Romance Classics (48 page)

“Then come on.”

In the taxi driving uptown, Margaret sat on the edge of her seat, as though by the exertion of sheer will she was hurrying the taxi on its way. Carey sat huddled in a corner away from her, watching her with wide, stunned eyes, for suddenly Margaret seemed a rather terrifying stranger. She had never paid much attention to this dumpy, plain woman who had been her father’s most trusted employee since Carey’s babyhood. She had spoken to her with careless courtesy and forgotten her the next moment. But now — Margaret had changed somehow.

Margaret, feeling that wide, frightened gaze upon her, turned her head and there was the faintest suggestion of a smile on her homely face. “Sorry I roughed you up — no, that’s not true. I’m tickled to death I had the chance. You’ve had it coming to you for a long time — ”

Carey fought for composure. “That’s — that’s a strange thing for you to say — ”

“Look here, aren’t you even human?” demanded Margaret. “Don’t you realize that you alone are responsible for what happened to your father? And for what — almost happened?”

Carey cried out against that, but Margaret raced on sharply, as though the thought had rankled for a long time in her heart:

“Of course you have. By your crazy extravagance — driving him on and on and on. I still don’t see how even an addlepate like you could throw away the money you’ve spent in the last two or three years. Did you know that your debut party alone cost seventy thousand dollars? And that the clothes you’ve bought this last six months cost another twenty-five thousand? To say nothing of other expenses you’ve incurred. No wonder your father has all but bankrupted himself trying to keep the business going, with the drains you’ve put on his income.”

“My father — bankrupt? You — why, you don’t know what you’re saying. My father is a very wealthy man,” Carey stammered wildly.

“Was, dearie,
was!”
snorted Margaret. “That was a long time ago.”

She drew a long, hard breath and said through her teeth, “When you danced into the library and informed him that you were spending ten thousand dollars for a car that good-for-nothing Ronnie Norris had sold you, I could have wrung your neck!”

“It might interest you to know that Ronnie Norris and I are going to be married,” Carey said frostily, though her defiance was a little shaky.

Margaret gave a little derisive snort. “Want to bet on it?” she demanded. “After what the office force knows of what happened this afternoon? There’ll be ‘extras’ on the street in an hour — announcing that the banking committee refused to renew your father’s loans and that he is bankrupt.”

“I — don’t believe it!”

Margaret shrugged. “You always were a silly little fool,” she said dryly.

Carey realized that the taxi had turned into Sixty-third Street and was stopping in front of the house. Her knees trembled a little as she stepped out of the car. Margaret’s hand shot out and steadied her as they went swiftly up the steps and into the house.

“The doctor is with Mr. Silas, Miss Carey,” John answered Carey’s stammered, “How is my father?”

She and Margaret, without exchanging a word, went swiftly up the stairs and huddled outside the closed door of her father’s room, behind which they heard the soft murmur of voices.

Carey looked curiously at Margaret as they waited there, and there was a look on Margaret’s face that made Carey say suddenly, involuntarily, “Why — you
love
him, don’t you?”

The slow, dull red that burned beneath Margaret’s brown skin was answer even without her tense words: “I worship the very shoes he walks in.”

“Oh!” breathed Carey.

Margaret nodded grimly. “I suppose it sounds pretty funny to a snip like you. A woman nearly forty, homely as unmitigated sin, in love with a man who looks upon her only as a bit of the office furniture. Your kind thinks that there is some mystic law that prevents anybody over twenty from falling in love — but women like me know what love means. Something your kind can never know.”

“But — why should you hate me so?” demanded Carey. “I’ve never harmed you in my life — ”

“I dislike what you’ve done to him,” Margaret said through her teeth. “You’ve used him shamefully. You’ve drained him of money and health and strength. And what have you given him in return? Practically a death-blow — in telling him you wanted to marry a
worm
like Ronnie Norris.”

“You think he was going to — to — do
that
because of Ronnie? Oh, but that’s crazy — that’s fantastic!”

“You think so?” Margaret’s tone stung like a whiplash.

Before Carey could answer, the door of Silas’s room opened and they caught a glimpse of a white-clad nurse beside the bed. The door closed then behind the portly form of Silas’s personal physician.

“Oh, there you are, my dear,” he greeted Carey warmly. “Don’t look so terrified. Your father’s going to be all right, providing — ”

Carey caught her breath, her eyes wide, prayerful.

“Providing what, Doctor?” Margaret demanded swiftly.

“Providing he slows up,” answered the doctor. “Providing he gives up his business, spends the next six months, at the very least, in bed, or just sitting around doing absolutely nothing. Otherwise — ” His little shrug finished the speech and a cold hand clamped itself about Carey’s heart.

“There’s an old farm down South, where he was born,” Margaret said crisply. “He’s always kept it for sentimental reasons, though he hasn’t been back there in years. It’s at the edge of a small town — but I’m afraid it’s pretty primitive.”

“My father’s got an old farm?” Carey demanded. “I didn’t know that — ”

“You weren’t interested, were you?” Margaret said dryly. “Probably a lot of things about your father you never tried to learn.”

The doctor looked sharply at Margaret, then at Carey, and said, “A farm would be just the place for him. He’s got to have quiet, rest, complete relaxation. I don’t want to alarm you unnecessarily, Carey — but it’s no time to waste words.”

Carey straightened as though beneath a blow and said with difficulty, “I’ll see to it right away, Doctor.”

Margaret gave her a derisive glance that just missed being an insult, but said nothing. She went down the stairs with the doctor and Carey heard the murmur of their voices as they stood at the door before the doctor took himself off.

Carey crept to the door of her father’s room and turned the knob very quietly. The door opened and the nurse stood there, her finger to her lips, nodding permission for Carey to enter.

Silas turned his head wearily as Carey came into the room and stood beside the bed. The nurse, with a swift glance at them, left them alone. Carey slid to her knees beside the bed, her cheek against her father’s. She couldn’t, somehow, endure the look in his eyes. The look of shame and bitterness and complete despair.

“I’m — so sorry, baby,” he said after a moment, as though each word had been torn from his heart. “I — don’t know what I was thinking of — except that there’s a half-million dollar insurance policy — ”

Carey set her teeth hard to keep back the little cry of pain and protest; then she put her hand over his mouth and braced herself to meet his eyes.

“It — it never happened, Dad. It was just a bad dream!” she told him shakily. “I’ve been a brat, Dad. I didn’t realize how spoiled and selfish and hateful I’ve been — ”

“That Margaret!” her father said through his teeth, his arm tightening about her. And the feebleness of that arm somehow hurt her almost unbearably. “I’ll fire her for talking to you!”

Carey smiled. “That proves she’s been talking to you, too, Dad — and she was right. After all, I’ve been a good-for-nothing. I don’t deserve anything except to be spanked within an inch of my life,” she told him, her voice shaking a little, but steadying and growing stronger as she went determinedly on. “But we’re both changing, from here on out, Pops. You’re going to give up business and I’m going to stop being a little bum. We’re going South and take up farming in a big way — on your old ancestral acres, no less!”

She saw a spark of eagerness in her father’s eyes and some of the weariness vanished.

“You mean that, infant?” he demanded, and his voice was stronger. “But, baby — are you sure you could take it? The place is pretty run-down, I’m afraid. There’s been nobody there for the last couple of years, and I haven’t kept up the repairs — ”

“Would you like it, Pops?”

“Like it? Baby, it would be a new lease on life!” he confessed.

“Then that settles it,” she told him firmly. “We’re going! So hurry up and get strong enough to travel.”

But there was panic and despair in her eyes as she closed them and hid her face for a moment against his pillow.

When she came down the stairs half an hour later, Margaret stood in the library, frowning over a newspaper. And in the street, even muffled by the thick walls, the closed doors, and windows, Carey heard the shouting of a newsboy with “extras.”

Margaret looked up, frowning, and Carey saw her face was pale. Without a word the woman held up the paper for Carey to see the headlines. Carey’s knees trembled as she saw in thick black lines:

Carey’s knees refused to support her and she sank down in a chair, her hands over her face. Margaret looked at her for a moment and there was a touch of pity in her homely, blunt face. A pity that she resented, evidently, for when she spoke her voice was curt and chilly.

“Well? What happens next?” she demanded.

“We’re going to the farm, just as soon as he’s able to travel,” answered Carey, as though puzzled that there could be any question about that.

“The sooner the better,” Margaret said crisply. “The doctor said he could make it in a couple of days. A drawing room on the train, of course, and an ambulance to get him to the station and another to meet the train down there. I’ll wire that young Dr. Joel Hunter — he’s practicing in Midvale, and he’s pretty crazy about your father. Meanwhile, I’ll see what can be done to pull the business together and see how much I can save for you and your father. But I warn you now — it won’t be much.”

Carey thanked her with weary politeness and after a moment Margaret took herself off. Carey sat huddled in her chair until John came to announce dinner. There was a curiously avid look in John’s eyes, but she was too tired to tell him anything or ask any questions. She asked for food to be brought to her here in the library before the open fire, and John went away.

The telephone rang, but she made no move to answer it until she was summoned. As she moved to the telephone, new life flowed through her; it would be Ronnie, of course; he was coming to dinner; he’d heard the news; he would comfort her.

The voice that spoke in her ears was strange for a moment until it identified itself, “This is Michael, Miss Carey — the head chauffeur. Mr. Norris has called for that car — the one he brought over yesterday. Shall I let him have it?”

Carey set her teeth hard for a moment before she could say quietly, “Ask Mr. Norris to come to the phone, Michael.”

A moment later Ronnie was saying curtly, “I’m in rather a hurry, Carey — terribly sorry about the news and all that. But of course I know now that you don’t want the car — ”

“And Ann Paige does?” said Carey, and was surprised that her voice sounded so steady and even a little amused.

“Well, as a matter of fact, she does,” answered Ronnie.

“Then by all means see that she gets it,” Carey said dryly. “And — goodbye, Ronnie. Of course I know this
is
goodbye.”

“I am afraid so, Carey,” Ronnie acknowledged grimly.

She managed a slightly unsteady laugh. “You know, of course, Ronnie, there’s only one creature people always speak of as leaving a sinking ship?”

She heard him swear under his breath, and her ear rang with the force with which he flung the receiver back on the hook. She had faint satisfaction out of the memory. She knew he
was
a rat — but that crazy, rebellious heart of hers rose up on its hind legs and howled like a forlorn puppy at the thought that they were through — that she’d never see him again. She ought to be glad, of course — and her common sense was. But common sense isn’t a great help when the very beat of your heart is quickened by the sight and sound of a man like Ronnie Norris.

CAREY STOOD on the platform of the little yellow pill-box of a railroad station that marked the “downtown center” of Midvale and looked about her, trying desperately to keep her heart from sliding down into the very heels of her smart suede slippers. It was five o’clock of an early winter day. Not crisp and cold and still, as Carey told herself a self-respecting winter day should be; but with a thin, dispirited drizzle of cool rain, falling from leaden clouds that hung so low one might almost stand on tiptoe and touch them. Only a few lights showed here and there through the thickening dusk surrounding a dreary little town.

She was startled out of her unhappy absorption by a voice at her elbow, and she looked up to see Joel Hunter smiling down at her, pleasant and friendly.

“Would you rather ride in the ambulance with your father or in my car? The nurse will ride in the ambulance, of course, and I thought you might be more comfortable in my car.”

“Thank you. You — you’re kind,” said Carey, and swallowed a sob as he guided her down the cindery, muddy steps and to his car. It was a dark coupe of an inexpensive make, but it was warm and comfortable inside.

“I’m not kind at all,” said Joel as he settled himself beside her. “Though I hope you’ll let me be. I think it’s pretty fine of you to come down here and practically bury yourself with your father.”

“What else was there for me to do?” demanded Carey, her chin tilted a trifle defiantly. “I happen to adore my father, though you probably find that difficult to believe.”

There was definite hostility in her tone and she knew that through the wet darkness Joel gave her a sharp, swift glance. And then he nodded grimly. “I see you haven’t forgotten that I dared to scold you about neglecting him.”

“How could I possibly have suspected — all this?” Carey stammered hotly.