Not Under the Law

by Grace Livingston Hill

  In the first place, she must find out how much money she had with her. She had very little of her own anyway in change, and in her hurry she was afraid she might have left that behind. She opened her handbag and turned it carefully upside down in her lap, quickly sorting out its contents, the lace, the handkerchiefs, and the little trinkets in one pile, the papers and letters in another, and oh, joy, she had brought her purse. She opened it quickly to assure herself of its contents. Yes, there was the gold piece that she had been saving so long, the precious gold piece that had been a present from her own mother when she was a tiny girl. Ten dollars had seemed a great sum when she was small, and Aunt Mary had encouraged her to keep it and use it for something nice that she would like to keep always as a gift from her mother. That she would not use except as a last resort. She snapped the little inner pocket shut and turned to the next compartment, counting the pennies and dimes and half dollars and quarters carefully. There were three dollars and sixty-five cents, the change from the five-dollar bill with which she paid for her gloves to wear to the funeral. Last she opened the little strapped pocket that held her bills. She had been carefully hoarding her last month’s allowance and the few dollars saved from the months before to get a new coat and some things she would need for the winter in case she passed her examinations and got a school to teach. But she had been obliged to dip into her savings several times just before Aunt Mary died, and afterward to get things for Aunt Mary that Eugene did not think of or consider necessary, and now she was not sure just how much she had left. She counted, slowly, one ten-dollar bill, three fives, a two-dollar bill, nine ones, and two silver dollars. It looked like a lot as she went over it again to make sure, thirty-eight dollars, and with the three sixty-five, it came to forty-one dollars and sixty-five cents. Of course the ten-dollar gold piece made it fifty-one in all, but she was not counting that. That was to be saved at all hazards for the thing that she wanted most as a gift from her mother. Not unless life itself were endangered would she touch it, she resolved.

  But forty-one dollars ought to keep her if she were careful until she could earn more. It didn’t look like a lot when one considered that she was starting in the world, but just suppose she hadn’t anything. Girls had been in a predicament like that before. God was good to her. She would have to save every cent carefully and get a job of some sort at once. She must not waste a day. Jobs were not easy to find, either, when one could give no references. She would not dare give references, because somehow Eugene would make things unpleasant for her. No one must find out where she was. She realized that Eugene and Nannette felt that they had a good thing in her to do their work and look after the children while they went around and had a good time, and that they would not easily let her go. They would not stop at talking a little against her if by so doing they could lose her a job and bring her back to take care of them. This conclusion had been forcing itself upon her for some time slowly and had been fully revealed by their actions of the day before. She did not want to make any trouble nor any talk in the town, but she was fully resolved not to go back to them. She felt that if Aunt Mary were here now, in the light of all the things that had been said to her since the funeral, she would not advise her to remain there. Indeed, there had been hints now and then before Aunt Mary was so sick, such as, “If you should ever consider it advisable not to live with Gene and Nan, dear,” or “You can’t tell what may develop when you get to teaching. I know Nan isn’t easy to get along with.” But these were only hints, and Aunt Mary had expected to get well. They all had expected her to, until the last three weeks of her illness. Joyce had shrunk from talking about the possibilities of death, and so, it seemed, had Aunt Mary. After all, it was her responsibility now, and she was doing what seemed the best for all. She could never live in Eugene’s house. Her breath seemed stifled. How could she study and have her light watched every night? How could she be hampered in her comings and goings if she were to earn her own living? No, she had been right to come away. Perhaps the break might have been done more formally, not precipitated in such a headlong way—that was her greatest fault, to jump headlong into a situation—but even so it would likely have been harder. She could hear even now the long arguments before she had brought the Masseys to her viewpoint. Indeed, she doubted if she would ever have brought them there or have been allowed to go away if they had really thought she meant it. She was half surprised at herself that she was really gone from home so easily, half expected to have Gene walk to her out of the dim of the morning and order her home. She remembered then for the first time that Gene had been fuming about the delay in the reading of the will, and likely she ought to have remained until after that out of respect to her aunt, but after all, if Aunt Mary had been going to leave her something, some furniture or a little bit of money, while it would have been nice to have it, it would only have produced more strife. Why not let Gene have it all? That would likely compensate for the loss of her service in the family, and it would have been hard to stay there and see Nan turn Aunt Mary’s house upside down, perhaps sell or dispose of some of the dear old things that had grown precious through the years. It was just as well that she was gone before it came up at all. When she was settled in some nice place and everything fully assured, she would write some letters to her old friends and to Gene and Nan and tell them where she was so that there would be no talk about her going. And she knew Nan well enough to be sure that until such time as they heard from her, Nan would cover her going by some clever story of a visit to friends. She thought that it would not be more than a few days before she was in a position to write.

  Having settled her finances, she took up the pile of papers and letters, tied them in a neat packet, and stowed them in the pocket of her serge dress. She was like a bird let out of a cage. She could not go back, not while the sunshine of the new day was coming, not even if it grew dark and lowering. She would rather quiver in the heart of her own tree than be caged again for the pleasure of others and obliged to sing whether she felt like it or not.

  As she reached this decision and put the little packet of letters firmly in her pocket, a ray of sun reached out a warm finger and touched her hair, and she realized that the day was come and she must soon go on her way. Hastily she went through the other things in her lap. The trinkets and lace she folded into a handkerchief and pinned inside her dress. Having thus lightened her handbag, she set about to freshen up.

  The brook was at hand, sparkling and clear, in which to wash her face, and she had a tiny mirror in her bag to tidy her hair. By way of breakfast until she could do better, she folded one of the examination question papers into a cup and drank a long, sweet draught.

  While she was setting her hat straight, far in the distance she heard a humming sound, and for the first time she noticed the poles and wires of a trolley line perhaps half a mile away over the fields. Sure enough! That was the new trolley line that had just been completed. She could ride on it as far as it went and then to another line perhaps. Somehow, now that she was away, she wanted to go far enough away from home to be really in a new atmosphere, where people would not find her and tell the Masseys about her. She must get at least a hundred miles away from home, perhaps more, or it would be no use going at all. Yet she dared not spend much for her ride on the train, for it would eat into her small hoard too much and leave her nothing to get started on when she found a new home. But a trolley! One could go a good many miles for five cents. She strained her eyes to watch for the car and soon spied it, a black speck moving from the east, growing momentarily larger and more distinct against the brightness of the morning. There would likely be another one going in the opposite direction soon. Could she make it across the fields before it came? They would probably run every half hour. If she missed this next one, it would not be so long to wait for the next. Was it too early for a girl to board a car in the open country? She eyed the sun. It could not be more than five o’clock. She decided to try for it and, picking up her small effects, was soon on he
r way across the fields.

  Fortune favored her, and a car came along soon after she arrived at the highway. She boarded it and found a seat in the end next to a laborer with a pickax and muddy boots, who was fast asleep and did not even know when she sat down. Most of the men in the car were laborers and were nodding drowsily, scarcely looking at one another. She was the only woman in the car, but they paid no heed to her, and she dropped back into the seat as the car lurched on its way, thankful that her hasty glance revealed no acquaintance from Meadow Brook or Heatherdell. She put her head back against the window and closed her eyes, and her senses seemed to swim away from her. She suddenly realized that she had had no supper the night before and no breakfast but springwater that morning. All the strain of the day before and the terrible night seemed to climax in that moment, and for an instant she felt as if she were losing her consciousness. Then her will came to the front, and she set her lips and determined to pull through no matter how hard the ride or how long the fast. She was young, and this was her testing. She must not, she would not, faint.

  The car stopped for a moment to let on some more tired-looking men going to their work, and a whiff of spring blew in at her window, fanning her brow. She thought again of the hand of her mother and wondered if God was reminding her that He cared, and new strength seemed to come into her.

  She was awakened from a half drowse at the next stop by the sound of a voice that sent terror through her heart. It was the same hoarse voice breaking out in raucous laughter that she had heard half subdued in the graveyard the night before, the one they had called “kid.”

  Chapter 8

  Joyce sat up startled and peered furtively from her window.

  The man was outside waiting to board the car. He was big and red and ugly, with bold blue eyes and red hair. He had a weak mouth and a cruel jaw, and she couldn’t help shrinking into her corner as she looked. Suppose he had been the one to catch her and hold her hands in a viselike grip last night! Her soul turned sick within her.

  He came up the steps, prating in a loud voice about women, called them “dames” and “skirts,” and his laughter was an offense. Laughter is like smells—it can be fragrant as the morning or it can be foul as the breath of a gutter. This man’s laughter was like a noxious gas.

  Joyce would have fled if the aisle had not been blocked either way. Failing in that, she shrank still further back in her seat, drew her hat over her eyes, and found herself trembling in every fiber. Why does such a man have to be on the earth? she wondered as she heard his voice going on in coarse remarks. And what possible companionship, even in business, could he have with the man she knew, whom she had always thought fine of soul?

  The stab of that question came into her morning with renewed sharpness as she was compelled to sit and listen, as were all the rest of the passengers in the car, to this crude man’s conversation.

  There was nothing to fear, of course, for it was broad daylight and there were plenty of men in the car whose faces told that they would defend her. They might be all common workingmen, but they had homes and mothers and wives and sisters, and they respected them. There was a kind of nobleness in their faces that made one sure of that.

  Joyce sat motionless and tried to still the trembling of her lips, tried to control the foolish desire to let the tears come into her eyes, tried to tell herself she was silly and only needed her breakfast and there was no sense in her giving way to her feelings like this. This man did not know her. He had no idea that she had been the intruder at his midnight work. Oh, that work—that terrible work! What was it that bound these men together, the one so coarse, the other who had always seemed so fine? It haunted her with dark possibilities. Some money-making scheme, of course it was. But—it must be something terrible! She could not forget the look, the droop of the man in the darkness, when she had asked him about it.

  And this other one. He must live somewhere near where he had boarded the car. He was not anyone from Meadow Brook. The business was a partnership with strangers, yet the one she knew had been the captain, the head of it all. It was his voice that had given the orders, that had told them to go back and not come after her. Why should he be bound up in something that all too clearly was illicit—something of which he was ashamed? How she wished she had not had to know this about her onetime friend. Of course she had not seen him much since the old school days, but it had never seemed possible that anything gruesome, mysterious, wrong, could be connected with him. It would have been much pleasanter to have gone away from home carrying with her to the end of life the pleasant thoughts of those she left behind, those who were connected in a way with the dearness of the old days.

  But this was no time to think of such things. The morning was full upon them in a flood of sunshine, and the car was coming to a halt at what seemed like some kind of a terminal. There was a platform and a shedlike shelter, and the entire car arose as one man and crowded out on the platform. Joyce waited until they were gone and, slipping out the other end, went around the back of the car, crossed the tracks, and walked rapidly up a side street, rejoicing to hear the hum of the cross-line trolley for which the men seemed to be waiting. It would be good to know that that dreadful man was gone.

  On the first corner was a small grocery whose door was just being unlocked by a sleepy-looking lad, and Joyce went in and bought a box of crackers and some cheese. This would reinforce her and save time. She wanted to get well out of this region before people began to be about much. She did not care to run any risk of meeting anyone she knew who would go back home and talk about it.

  So, munching her crackers and cheese, she walked briskly down the street, a new one evidently, filled with rows of neat two-story houses, some of which were not yet fully finished, for workmen were about and signs were up for rent and sale.

  At a broader cross street, she turned the corner and came full upon a band of men who were working away at a sewer that was being laid, and suddenly from out of the group arose the noxious laughter of the red-haired man of the trolley. She stopped as if she had been shot, and wheeled back to the quieter street of the small houses. But not back in time to escape the mocking words that were flung after her. “There she comes! That’s my girlie! Isn’t she a jewel? Oh, don’t run away, darling! I won’t let the naughty men hurt you!”

  Words could not describe the taunting tone nor her horror, as if she had been desecrated. She was trembling, and the tears were flowing down her cheeks as she fled, block after block, without knowing where she went. It seemed so degrading that she could not rally her usual common sense. She began to wonder if perhaps all this was to teach her that she ought not to have gone away from home. That she should have remained and borne all there was to bear and just waited until relief came. But at that her sound sense came to her rescue, and she began to breathe more freely.

  She had passed into quite another section of the city now, and trolleys were coming and going and there were plenty of people on the streets. She boarded one of the cars and rode until it came to a railroad station, where she got off and went in. There was a restaurant here where she could get a glass of milk, and there was a restroom where she might tidy herself and sit down and get her bearings. She would study the timetables and find out where to go intelligently. This running away hit or miss might only lead her in a circle and bring her back home before night.

  So she went in and asked some questions, finally buying a ticket to a small town about a hundred miles away. Half an hour later, she boarded the train, having added to her crackers and cheese an orange and a couple of bananas for lunch.

  It was a local train and slow, and Joyce curled up in her seat and had a good, long nap then woke to eat her lunch and sleep again. She had thought to make a plan for herself, make some definite outline in her mind of what she would do with the future so suddenly opened out before her, but sleep simply dropped down upon her and took possession. The strain under which she had been, the sudden sharp emotions following one upon the other, had
stretched her endurance almost to the breaking point, and relaxation brought such utter weariness that she could not even think.

  Something was the matter with the engine, and they stayed on a side track for a long time while men rushed around shouting to one another and doing things to the engine and now and again seemingly to the machinery underneath the cars, but it all made no impression on Joyce. She slept on, curled into a slim little heap in her seat. After a long time, a train came by from the other direction, bringing aid perhaps, for it halted, and then there was more pounding and shouting, and at last the train went on and Joyce’s train groaned and creaked and took up its limping way, lumbering slowly on like a person on crutches. About the middle of the afternoon, they came to a halt, and Joyce, sitting up, suddenly warned by some inner consciousness, perceived she had arrived at the place she had aimed for and got out quickly.

  She had been told in the city that there would be an electric connection with another city, and sure enough, there stood a rickety old trolley in which she embarked, the only passenger for more than half the way.