Ransom

by Grace Livingston Hill

  Rand was rather quiet as they drove through traffic, threading their way to the little back street where lived the old nurse. Even when Christobel went in to see Maggie and he was left alone with his father, the subject was not opened up, and Rannie didn’t dare say anything lest he would give away too much on the wrong offense. No, he must wait for his father to speak first. Maybe he would forget about it and say no more. But it wouldn’t be wise, Rannie reflected, to say anything about having a car till this was all cleared up.

  But the elder Kershaw seemed abstracted, absorbed in thought. As Rannie cast sidewise furtive glances at him, he was startled to see that his face looked troubled and worried. Then, right out of a wide silence, he suddenly spoke.

  “Why did you do it, Rannie?”

  Chapter 7

  Do what, Dad?” asked the astonished boy, wondering which of his various offenses could have produced such an expression on his father’s face. Surely Chic Carter hadn’t died or anything, had he, the fellow he had a fistfight with over a crap game just the day he came away? Good night! What if he had? But what kid that had any stuff in him ever died from a mere bloody nose?

  Rannie drew a deep breath and tried to look innocent.

  “Why did you steal the list of examination questions?” asked his father in a sad, disappointed voice. “I knew you were full of monkeyshines, but I never supposed you would be dishonest.”

  “Aw, that!” said the boy, a kind of careless relief in his voice. “Why, Dad, that wasn’t dishonest. That was merely a point of honor. You don’t understand.”

  “No, I don’t understand,” said his father in a tired voice. “Tell me, Son. How could breaking into a safe and stealing the paper containing your examination questions for the next day be a point of honor? Your important midyear examinations?”

  “Well, ya see, it’s this way!” said the son, settling down affably to explain the customs of his school to an ignorant parent. “It’s a thing that’s always been done fer that particular exam. The mids mean so much ta the class an’ ta sports an’ all, ya know, an’ sometimes there’s fellas that aren’t so bright, an’ we see to it that they have a fair chance, see? It’s always been the custom for years, Dad. Each class hands it down ta the next ta see that it’s done. It’s tradition, ya know. An’ I was elected ta do the deed this year. It wasn’t my own doings, ya understand. I was ’lected.”

  “You mean that you were elected to do the stealing and you couldn’t decline the offer?”

  “That’s right!” said the boy cheerfully. “It is an honor in a way. They wouldn’t ’lect ya if they didn’t think ya c’ud get away with it. They know me. And I’ve monkeyed ’round combinations a lot. They knew I could do the deed. If I’d ben clumsy, an’ one that would be likely ta get caught, doncha see, they wouldn’ta picked me out.”

  “But you did get caught. You didn’t get away with it, my son.”

  The boy’s face clouded over. He had forgotten for the moment that this was the case. “Aw, Dad!” said the boy, and then with the resilience of youth, “Gee! I don’t see how they found out! I had the window catch fixed, and the whole thing worked out, I didn’t even carry a flashlight. I knew the combination, see?”

  But his father’s face was graver than he had ever seen it before.

  “So I have a son who is in training to be a crook!” he said, and there was an anguished quality in his voice that made Rannie writhe. He had never thought his father would take a thing like that to heart.

  “Aw, gee! Dad! It wasn’t anything serious. It was just old ’xam’nation papers. You oughtn’ta take it so seriously. Nobody else does. They don’t think anything of it at school. It’s done every year. Last year—”

  “I assure you, you are mistaken, my son. They think it a most serious matter. In fact they have written me that they cannot receive you back into the school because of it.”

  “Dad!”

  Rannie slumped down into his seat, like a tire suddenly punctured.

  “But, Dad! They can’t do that! I–I–I’m—Why, I’m cheerleader in all the games!”

  “They have done it, Son. Being a cheerleader won’t get you anywhere with a faculty when you have committed a dishonorable act.”

  “I don’t see how they ever found it out,” said Rannie. “Somebody musta squealed.”

  “That has nothing to do with the matter, my son. You committed a crime, and you will have to suffer the consequences.”

  “Oh, but Dad, if you write ta them, they’ll take me back. They think an awful lotta you!”

  “I will not write,” said the father sorrowfully. “You deserve what you are getting, and it is not right that you should get out of it.”

  “But, Dad! Just fer pinchin’ the exams?”

  “Randall, for whose benefit were those tests, those examinations? For the faculty, or for you?”

  The boy mused sulkily.

  “It’s so the faculty can tell who ta promote,” he answered at last, reluctantly.

  “No, you’re wrong,” said the father. “They are given so that you and your fellow students may find out where you are lacking. You are in school to prepare for life. You have to stand certain tests, that you may know and your family may know whether or not you are ready to pass manhood and stand further tests of life. The faculty are pledged to give you these fair tests. But when you stole the questions they had prepared for this test and handed them out to others, you not only failed in your own examination—”

  “But I didn’t fail, Dad. I passed one hundred percent.”

  “You certainly did not pass, my son. An examination taken under those conditions was not an examination. You failed it utterly. Your mark should have been a zero. And you not only failed in your own test, but you failed in other ways. You failed in honesty and decency and loyalty to your school. You failed in fineness of character, in uprightness, in loyalty to the traditions and standards of your family. And you also became a party to making all your class fail in every one of those things. There was only one out of the whole number of twenty-seven in your class who will be permitted to graduate at the time their class naturally should have graduated. They are all put back one year in their graduating. All except one—”

  “Oh, yeah, I know! That old stick-in-the mud! He wears goggles an’ wouldn’t accept the questions. The fellas rag him something fierce,” murmured Rannie wrathfully. “I’ll bet he squealed.”

  “No,” said Rannie’s father. “You were seen by a member of the faculty as you came out the window. You were followed and watched. The faculty knows exactly what every member of the class did from the time you climbed into the window until after the examination was completed.”

  “The dirty skunks!” exclaimed the dismayed boy. “An’ they let us go ahead an’ take the exam just the same!”

  “My son, you have lost your sense of values! Your ideas of right and wrong are badly mixed. Now, get this. There was just one dirty little skunk, and that was you! It wasn’t the faculty, it was you, and—yes—there were others. They were your fellow classmates, who accepted the stolen questions and profited by them, or thought they were doing so. It’s pretty tough, Rannie, to have one’s only son expelled from school for a thing like that, a dirty, low trick!”

  “But, Dad,” protested Rannie, “I was ’lected—”

  “Not everybody that is elected to a thing has to serve. When you were nominated for the office of goat for the class, couldn’t you have declined?”

  “Why no, of course not,” said the boy, with spirit. “That woulda been yella. Somebody had ta do the unpleasant things. It was a custom, I tell ya.”

  “I fancy it won’t be the custom anymore in that school,” said Rannie’s father dryly. “They are taking the most drastic measures with all the delinquents. It is a little bit hard on me that it should be my son who was the goat and had to be made the example most public of all, not allowed to go back to your school. Of course, that disqualifies you from all schools that have right standar
ds.”

  “Aw, gee, Dad! They’ll take me back!” swaggered Rannie knowingly. “Just you hand ’em over a neat little fifty thousand fer their old building fund, an’ you’ll see how quick they’ll do it. O’ course I know you think you gotta rub it in a little and all that, but you don’t need ta worry. Sam Henty got expelled last term fer getting drunk an’ a lotta other things, and his dad came across with the dough, an’ it was all smoothed over. I tell ya, Dad. You just make out a check fer fifty thousand an’ I’ll take it back with me. They’ll keep me. You’d a had ta do something big anyhow, Dad, ’cause all the other fellas’ dads are doing it.”

  Rannie heavied a sigh of content and sat back, feeling that he made everything quite all right. But Rannie’s father showed no signs of falling in with his plans as he eyed him furtively with rapidly decreasing spirits.

  “No, Son, I’m not going to write you any check,” he said sadly. “You see, you deserve the punishment, and I don’t believe in offering bribes to get my son free from a punishment he has let himself in for. But, Rannie, if I did believe in bribes and letting you grow up with a ruined character and a false standard of living, there is another reason why I could not give the fifty thousand to that building fund. I am not in a position to give any large sums anywhere at present. In fact, you may as well know that my business is in a very precarious position. I suppose you may have vaguely heard of a thing called the Depression. Well, you may find it necessary to do more than hear about it in the next few weeks. Even if you were going back to your school, it would be impossible for me to get you the car you have talked about so much. It is better that you should understand the situation. I may, of course, be able to weather the storm and not go under, but I have no fifty-thousand-dollar checks to fling about anywhere, not even to save my only son from a well-deserved disgrace.”

  Randall Kershaw sat stunned and looked at his father.

  “Why, Dad!” he said, and his voice sounded sympathetic and full of tears. “Why, Dad! I allus supposed you’re wealthy!”

  “Yes,” said Dad bitterly, “so did I, but it begins to look as if I was mistaken.”

  Then suddenly the door of the drab little house opened, and Christobel came smiling out, followed by a little apple-cheeked Scotch woman with a gingham apron wrapped about her shoulders to keep her warm.

  “But, Dad! You bought Christobel a new coat and hat,” murmured Rannie under his breath.

  “Yes,” muttered Christobel’s father, “that was one of the things I owed. Rand, your sister hasn’t been having proper garments. I wasn’t looking after her as I should. You were a man child. You could look after yourself.”

  “I see!” said Rannie understandingly, as man to man, and settled into a deep gloom.

  Maggie came smiling up to the car and greeted her former master deferentially.

  “Yer lookin’ weel,” she told him embarrassedly. “It’s fine, Miss Chrissie is lookin’. I’m that proud ta see her come, thinkin’ of her puir auld nurse, an’ she a fine young lady.”

  “It’s good to see you again, Maggie,” said Kershaw, with a ring of genuineness to his voice. “Yes, the children have grown a bit since you carried them around and fed them, haven’t they? Randall is almost as tall as I am.”

  “Sure I’d never known him for my wee bit mannie that I cuddled an’ rocked.”

  Randall Kershaw frowned and grew red from forehead to collar.

  “My, but his poor dear mamma would be that pleased ta see him now!” went on the nurse, looking at him with her heart in her eyes.

  And suddenly Rannie felt that he would weep. What was that stirring the depths of his heart and creeping with smart and sting into his eyes? He frowned more deeply and tried to grin to hide his feelings but made a sorry mess of it.

  “Miss Chrissie tells me yer havin’ bad luck wi’ yer servants,” went on the nurse, perhaps sensing the mess she had made of it for the boy. “I wonder, cud I he’p ye oot fer a bit taday and the morra? I’m off meself this after, an’ the Sawbath is allus an off day. In fact, I’m forebodin’ I may be dropped from the job althegither. There’s rumors our place is ta close next week.”

  “Well now,” said Kershaw heartily, “that’s the first break in the darkness I’ve seen. Would you come and help us, Maggie, till we can look around and know what we are going to do? We’ll not work you too hard, and I promise you shall lose nothing by it. We can go out to our meals, you know. But I do hate to leave this little girl of mine alone when her brother and I have to go out for a few minutes. If you’d just come and be company for her and kind of help her put things together.”

  “Sure I will!” said the woman heartily. “I’d luve to be with my bairns again. I’ve a bit of washin’ ta finish for a woman around the block as needs it taday, but I cud git ter yer house in time ta git dinner tanight ef it wasn’t a fancy dinner.”

  “Oh, you needn’t worry about dinner,” said Kershaw. “We’ll pull together a meal somehow. But if you could come as soon as you’re ready? Suppose I send Rannie back for you about six o’clock? Would that be too soon? I’ve promised to take the children for a ride.”

  With her Scotch blue eyes beaming and her apple cheeks glowing, Maggie watched them drive away and then turned proudly back to get her work done and be ready. She was going back to her dear babies. Her heart raced with wild joy.

  “Aw! If just their puir dear sweet mammie could but see them now!” she crooned to herself as she closed the street door.

  Rannie was silent as he drove away, turning the car at his father’s direction toward one of the quieter parts of the city and arriving soon at an exclusive restaurant noted for its wonderful cooking and service.

  He parked the car and followed the others into the stately dining room with its distinguished-looking guests. He looked around him with suddenly enlightened eyes. This was not the kind of place they went to eat when the students from his boarding school had a day off. He knew it took money to eat in a place like this. Was this another debt his father owed? He seemed suddenly to be looking at life from an entirely new angle, and there was something pathetic in the thought that perhaps some of his father’s debts that were worrying him were debts to him, too. He realized how little of anything like a real luxury had ever been in his young life. And now Dad was spending money he didn’t have to treat him and his sister as he thought they ought to be treated. And he, Rannie Kershaw, was in the unpleasant position of just having handed out to his father a rotten deal! Again those ridiculous tears stung his eyes and throat, and he had to be a long time hanging up his hat and coat to conquer them. Gee! He wished he could do something about it!

  He slumped into his chair and looked unseeingly at the menu that was handed to him.

  “I don’t want much,” he growled huskily. “I’m not really hungry. Order me a ham sandwich ur something,” he said at last, unable to put his mind on the decision.

  His father cast a quick anxious glance at him and studied the menu carefully then gave an order in a low tone, and presently an abundant lunch was set before them. But Randall, though he ate what was set before him, was silent during the whole of the meal.

  While they were finishing the dessert, their father went to telephone a man with whom he had an appointment. When he came back he told them that his appointment had been changed to late in the afternoon, and if they would like to visit their old home, there would be time.

  Christobel caught at the idea eagerly, but Rannie said nothing till his father asked, and then he only shrugged his shoulders and said, “ ’Sall right!” Rannie was not enthusiastic about anything. His father eyed him furtively and sighed, wondering if the boy was really touched by his present position, and if the punishment would go deep enough to eradicate the wrong. Oh, he had been most neglectful of his duty as a father. He felt it more and more, now that he was aroused to what had really happened during the years of their estrangement.

  But Christobel was eager enough for two. All the way, she was recalling little th
ings about the old home she remembered; the time when the mad dog was in the street and little Rannie was out in the yard by the open gate calling out to the “pitty doggie,” and how frightened Mother had been, dropping everything and rushing out to snatch him in her arms and cry over him, and how Nurse Maggie had cried, too, scolded about people who kept dogs and didn’t know they were going mad. She made the picture of Mother with Rannie in her arms, rocking him back and forth and crying over him, very plain, till Rannie choked and almost wept again, and the father cleared his throat and looked away, blinded by tears of his own.

  And then the little birthday party on the side lawn when Christobel was four and Rannie was not quite a year and a half. Rannie almost seemed to remember it himself. She told how he suddenly plunged both hands into the ice cream and took them out dripping cream, screaming with delight and messing up the lovely pink ribbons on his shoulders, till Nurse Maggie had to carry him away, screaming, from the party and give him a good scrubbing.

  But somehow it didn’t seem funny to Rannie. It choked him all up again. Gee! Think of having a mother like that and living in a real home with birthday parties. But, good night! Think of Dad not being wealthy anymore!

  Christobel talked enough for both of them. She was full of eagerness, and when they turned onto Maple Street, she clapped her hands like a child.

  “Oh, I remember this corner,” she exclaimed. “I used to come down to put letters in that mailbox. Don’t you remember it, Rannie? You used to be allowed to take hold of my hand and come along. And once I lifted you up and let you put the letter in yourself.”