Barry sat back and watched her. She went on swiftly till she came to the bend of the road, and then she looked back half fearfully. The car was still and dark as if Barry had settled for a nap. The road ahead wound into a dark wood, and the trees were casting weird shadows across the roadway. But no one should call her bluff. She would go on and show him. She stumbled forward on her little high-heeled shoes almost falling as she ran fearfully toward the darkness of the wooded road. Then suddenly on her horrified sense came the distant sound of a motor in the opposite direction, and a long, thin forecasting of light shot out with a blind glare ahead. Another car was coming! And it was far into the nighttime! And she alone on the road with her arms tied! Horrible fear seized upon her and rooted her to the ground. Then with a mighty effort she gathered her ebbing strength and turning fled.
Chapter 21
In the first few yards her right shoe flew off and lay at the side of the road, but she waited not for shoes. Her silken-clad foot went over the rough stony highway with the fleetness of a rabbit. She darted to the side of the car and panted: “Let me get in, quick! Quick! There’s another car coming!”
Barry leaned over and pulled her up, cast a quick glance to the oncoming lights, started his motor, and dashed along at full speed just in time to pass swiftly as if he had come from a distance and then when the passing car was out of sight remarked pleasantly: “Have a nice walk?”
“Don’t!” said Athalie shuddering. He looked at her furtively. The tears were coursing down her cheeks, but she was not making any sound.
“Look here, kid, I’m sorry!” he said pleasantly. “Let’s call this off. You’re all in! And say! I’m going to untie your hands. I know I can trust you not to make any more trouble. We’re almost home now, kid. Only a matter of about four miles, and we’ll run through the town as still as oil and get you home and nobody any the wiser. But before we get there you’ve got to make a pact to can that rotter or I’ll have to make a clean breast of the whole thing to your father, how you phoned to him, and how you met him in the woods, and what he said to you and all—”
Athalie turned an amazed face toward him now, smeared with powder and tears, and lit by the newly risen moon.
“You know?”
“Yep! Know it all! Saw you climb out your window and go to the drugstore. Was in the next booth and heard every word you phoned. Wasn’t ten feet away from you in the woods. I tell you, you can’t kid this town.”
Athalie looked aghast.
“No, you don’t need to worry. Nobody else knows yet, and I don’t intend they shall if you agree to can that man. Is it a bargain?”
There was a long pause, during which Athalie sniffed quietly, then she murmured: “My father—he’ll half kill me—”
“No, he won’t! He’ll be much more likely to kill the man. But perhaps we can fix that up, too. You leave it to me. Now, lean over here, and let’s get those knots untied.”
“I didn’t say I would yet!” said Athalie with a catch of rebellion in her breath.
“No, but you’re going to,” said Barry pleasantly. “You’re not yella.”
Barry worked away at the satin sash, talking meanwhile.
“Say, kid, you know you’ll forget all this when you get acquainted in town and begin to have good times. What you need is to get into high school and play basketball. You’d need to train a little of course, but you’d make a great player. I watched you as you went up the road, and you’ve got the build all right. Say, some of the girls on our team are peachy players, but you could beat ‘em all at it if you’d try. If I was you I’d begin to train tomorra. Cut out those sundaes and sodas and chocolates, and don’t be everlastingly eating cake and fudge. You’ll never make a player unless you …”
It was surprising how their attitudes toward one another had changed. Athalie wiped up her smeary face and began to take an interest in life. She even smiled once at a joke Barry made about the moon. She was rather quiet and almost humble.
Barry grew almost voluble. He described in detail several notable athletic features of the past that had put their high school in a class with several large prep schools in the state. He opened out on the prospects for the season’s baseball games admitting reluctantly on inquiry that he was their team’s captain and coach.
Suddenly the brow of the hill they were climbing was reached, and there before them lay the plain of Silver Sands, with the belching chimneys of Frogtown glaring against the night and off to the left the steeple of the Presbyterian church shining in the moonlight. It was very still down there where the houses slept, and the few drowsy lights kept vigil. Barry cast it a loyal glance and brought the car to a standstill.
“Look, kid,” he said with something commanding in his young voice, “that’s our town, down there! Doesn’t she look great with her feet to the river and her head on the hills? She’s a crackerjack little old town if you treat her right, and no mistake. See that white spot over there behind the trees? That’s the pillars on the old Silver house. It’s a prince of a house, and the people that lived in it have always been princes. My mother says the whole country round has always looked up to the Silvers. They’ve always been real! Do you get me? It’s a great thing to belong to a family like that!”
Athalie turned her large eyes on him wonderingly, and suddenly some of her father’s sentences of the morning came to her, sentences about gentlemen and ladies and respectable standards, and their meaning went home on the shaft of Barry’s simple arrow.
Barry was never one to explain a joke or a sermon. He let it rest and passed to another line of thought.
“We’re going around on the beach road,” explained Barry, “and come in the lane just below your house. We’ll stop at Aunt Katie’s where the minister boards and slip through the back hedge. Then there won’t be a whole lot for anyone to see and hear. Anybody might drive up to the minister’s door any time of night and nobody think anything of it. If Aunt Katie sees us she’ll keep her mouth shut. She’s a peach, she is. If you ever need a friend, tip up to her, kid. Now, before we go on I’ll trouble you for the name and address of that rotter!”
“What are you going to do?” asked Athalie in an alarmed voice. “Got to return this car, haven’t I?”
“Oh, why yes, I suppose so. But—he’ll be awfully angry! You might get arrested, you know!”
“Watch me!” said Barry lightly. “Now I’ll trouble you for that address.”
“I don’t remember the address,” said Athalie. “I went there in a taxicab. It’s somewhere in a big apartment house. I got it out of the telephone book.”
“What’s his name then? You haven’t forgotten that, have you?” asked Barry, eyeing her suspiciously. “Is Bobs the first or last part of it?”
Athalie cast a startled glance at him.
“Farrell, Robert Farrell,” she answered meekly.
“That’s all right,” said Barry. “I’ll look him up.”
Barry started the car again, and they were silent as they sped along for some minutes. Then Athalie asked in a scared voice: “What are you going to tell my father?”
“Nothing much, unless I have to,” said Barry easily. “If you can that man he doesn’t need to know anything about it, but if I find you haven’t played square he’ll know the whole thing in about three minutes. It’s entirely up to you.” Athalie looked frightened.
“I won’t phone him anymore—nor write to him!” she said at length. “But I can’t be sure what he’ll do.”
“I don’t think he’ll bother you anymore after I get through with him,” said Barry airily.
Athalie cast him another frightened glance. “You’d better be careful—” she warned. “He’s got an awful temper.”
“So I should judge,” said Barry. “I’m glad you’re out of his clutches.”
The car slid along the Silver beach quietly as fine machinery can be made to go. Past the belching furnaces with the night shift in sleeveless shirts moving picturesquely past the light in th
e rosy dusk of the big structures; past the ruins of the pickle factory and the darkened windows of the rows of little houses; past the house with the lighted upper window where little Mary and Barry’s mother struggled with death the long hours through, and the stricken father and mother knelt each side of the bed and prayed; past the darkened cannery and the silk factory and the buildings of the Sand Company, across the side tracks and the railroad; over the bridge that spanned a small tributary stream; and winding the back way into Silver Sands, down Sweetbriar Lane to Aunt Katie’s upper front window as Barry helped Athalie out of the car. Barry looked up as they passed in the gate and gave a soft, low whistle like the chirp of a bird. But it was Aunt Katie’s voice, not the minister’s, that spoke in a low tone from an open side window:
“Is that you, Barry?”
“Sure,” growled Barry cheerfully.
“Oh, you have found her!” said the voice again, “I am glad!” And there was something so vibrant and pleased about it that it thrilled Athalie. No one had ever been glad like that about her before. She had always been considered a nuisance, something to be appeased and gotten rid of as quickly as possible. She warmed to a voice like that and looked up wistfully. It almost seemed to her that she ought to say thank you. She had scarcely ever felt that thanking impulse before in all her wild young life.
“Sure I found her!” said Barry. “Mist’r Bannard over t’th’house?”
“Why, yes, he’s just gone back again. He said he and Mrs. Greeves were going to the city to hunt for her. You better hurry.”
“Aw’right. G’night!” And Barry led the way rapidly round the side porch, down through the garden, and over the back fence. Athalie was stumbling painfully along the plowed ground with one little high-heeled shoe and one silken-clad sorry foot. As she struggled up on the fence Barry saw it.
“Say, kid, when did you lose your shoe?” he asked solicitously.
“Up there on the road when I was running,” said the girl with a catch in her breath, and looking up he saw that she was suffering and that there were tears on her face.
“You poor kid!” he said gently, and stooping, picked her up and carried her all the way up through the garden to the brick terrace at the back hall door. There he set her down gently and tapped at the door.
“I wonder what time it is by moonlight,” he said glancing down at the sundial. “It must be a good piece into tomorrow already. My timepiece got kicked across the room the other day by mistake so I have to get along without it.”
Athalie stood shivering, a sorry little figure in her tattered scarlet dress, with her smeary face, her hat jammed over one ear, and one torn silk stocking, but a faint semblance of a wistful smile went over her face as she watched the nice big boy beside her. How strong he had been, and how tender! It gave her that thankful feeling again.
How strange! And yet how like a ruffian he had treated her out on the road and made her come home! Her mingled feelings held in check by the very salutary possibility that she was about to meet with a well-deserved punishment from the stranger-parent inside the door were overwhelming enough without any addition. But when hurrying footsteps came down the hall and Anne Truesdale’s face, red with weeping, appeared as she opened the door, Athalie suddenly remembered her exit from the house that afternoon and realized that there were many scores for her to settle and shrank back behind her protector.
Greeves and Bannard came quickly down the hall, and at the top of the stairs there was a soft stirring and the flutter of a blue bathrobe as Silver leaned over the banister by her door to listen.
Barry stepped inside and lifted his old cap respectfully. He was in his shirtsleeves, and his face looked tired and haggard but with a cheerful grin.
“She got lost, Mr. Greeves, and took the wrong road. I happened along and brought her back. Sorry we had to be so late, but it was a good piece away. She’s about all in so you better put her to bed. No thanks, I can’t stay. I got a borrowed car over in the lane I gotta return. Oh, well, I don’t care if I do have some cookies.”
They plied him with plates of cake and cups of coffee and took the attention entirely away from Athalie, and the girl thankfully slipped upstairs. Then she remembered the sweater she was still wearing and slipped it off quickly, paused to put on another shoe that lay in her way, flung her cloak about her, and stole down again.
She had almost a shy look on her face as she brought the sweater over to where Barry stood by the dining room table swallowing down hot coffee and talking to the minister about the baseball prospects.
Both the minister and Greeves looked at her in surprise. Somehow, with the makeup washed off, even in dirty streaks she looked more human, and less bold and bizarre.
Barry looked up with one of his brilliant smiles that he gave rarely and took the sweater.
“I’m afraid you were cold!” said Athalie most unexpectedly to herself. It hadn’t occurred to her to think of anyone but herself until that instant.
“Oh, that’s all right, kid!” he said, setting down his coffee cup and struggling into his sweater with a couple of motions. “Glad I had it along. Hope you feel all right in the morning.”
Athalie retired, feeling for perhaps the first time in her life that she was forgiven and given another chance. Somehow all her escapades up to this time, with nurses, governesses, teachers, and parents, had ended in enmity and a bitter feeling of spite. She went upstairs slowly, wondering what it was about this boy that made her feel like a happy little child. She ought to hate him. He had baffled her and ruled her as no one had ever done before, and he was only a kid like herself, and yet she had a sort of awe for him, and interest in him, a pleasure in his smile. She took off her red tatters pondering this, forgetful entirely of her bridegroom that was to have been.
While Barry was stowing away the sandwiches and cake and coffee that Anne Truesdale seemed always to be able to produce without a moment’s warning, Greeves and Bannard withdrew to the hall. The father looked worn and haggard. He cast an anxious eye up the stairs and said in a low voice: “Bannard, I can’t thank you enough for sticking by through this. It seems strange, but this is getting me worse than anything that has ever come to me. I need some advice. I need some help. How on earth am I ever to teach that unruly child?”
“You need God, Greeves! I mean it! Kneel down, and pray. That will do you more good than any advice that anyone could possibly give you.”
“Don’t get on your hobbyhorse again tonight, Bannard. I’m in no mood for trifling. I’ve got to give that girl some kind of a lesson—” “She looked to me as if she had learned her lesson pretty thoroughly,” said Bannard. “I wonder where Barry found her. I thought he must be out on one of his specials. That boy certainly is a wonder!”
“Yes, I am deeply grateful. What are his circumstances? Can I reward him?”
“Give him your friendship. That’s all he would ever take. He’s proud as Lucifer, but he’s loving as they make ‘em.”
“Yes, I liked him the first time I met him. I’d like to know more about where he found her.”
“Well, perhaps she’ll tell you. I doubt if he ever will. He’s a man of few words, where it concerns anything he has done. But I wasn’t trifling, Greeves. I meant what I said. There is nothing in the wide universe would open up this situation and show you the right way like getting down on your knees and getting back to God, and when you get there that ‘tomorrow’ I was telling you about will be about to dawn.”
“Ready Barry? I’ll walk along with you. Good night, Greeves. I’m glad your vigil is at an end!”
They went out the terrace door and walked silently down the garden, two dark shadows among the growing things. Even if Lizette Weldon had been awake she would not have noticed them for the hedge was tall, and they kept close in its shadow.
Silently the two, as those who understand one another, passed over the fence and through Aunt Katie’s little garden, around the side of the house to the front gate.
“Anything
I need to know, partner?” asked Bannard affectionately.
Barry considered. “I guess not tonight, sir.” He looked up with a smile.
“Have to go far with that car?”
“Quite a piece.”
“Your mother is down at the Flats with a sick child tonight.”
“Aw’right! I’ll be back before she is. G’night!”
Barry slid into the car noiselessly, and as quietly as a car can go that one backed out of the lane to the beachway and sped away into the night. He did not immediately take to the city highway however. There was something he had to do first. About an hour later he turned into the highway a mile or so above Silver Sands and made high speed to the city. In his hip pocket under his sweater reposed a muddy little shoe.
The minister had slipped into his door and extinguished the light at once, going softly upstairs in the dark. From behind Aunt Katie’s door there came a question: “Was it all right?”
“All right, Aunt Katie. Your prayers brought us through!”
About half an hour later Lizette, who had fallen asleep on watch, woke up and scanned both her windows, but neither Aunt Katie’s nor the Silver mansion showed any signs of light, yet she had been sure she heard an automobile somewhere in her dreams. For Anne Truesdale, faithful even to a “daring huzzy,” prepared a hot bath for Athalie and a tray of good things for her to eat, but she had been careful to hang a black shawl behind the drawn shade of the window looking toward the Weldon house.
The eastern sky was paling into dawn as Barry drove into the outskirts of the city and began his search for an open telephone booth. He found presently an obscure little hotel and had no trouble in discovering Robert Farrell’s name. He purchased a sheet of paper and an envelope and standing by the desk wrote a brief and characteristic letter:
Mr. Robert Farrell, Redwood Apartments,
Dear sir: This is to notify you that you are not to have any further communication with Miss Greeves. The police force of Silver County is on to you and is watching every move you make, and if the investigation of your past that is being made brings any further criminal developments we will make Silver County too hot to hold you. If this warning of the police of Silver Sands is not obeyed, Mr. Greeves will stop at nothing to prosecute you to the limit.
Tomorrow About This Time Page 22
