by Anne Nesbet
She paused for a moment, since the words that were coming to mind were not very heiress-like, but Miss Berryman pulled herself together and came to her rescue:
“This is intolerable,” said Miss Berryman.
“Yes, exactly that,” said Darleen, adjusting not just her vowels, but her shoulders, to be as much like Miss Berryman’s as possible. “In-tolerable. And also wrong. And we aren’t going to tell you a thing more. From now on, silence.”
(And she gave Miss Berryman’s hand a strengthening squeeze while she said that, to keep Miss Berryman on the right course.)
Miss Berryman echoed only that one last word, silence, and really, she could have been a queen in a photoplay when she said it, so straight and determined was her back.
The dreadful Sally looked about ready to leap at them like a disheveled wildcat: “What is this nonsense? Are you the Berryman gal? Or are you?”
The girls managed to stand in silence together in that dim and nasty place while the screaming and shouting ran circles around them.
When the dreadful Sally ran out of breath enough for screaming, she shifted to a hoarse menace, which was almost worse than the shouting: “You better tell us who you are, you selfish gals! Imagine your poor, dear, weeping families, waiting fer a word.”
Oh! Darleen did feel a pang at the thought of her father finding out she was in actual, real danger — just as he had so unreasonably feared! But somehow she stayed silent, despite the pang.
Eventually the frustrated Sally turned back to the kidnappers, to whom she also had a lot to say, all of it furious.
“Oh, come on now! You dragged them into your motorcar. You didn’t see who was who?”
“We was working awful fast, Sally,” said the side-winding man. “And there was all those lights.”
“And don’t be blaming me,” said the driver. “I know there wasn’t supposed to be two gals. Not my fault we ended up with two!”
“Hey!” said the sidewinder.
Sally hissed at them again for getting off the subject.
“The boss will have our hides,” she said. “Hear me? Our hides. Sort this out now, I’m tellin’ you, or he’ll sort us all out, and there won’t be enough of any of us left to feed a cat.”
“So what do we do now?” said the sidewinder.
“Dump ’em both in the river?” said the driver.
He actually said that!
“Let’s don’t get ahead of ourselves,” said Sally with much disgust. “We haven’t exactly collected our wages out of anyone yet, have we?”
She took a pen and wrote some lines on a piece of paper, then blotted it with a really filthy rag, scowled, and handed it over to the driver.
“This here’s the note. Take it to the Berryman house, but don’t you let anyone catch you while you’re doing it. Instructions are, you pin it on the door, nice and visible, and scoot. And then we have until the boss sends his man over here to figure out what’s what and who’s who and who goes where. And no more messing up.”
“No, Sally,” said the driver, already backing out through the door. He looked relieved to be leaving, thought Darleen. And who wouldn’t? “No more messing up,” he repeated.
Sally was eyeing the girls now, and her eye was nothing you’d want on you if you had a choice.
“You two,” she said, and Darleen could tell she was trying to make her voice sound less scary, which was in itself a terrifically dreadful thing, since she was no actor. “You go on in here and think it over. You want to go in the river, or you want to be good gals and tell us who’s who so we can get you home? Make no trouble, and maybe we’ll none of us come to no harm.”
At a gesture from Sally, the side-winding man pushed the girls through a doorway they hadn’t properly noticed over to the left. In they went, and the door slammed shut.
“Oh!” said the girls, both at once.
It was a way of flinching in unison. Because, to be honest, things did not look very good: They were imprisoned. In a gloomy room. Behind a locked door. By kidnapping bandits. Who seemed to have no consciences to speak of.
And still!
They were not yet in the river.
And that, under the circumstances, had to be counted the very next best thing to hope.
The girls looked at each other in the dim light of that room (a streetlight outside sent a faint shimmer through the window), and they both thought the same thought: What do we do now?
“They are threatening to drown us!” said Miss Berryman. “What dreadful, dreadful people these are.”
She was already running her hand up and down the wall, looking for the light switch, but Darleen stopped her.
“Not yet, not yet,” she whispered, and she pulled Miss Berryman toward the window. Light is a powerful and sometimes treacherous thing, as Dar well knew from the photoplays. “We’ll be terribly backlit, Miss Berryman, and that awful man will see us —”
“And suspect you are already planning our escape, which I’m sure you are!” added Miss Berryman, clapping her hands quietly in the gloom. “How clever you are, Miss Darling!”
Darleen wasn’t sure she could ever live up to the trust and hope shining forth like a beacon from Miss Berryman’s every word, so instead, she pointed down to the street, where a man — recognizable in the streetlight as the stocky, forward-moving driver — strode along, a letter demanding ransom presumably tucked away in some pocket. Sure enough, at the corner, he turned around and looked up at the window where they were standing in shadow. He looked up and thought whatever evil thoughts a kidnapper thinks while the girls held still in the dark. Then he turned and walked off again, heading north at the corner.
“You know,” said Darleen once he was safely gone, “I don’t think they want to drown both of us. Aren’t kidnappings usually about ransom money? Surely if they know who you are, they’ll be confident they’ll get a lot of money for you, Miss Berryman.”
“I’m afraid that’s not a certainty at all,” said Miss Berryman so quietly that Darleen had to move closer to figure out her words. “It’s quite possible that my guardians, my Brownstone cousins, may not want to pay a nickel in ransom for me.”
“How can you say that?” said Darleen, shocked. “They’re your guardians! Your family! Why, they must be dreadfully worried about you already. Of course they’ll do whatever they can to rescue you!”
“Oh, Miss Darling, if only you knew,” said Miss Berryman, shaking her head. “I was so hopeful myself when the Brownstones first turned up! It was during that awfully dark time, you know, right after Grandmama . . . Grandmama . . .”
Miss Berryman faltered for a moment but then gathered her pluck together and carried on.
“When my poor Grandmama’s attorney told me he had found some actual relatives willing to take me under their wings, you can imagine how glad I was! And surprised too! The Berrymans have been a sadly dwindling family for years. Why, my only uncle — poor Uncle Thomas — died before I was even born, and then I lost my dear parents too. Grandmama never mentioned any cousins to me, but Mr. Ridge, the attorney, seemed so certain about these Brownstones. Poor Mr. Ridge — there cannot have been a great assortment of possible relatives to choose from.”
Darleen’s sympathies were entirely on the side of Miss Berryman, who was turning out to be even more of an Only Sprig than Darleen herself.
“Haven’t they been treating you properly, your Brownstone cousins?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Miss Berryman. “They moved in right away, and since then, I have not had a single kind word from them. All they seem to care about is Grandmama’s art collection! But I try to remember that the Brownstones are only distant cousins. Perhaps that makes a difference when it comes to family feeling.”
“How awful!” said Darleen.
“Never mind it, Miss Darling,” said Miss Berryman. “I bring up my sad story here only to suggest that these kidnappers might have more luck seeking ransom for you. If they figure out that you are a star in the
moving pictures, that is.”
Darleen felt a despairing sort of smile crawling across her face.
“Oh, dear,” she said. “You know, if they had any idea about the current finances of Matchless studios, I guess I’d be in the river already. All Aunt Shirley ever talks about these days are the studio’s debts. There’s certainly no money to be had from kidnapping me.”
They stood silent for a moment, and then Miss Berryman sucked in her breath in horror.
“Well, then, to think that I nearly told them who I was! Thank goodness you stopped me in time. Who knows what they might have done! It was the lying thing, you see.”
She paused.
“What lying thing?” said Darleen.
“She said it was lying!” said Miss Berryman. “That not telling them who I was would be lying! Is not answering a question telling a lie? I’m not sure. But when I think how telling them who I am and who you are would, you know, probably lead to them doing awful things to at least one of us, goodness knows I’d really truly rather not. What a terrible situation it is: when saving an innocent life — yours, perhaps, Miss Darling! — demands a lie! What a dilemma!”
That didn’t seem like much of a dilemma to Darleen.
“I guess a lie here and there can’t much matter under the circumstances,” Darleen said, trying not to sound impatient.
“But lying always matters, Miss Darling,” said Miss Berryman quite firmly. “I’ve been realizing that recently, you see. When my Grandmama became ill, I started thinking a lot about — well, about things like telling the truth. I was trying to reform my soul, you know, since I knew I would soon be losing her steadying hand. And I started noticing how often people say things that aren’t true. Have you ever counted lies, Miss Darling?”
“Counted lies? No!” said Darleen. She had never considered such a thing.
“Well, I tried it. And I’m sorry to say I caught myself telling tiny fibs many times in a single day, Miss Darling! So I made a solemn promise to tell the plain truth all the time, with no exceptions at all. That’s why I was so worried just now, to think that not telling these awful people who we are might be the same as lying.”
“What!” said Darleen again. If anything, Miss Berryman’s explanation was growing worse and worse. “But, Miss Berryman! It doesn’t make a single lick of sense to tell the truth to people who are trying to throw at least one of us into the river. We are trying to get out of here alive, aren’t we?”
“I confess that when I made my solemn promise, I didn’t expect to face a situation quite like this one,” said Miss Berryman. “What a test this is! Oh, Miss Darling, I can feel it: my virtue is wobbling. And I’ll have you know, it has been three months, two weeks, and four days since I last told a falsehood. What a pity it will be to ruin that record now! It seems almost too much to bear, truly it does.”
And her voice cracked a little, as if she were swallowing a sob.
All of this took Darleen so aback that for a moment she was speechless.
It was clear that, although they might look a little alike (at least to inattentive kidnappers), Miss Victorine Berryman and Darleen, Only Sprig of the Darlings, were very different people in many important respects.
And then Miss Berryman pulled herself together all of a sudden.
“Goodness, what would my Grandmama say if she saw me like this!”
“She’d call the police, I guess,” said Darleen, looking around at their bare and dismal surroundings. “And get us some help.”
Miss Berryman shook her head as if Darleen had misunderstood her.
“Oh, perhaps so, certainly,” she said. “But first, Miss Darling, my Grandmama would say, ‘Chin up, young Berryman! Chin up, and look on the bright side!’”
On the bright side?
That seemed a bit of a stretch under current conditions.
“Well,” said Darleen after a moment, “at least it seems like they can’t tell us apart for some reason. How funny, too, when all they have to do is glance at your gloves! I’ve never seen such lovely gloves. I mean, honestly, how could they ever mix me up with a Miss Berryman?”
“And I suppose they must not be regular viewers of photoplays,” said Miss Berryman, wiping her eyes with the swift swipe of someone determined to move past her moment of despair. “Because if they were, you’d think they would recognize you, quick as quick. At least my picture hasn’t been in the newspapers. Grandmama was always rather fussy about that.”
“We have to think up a plan,” said Darleen. “That’s what we have to do. And if you find yourself tempted to tell them anything they shouldn’t know, please just clamp your lips together tight and don’t. I’m pretty sure not saying anything isn’t the least bit the same thing as lying. Anyway, who knows? Maybe I can do some of the fibbing for you. But the main thing is to get ourselves out of this fix.”
Miss Berryman nodded in the gloom.
“You are right,” she said. “And while we’re being so open with each other, please, Miss Darling, if it isn’t too bold of me to suggest it — since we are, I’m afraid, in some danger —”
That was true enough, alas. At that very moment, Darleen was peeking again out the window. She was visually measuring the distance to the nearest fire escape, which, most tantalizingly, ran down the side of the building about six feet to the left.
Miss Berryman hadn’t stopped talking for a moment. “Here’s my idea: since we’re in such danger together, I propose we do what the Swiss mountaineers do when they are high in the Alps.”
“What?” said Darleen. “What do the Alps have to do with anything? What I see is, the foolish fire escape is just barely out of reach. Though I suppose they wouldn’t have locked us in a room that we could simply step right out of.”
Miss Berryman’s mind was fully focused on her Swiss mountaineers, however.
“While they are high in the mountains, you see, where the dangers are great, they set aside all the formalities,” said Miss Berryman. “So let’s not stand on ceremony a moment longer. Let me call you Darleen, Miss Darling, and you must call me Victorine. Now, then, that’s settled.”
Darleen must have made some small sound of surprise, because Miss Berryman hurried to add, “It’s a funny name, isn’t it? My Papa named me after his favorite knife.”
“His knife?”
“Well, yes,” said Miss Berryman (Victorine). “It’s one of those little ones that fold up and have very useful bits and pieces to them. See?”
From somewhere under her skirt, she had indeed produced a small knife and now opened one of its blades, so it twinkled for a moment in the streetlamp’s glow.
“It’s one of my most prized possessions,” said Victorine, looking at it fondly. “My dear father bought it before I was born and called it his Small Victory, and then I came along, and he decided I was his Small Victory, too, but since I would live in the brand-new twentieth century, he thought the name could use some modern improvements. Hence, Victorine. Never Vicky, by the way,” she added. “Victorine has more dignity, don’t you think?”
“Oh!” said Darleen, who was sometimes called Dar and didn’t much mind it. “All right.”
Miss Berryman was still showing off the secrets of her wonderful little knife, one blade at a time.
“It’s my one inheritance from my dear Papa, you know — until I come of age, of course, and inherit everything. It has several good blades, and scissors, and a little corkscrew, and everything, and I am never without it. Perhaps it may come in useful in our current predicament!”
“Perhaps it may,” said Darleen, feeling more grim determination than confidence.
“I give you permission to throw it at these villains whenever you think that would be a good idea!” said Victorine. “I know how deadly your aim is with a knife — Episode Three, with those gold miners! — but of course my knife is not specifically designed for throwing . . . How did you do it, Darleen, tossing those knives in that clever circle, right around the head of Mean-Eyed Jack?�
��
Darleen remembered that knife-throwing scene quite well. She had never laughed so hard on a photoplay set before. She kept flinging knives that kept landing any which where, and Uncle Charlie kept saying, from back where the camera was cranking away, “Never mind, never mind, we’ll paste in shots of them landing where they’re supposed to go.”
They would never in a million years have been foolish enough to let her pitch an actual knife in the direction of the poor actor playing Mean-Eyed Jack!
“Well, now, knife-throwing!” Darleen said, and found that her conscience was rather torn about what exactly to say. “You do know that not everything they show in the photoplays is exactly true? They’re tremendously clever, the people who put the pieces of film together to make the story work.”
“Oh, yes, I’m sure they are,” said Victorine. “But you needn’t be modest, Darleen. I can see that you are tremendously clever, too, with all your tricks and talents. I’m such a quiet sort of person! I’ve never thrown a knife at a scoundrel ever in my entire life. But then, for the most part, my life has not been as dramatic as yours, I suppose. May I tell you my wildest dream when I was a little girl? I told my Grandmama once I thought I would like to grow up to be a World-Wandering Librarian! There, you’re laughing! Shh!”
“I’m only laughing because you’re laughing!” said Darleen. “And because I don’t know what a World-Wandering Librarian even is!”
They were both still laughing (but as quietly as possible).
“Someone — who travels — with books!” said Victorine. “I should think that would be obvious. It was just a child’s dream, of course. Books are heavy, and why would people on the other side of the world be wanting books from me? I mean, it’s not as though I could teach anyone anything. I have so far to go in my own education. My Greek is lamentable! I haven’t had the advantage you surely have had, Darleen, of attending a real school with real teachers.”
