“Tracks!” said Chris eagerly. “What kinda tracks?”
“Tracks in the snow, ‘bout the size of Betty’s galoshes, where she musta broken through the crust of the snow.”
“Where?” Chris was out following her like a real detective.
The tracks left the beaten path and went in a detour across the fields, giving wide berth to the log cabin and ending abruptly in a stretch of crust that was thicker than the rest because it was in a sheltered nook where the sun could not reach it and was strong enough to bear the weight of a light person. Chris tested it and then walked all around it searching till he came to the tracks again, fifty feet ahead on the southern slope of the hill, and followed them down till they ended in the highway. But they unmistakably turned toward the village. That was plain. He felt sure they were Betty’s.
Chris hurried back to the house to tell his mother, and just as he entered the door he heard the telephone ringing.
It was an answer to his telegram to the morning train conductor. Yes, a young girl of Betty’s description had boarded the train at the village station that morning. She was all alone and had paid her way as far as Springfield.
“Well, we got something at last!” said Chris as he hung up the receiver. “Gee! I never thought she’d be so near as that. I wish I’d telephoned there first! Good night! She’s had time to make a great getaway. What time is it, five o’clock? Well, I can find out where she bought a ticket to from there, anyway, or if she didn’t buy one I’ll have her paged! I can find out if she was alone when she bought her ticket, too. Well, we’re getting on!”
Chapter 21
When Betty got out of her train at Springfield and disappeared into the station she found that it was half past ten o’clock. That was three-quarters of an hour later than the timetable had said it would be, and she sighed contentedly. Three-quarters of an hour less to wait for Dudley.
She looked around eagerly. Perhaps he was even here already. Unconsciously she straightened her hat and tried to blink the sleep out of her eyes, for she had just woke up from one of the soundest sleeps she ever had and might have been carried on beyond this station if it had not been for the kindness of the conductor who woke her and helped her out.
As Dudley did not seem to be anywhere in immediate view, Betty sought and found the ladies’ waiting room and began to repair the damages of travel. Her small vanity case, which she had been carefully hoarding during the days at the farm, did heavy duty, for Betty felt that she was getting back into her own world again and must look her best. Perhaps she applied a trifle more lipstick and rouge than was usual for her, for now there was no disapproving parent’s eye upon her, and she experienced a daring delight in making her lips and cheeks as vivid as she had always longed to have them. She knew that her special type needed just this touch—at least that was what Dudley Weston had told her—to make her look distinguished and interesting. She surveyed her finished result with real pleasure. She really had a wicked look as she turned from the smoky little mirror in the ladies’ room and picked up her suitcase to go back into the main waiting room. She hoped Dudley would come soon. She was deadly hungry, but of course it wouldn’t do to eat before he came, for he might come any minute now.
She selected a seat where she could see all doors of entrance and settled down to wait, with the clock in full view.
She had just thirty-seven cents left after paying her fare to Springfield, and after waiting an hour with no results she walked over to the newsstand and purchased a five-cent bar of chocolate and a five-cent package of peanut butter cracker sandwiches.
She ate them hurriedly, prepared to hide them at once should Dudley enter either of the doors, for she did not want him to see that she had been eating and not waiting for him. But when she finished eating she seemed hungrier than before. The minutes dragged themselves slowly by, and at last the great clock hands in the station pointed to twelve, and various whistles and bells in the town set up a screeching and clanging to call attention to the fact that it was high noon.
Betty’s cheeks grew hot at the thought that in a few minutes she would be actually off on her wedding trip with Dud. As each moment passed by she found her heart beating more wildly.
A sudden rush of memory made her think of her mother and father, her brothers and sisters. Strange she felt this way. She had not expected any such softness as this. If Dud would only come! Well, she would have something on him now, if he was late. He was always saying girls were late!
But the next half hour slipped away, slow-throbbing minute by slow-throbbing minute, and no Dudley.
Betty began to grow angry. Dudley had no right to keep her waiting so long! When she had come as far as this and kept her agreement she had a right to expect him to be there! It wasn’t gallant in a bridegroom to keep her waiting. He really ought to have been there before her. He should have been there at early dawn to make things right!
Still, of course he might have had an accident with his car, a flat tire or something. Betty was not given to fears. She did not begin to think of anything like a real accident until the clock hands pointed to a quarter past two. Then she got up with her suitcase in her hand and walked briskly to each of the doors and windows in turn and looked out. Finally she went out and walked around the outside of the station, scanning each car parked in the block, but there was nothing like Dudley’s loud combination of colors in the whole collection. Then she went back nervously and took her seat again, fearful lest he might have come and gone away mad because she was not right there at his first glance as he entered the station.
Her eyes were beginning to burn with constantly watching the opening doors and scanning the windows of the station. Her cheeks felt as hot as their color, and her lips felt cracked and fairly bleeding from her long walk in the wind in the morning. She felt dizzy and sick, and her head ached with great throbs. Dudley was spoiling it all!
Her hunger had long ago turned to a gnawing faintness as the afternoon wore on, and she began to wonder what she should do if Dudley did not come before night. How long could she go without food? What a fool she had been not to bring more than just the two or three tiny sandwiches she had managed to slip in her suitcase the afternoon before. It would have been easy to bring along plenty without exciting suspicion in the least. Doughnuts and cookies and gingerbread. There was always plenty on hand. Jane delighted to try her hand at the new things she had been learning how to make. How good it would be to walk into the dining room now and sit down to a good meal! If only nobody knew that she had gone away!
A train came rushing up, and they called out its stops. It was the train that went back to the little village below the farm. If she had the money she could get on it and go back. It would serve Dudley Weston right, keeping her waiting so long! She would have been almost willing to do it now; she was so angry with Dudley for being late. Yet of course she couldn’t because she had no money.
She walked restlessly to the door and watched the people get on. No one would know her, of course. She would not know any of the passengers, yet it was comforting somehow to feel that that train was going back to where she had come from, back where her mother was, and home, and Christmas.
A sudden compunction assailed her for having gone away before Christmas. Of course she might have waited.
Probably if she got on the train now and told the conductor she hadn’t money enough to get home but would send it to him he would likely let her ride. She could give him her wristwatch as collateral. But she wouldn’t do it, of course.
The train began to move, and she looked around again hastily to see if Dudley was coming. There was no Dudley, and she took a couple of steps toward the last car, which was moving past her more rapidly now. And then she saw that she couldn’t get on it even if she wanted to; it was moving too rapidly. It had gone past her the full length of the car.
She turned with a long, drawn sigh, half wishing she had got on. The deadly thought assailed her that perhaps Dud would stand her up! Pe
rhaps he would not come at all. Perhaps he had gone down to Gwen’s house party! And she like a fool was sitting alone in a strange station, moneyless and hungry, and utterly out with her family, while he danced the giddy hours away with Gwen!
Furious, she walked crisply across the station and out the opposite door. If she had only done something to get some more money! If she could sell her watch now, for instance, and hire a taxi—no it was too far for a taxi—but she could telephone home at least. Perhaps, if she asked them, they would reverse the call and let her talk to her father! That would be the last resort! Poor Dad. He would be furious, of course, but the approaching evening and the hunger and the anger were making her almost willing to stand his fury, if only she might get back to her own bed, something good to eat, and peace and safety! Out on her own, with nothing to do but wait in a station for somebody who did not come! Running away wasn’t all it had promised to be.
During the little moment in which she had entered the platform, and gone through to the opposite side of the station, the night seemed to have come down. It startled her to look out upon the square and see the lights springing up on all sides, see the streets dim away vaguely into twilight, and the sky dark, with little occasional flakes drifting slowly, lazily down.
Her mind went back to the drive they had had in the snow when they came up to the farm, and she shuddered at the thought that this might be another night like that, with Dudley and his crazy roadster wallowing through the drifts.
She scanned the sky anxiously and then stepped back quickly into the shadow as a car came swooping up toward the station, with the air of intending to drive right up on the platform and go inside the door.
The car stopped a few feet from where she was standing, and she heard a girl’s voice laughing raucously:
“Well, so long, Buddy! Thanks for the buggy ride! I’ll love you always for this day! You saved my life. I’ll tell the world! If I’d had to come on the train I’d uv been bored to death. I only wisht you was going the rest of the way!”
“Same here, darling! But no chance! I gotta skirt inside here, sore’s a boil by this time. You’n I lingered a little long over our dinner. I’m late by just five hours! Sorry, but it can’t be helped. ‘Nother time possibly. Ef you come down my way again call me up an’ I’ll show you a wild night! So long, Peachy. I won’t forgetya!”
The young man turned and came face-to-face with Betty trembling with anger. Her little delicate face was white beneath its makeup, and the white light of an electric arc suddenly leaping up shone upon her.
“Hello, Betts!” said Dudley easily. “On time after all! I wasn’t counting on that! First time in yer life! Well, couldn’t be helped. Had two flat tires and a blowout! Got a leak in the radiator, and water in the carburetor, and came through three thunderstorms and a fog. Gosh, but it’s a heck of a journey! Hadn’t been you, Thorny, I’d uv turned back! Think you’re worth it?”
Betty, furious with anger, tottering with fatigue and hunger, perceived that Dudley had been drinking. Not enough to be stupid or angry, only enough to be loudmouthed.
“For mercy’s sake, Dud, hush!” she said as she saw some passing people turn to look at them. “Lock your car, and come, let’s get some dinner. I’m starved! I’m just about to pass out! I’ve waited for you ever since noon!”
“Good night! Thorny, I’ve just finished a meal! Couldn’t eat another bite ‘f I was to be ‘lectrocuted for it. You run along an’ get a bite while I get gas. We gotta beat it! I promised Gwen we’d be down ta th’ house party soon’s we could make it. Run along. Make it snappy. We oughtta get outta here!”
Betty’s heart sank, and her fury rose. She was so angry that she wanted to cry. She was so tired and hungry that she wanted to run home. Dudley had been eating a good dinner with that other awful girl! He had not cared that she was waiting, hungry, anxious! And now he wanted her to go and eat alone! When she had waited all day!
And he was not offering to pay for it either! And she had but twenty-seven cents!
Yet, with all her despair and poverty she would not tell Dudley that she did not have money! Some terrible sense of pride descended upon her. She would rather starve than ask Dudley for money. She would not put herself in his power to that extent. Something innate told her that as soon as she did she would cheapen herself to him. She had always held him in her power, had carried a high hand and ordered him around. To tell him now that she was penniless would be to change their relations, to put herself in his power. She was trying to think what to do, whether she could get enough to satisfy her hunger out of twenty-seven cents.
“Oh,” she said coldly. “I see! You preferred to have dinner with that girl! Perhaps I had better go back to my home, and you can marry her!” And she turned as if to go away, carrying her little head haughtily, holding her suitcase with a firm grasp, though the hand that held it trembled with weariness.
“Heck! Thorny, you’re the limit! Didn’t I come all this way after ya? What more da ya want? There’s plentya girls I cud get, you know darn well!”
He was talking very loud now, and people were turning again to look at them. Betty shrank into her shadow and protested.
“Hush, Dud. You’re making yourself a spectacle,” she said in a low tone. “See, those people are coming this way just to listen.”
“What’s the dif?” said Dudley, speaking still louder. “It’s none of their darn business! You’re jealous, that’s what’s the matter, jus’ plain jealous! Jealous of that poor little kid that I picked up on a lonely road, walkin’ to Springfield jus’ ‘cause she didn’t have the money! If you’re going to develop a complex like that I better beat it!”
Betty was about to tell him he had, with her heart full of fury and her lips shaking so that she could scarcely speak, when suddenly a voice arrested them both, startling into their controversy like a voice of authority.
“Paging Miss Betty Thornton!” it said in the tone of a monotonous giant doing his duty. “Miss Betty Thornton of Briardale, Pennsylvania, will please come to the telephone in the office!”
The door of the station had swung wide, and the great megaphone, which was located on the wall opposite, seemed to be directed definitely at them. They started toward one another in a common fear, and Betty found herself clinging to Dudley’s hand and trembling like a leaf. It was as if she had been caught and shamed before the whole world.
And while they stood silent, listening, the monotonous voice went on again:
“Paging Miss Betty Thornton of Briardale, Pennsylvania. Please come to the telephone in the office.” Suddenly Dudley Weston came alive.
“Get in there, quick!” he said roughly and pushed her toward the car, fairly lifting her into the seat and slamming the door.
“They’re after us, Thorny! We gotta beat it!” he breathed and flung himself around to his own seat, starting the car with a jerk and dashing out among the taxicabs with a vehemence that set up a commotion among drivers and traffic police.
Betty was trembling still. She looked back as someone swung wide the door of the station again, and the sonorous voice pursued them: “Paging Miss Betty Thornton of Briar—”
The car swung around a corner, and the voice was lost in the multitudinous noises of the city. Betty felt as if she were being snatched from a helping hand that had been reached out to save her. She knew in her heart that if that voice had come a few minutes sooner, if it had come while she was sitting alone and forlorn in the station, she would have answered it, gladly, and flown back to home and Mother; or if it had come even afterward when she saw Dudley with that unspeakable girl, she would have turned and fled to the call as to a city of refuge.
As they turned another corner, barely escaping a crash with a big car, and reeled into line among the traffic, Betty clutched wildly at her companion’s arm and cried convulsively:
“Take me back, Dudley, take me back at once. I’ve got to answer that telephone call! I’ve got to, don’t you see? Someone might be sick or
dead!”
“Let ‘em die, then!” said the boy roughly. “You left ‘em, didn’t ya? Well, then don’t go whining back. I got ya, and you’re mine now! Shut up and leggo my arm! How cun I drive with you pulling my arm like that? You little fool you. Your yella, that’s what you are! I useta think you had nerve, but you haven’t any more pep than a mouse. Get over there!” and he shoved her roughly to the other side of the seat.
Betty froze into dignity.
“Dudley Weston, don’t you dare touch me again!” she cried furiously. “And you take me back at once! I’ve got to answer that call. Take me back, I say! Or I’ll jump out right here in traffic, and then you’ll be responsible!”
For answer Dudley replied:
“Help yourself! You’re Thorny all right!” and stepped on the gas, making the pedestrians scuttle to left and right wildly to get out of his way, and a traffic whistle pursued them as they vanished into the distance.
Betty sat back in her seat furious and helpless, the cold air keeping her alive and driving back the deadly faintness that assaulted her now and again. She shut her lips tight and sat silent and angry, mile after mile, with Dudley driving hard and fast.
How he got through the thick of the city without being arrested was nothing short of a miracle. Betty kept hoping he would be arrested, and then she might escape.
She was not frightened, for she was used to Dudley’s wild driving, she was merely hungry and tired and angry, furiously angry. This was no romantic marriage as she had fancied it, driving like mad away from all that had until then been comforting, driving into an unknown night with an ungallant knight who swore at her every time he escaped running down a trolley car or colliding with a truck; with an empty stomach and another girl, in the background who had dined with her beloved, a blowsy girl, too, with a loud voice and bad English, and a sneer on her unwholesome face. To think he would care to stop for that girl—eat dinner with her—when he was on the way to meet his bride! Well, she wasn’t sentimental, but this was the limit!
The Prodigal Girl Page 23