, but it is perfectly silly. However, you don’t need to feel hurt at your father for leaving you nothing but the old trash. He knew I would look after you of course, and he would expect me to spend on you what ought to be spent to make you respectable for his funeral. Your father, my dear, while a great deal of a dreamer, had the name in his world of being a very great scientist. You must remember that. Whatever we suffered through his dreaming, at least he had a fine, respectable name, and we must do honor to it.”

It was of no use to argue, and Kerry, sick at heart, finally compromised on the one cheap dress for herself. In truth she really needed the dress, for her wardrobe was down to the very lowest terms.

Sam Morgan did not come to the funeral. Kerry was always glad afterward to remember that! She could not have stood his presence there. It would have been like having vermin in the room, a desecration.

But other men came, noble men, some of them from long distances. Professors from the nearby universities. Telegrams poured in from practically all over the world, noted names signed to them, scientists, literary men, statesmen, great thinkers, even kings and presidents. The noble of the earth united to do him honor, and his widow sat and preened herself in her new black, and ordered more violets, wondering that her simple-hearted husband should have called forth so much admiration. Why hadn’t she known in time that he was such an asset and managed somehow to turn his prestige to better account financially?

Sam Morgan did not turn up for three whole weeks after the funeral, and it was even some days after that that Kerry discovered he was in Europe.

Kerry was hard at work on the book. Carefully, conscientiously, she had gathered every scrap of paper on which the wise man had jotted down the least thing, and they were under lock and key except when she was working on them. She did not trust her mother’s judgment. In a fit of iconoclasm she might sweep the whole thing into the fire.

Kerry foresaw the day when creditors would come down upon them for georgette and crepe and gloves and hats and furs and jewelry, for now a fur coat had been added to the extravagances. Her mother was spending money like water and would not realize until it was all gone. Kerry’s father had laid her beautiful little mother upon her as a care, and when the income was gone, then Kerry must be ready to pay the bills. So she worked night and day, and shut in her room did not notice how often her mother was out for the whole morning or afternoon. The book was almost done. When it was finished, Kerry meant to take it to America to the publishers with whom her father had been corresponding. She knew there would be a battle with her mother, for Mrs. Kavanaugh hated America. She had grown used to living abroad and intended to stay there. She had even talked about the South of France for another winter, or Italy.

Kerry let her talk, for she knew there would be no money for either going or staying. She was much troubled in mind where the money for their passage was to come from, for she doubted being able to restrain her mother’s purchases, and it was still several weeks until another pittance of their small annuity would arrive. Yet she determined that nothing should delay her trip to America as soon as her work of copying was completed, even if she had to get a job for a few weeks in order to get the price of passage.

Then suddenly Kerry became aware of her mother’s renewed friendship with Sam Morgan.

Kerry had retired to her little room and her typewriter as usual after breakfast, but found after copying a few pages that she had left a newly purchased package of paper out in the sitting room, and came out to get it.

Her mother stood before the small mirror that hung between the two front windows, preening herself, patting her hair into shape, tilting her expensive new hat at a becoming angle, and something glittered on her white hand as she moved it up to arrange her hair.

Kerry stopped where she stood and an exclamation broke from her.

Mrs. Kavanaugh whirled around on her daughter, and smiled. A little bit confused she was perhaps at being discovered primping yet quite confident and self-contained.

“It certainly is becoming, isn’t it?” she said and turned back again to the glass.

A premonition seized upon Kerry. Something—something—! What was her mother going to do? And then she caught a glimpse of the flashing stone on her hand again.

“Mother!” she said helplessly, and for a second felt a dizziness sweep over her. “Why, where are you going?” she managed to ask, trying to make her voice seem natural.

In a studiedly natural tone the mother answered.

“Why, I’m going out to lunch, dear,” she said sweetly. “You won’t mind, will you?” As if that were an almost daily occurrence.

BOOK: Kerry
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