Kerry

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “And now, Miss Kavanaugh, where are you staying?” he asked.

  “Well, I’m not quite sure yet. I came straight here to get that manuscript out of my hands at once,” said Kerry with a long breath of relief. “I did not know what might happen next.”

  “You certainly deserve great credit for guarding it so faithfully. We are greatly in your debt, and I expect shall be more so before we are done. I notice your father delegates you to correct all proof, and advise with us regarding any matter relating to the book. I hope you are not going to be far away. We want to rush this book right through. It is to both your and our advantage to get it on the market with all possible speed while your father’s work and personality are still in the minds of the people.”

  “I am hoping to secure a room not far away,” said Kerry. “A friend on the ship knows of a convenient place. I shall let you know my address as soon as I am sure I can be accommodated.”

  “That is very good!” said Holbrook. “And shall you be at leisure to come and help us as soon as we are ready?”

  “Why, yes,” hesitated Kerry, “I’m going to look for some kind of a job at once. I—really—must. But I thought perhaps I could do whatever you need done in the evenings. Would that be possible?”

  “A job?” said Holbrook. “Well, why not, perhaps in our office? Your father recommends you so highly that I am sure you would be an asset in any office. I’ll speak to our manager and see if there is any chance of a vacancy. It really would be good to have you right at hand if this work is to be rushed through. At least I am sure we could give you something temporary until we are through with the book, and then perhaps find you something better if there isn’t anything fitted for you here.”

  “Oh, that would be wonderful!” said Kerry, hardly able to believe that her way was to be so smooth after the trouble through which she had come. It filled her with the greater joy because she knew it was being done for her great father’s sake. It thrilled her to be with those who respected him so much and did not try to minimize his talents as her mother had always done.

  McNair, in the outer office where she had left him, watched Kerry come out at last, her eyes shining, her cheeks glowing, her bright hair curling around her face, and thought what a pearl of a girl she was.

  He watched her as she came slowly down the long room between the rows of desks and busy workers, talking as she came to the grave keen businessman who walked beside her and was obviously pleased with her. He rejoiced that she had found sympathy with her publisher. He knew the hard world so well that he had feared perhaps she was too hopeful.

  Kerry looked up as she came to the bench where McNair waited. How easily she seemed to know just what to do. How well she comported herself in spite of her shyness. What a rare father she must have had—or a mother. He suddenly realized that she had not mentioned her mother. Was she dead perhaps?

  Then Kerry reached his side and said, “Mr. Holbrook, I want you to know Mr. McNair, the friend who so kindly recovered the manuscript for me this morning.”

  Then indeed McNair got a keen glance from Holbrook’s eyes. He shook hands heartily, looking deep into the younger man’s eyes as he spoke, as if sifting him to see if he were worthy.

  “We certainly are deeply indebted to you also, Mr. McNair,” said the publisher. “If Shannon Kavanaugh’s last book had been lost to our house we would never have ceased to regret it. I am glad to meet you.”

  When they were out in the taxicab again, they beamed like two children.

  “Well, he seems to be the real thing in publishers as far as I can judge,” said McNair heartily.

  “Why, he was just wonderful!” said Kerry, shining-eyed like a child telling her joys. McNair wanted to kiss her again, but somehow he didn’t dare. This was not a lonely corridor on the ship, the terrible storm was over, and death was no longer imminent. This was a different Kerry, this shining-eyed, successful daughter of a great man who had just signed her father’s contract.

  “He made the royalty five cents larger than they had promised father, and he is going to send me a check for advance royalty as soon as they have read the manuscript,” went on Kerry eagerly. “They’re going to give me work right there in the office for a while, at least till the book is done, and if I make good I think from what he said I can stay.”

  “Well, I should say your fortune was made,” answered McNair happily. “I’m glad of that. I hated to see you running around New York day after day, week after week, hunting a job, the way many a girl has to do. I meant to look up something for you myself among some of my friends, but now I see my offices are not needed.”

  “Well, you certainly have done enough,” said Kerry. “I never can thank you for all you have done.”

  “Don’t try, please,” said McNair with one of his rare smiles that said more than words. And then as the taxi drew up in front of a dignified building he added, “Now, we’re going to have dinner. I wonder if you are as hungry as I am. This place is a favorite haunt of mine. They usually have pretty good stuff here.”

  “Hungry?” said Kerry. “Of course I am, but—you shouldn’t have brought me to a place like this.”

  “This is my treat!” said McNair. “We’ve vanquished the enemy, and now we have a right to celebrate.” And he led her into a large beautiful quiet dining room where obsequious waiters hastened to make them at home.

  “Here, at last,” said McNair as he took the card the waiter handed him, and prepared to be at ease. “I think we are free from Dawson for a little while.”

  Such a happy time as they had, eating and talking and laughing together. McNair told her a little of his own life. His business had called for a good deal of traveling, but he hoped within another four or five months to be able to settle down and have a real home again, which he had not had for the past three years. He had business in New York that would keep him for a few days and then he was due for a trip to California that might hold him for weeks. It had to do with large contracts, and the opening of a new office in the West with a new manager, whom he must install and oversee until the work was running right. But meantime, he meant to make the best of his time in New York and help her to get acquainted with the city, if she would let him.

  Kerry’s delight said plainly that she was all too willing to let him. Kerry felt that she had never been so happy. She wondered if it was right to be as happy as she was.

  They talked too, of sweet and holy things, and Kerry said she had a lot of questions she wanted to ask him when she had them thought out clearly in her mind.

  “By the way,” said McNair as they reluctantly tore themselves away from the quiet room, “I took the liberty of telephoning my Mrs. Scott while you were talking to your publisher. She said she had the second story front room that was just vacated yesterday, and she would be delighted to have you for as long as you wanted to stay. Would you like to go there and rest for a little while, and then would you care to go out and see the town a bit, perhaps go to some good music if I can find any? Or are you too tired? Perhaps you would rather wait until another day.”

  “Oh,” said Kerry ecstatically, “I’m really not tired. I’m so relieved and happy! But indeed, I couldn’t let you do anything more for me. You’ve done already far too much.”

  “Then you do something for me.” He smiled. “Make me have a pleasant evening. I’ll be just out and out lonely if you don’t take mercy on me.”

  “Well, then I will,” laughed Kerry.

  So they stopped at the station and got their bags, and he took her to the old-fashioned house in the busy business district, tucked down in quite an unfashionable place, but fine and clean and comfortable, in spite of the faded old furniture. Mrs. Scott proved to be a motherly soul, and welcomed Kerry as though she had been longing for her all her life. She tried to make McNair come in and stay but he said he had mail waiting for him at the hotel and must go and see what new developments there were. So he went away, promising to have Kerry’s trunk sent at once, and to re
turn himself before eight o’clock.

  Kerry lay down without any idea of sleeping. She was too excited to even close her eyes, she thought. But when the trunk arrived a little before six o’clock it waked her out of a sound sleep, and she jumped up, not knowing where she was.

  When Kerry unlocked her trunk and hung her small, shabby wardrobe in the closet, she felt at home. From the big windows of the old brownstone building she looked down to the busy street in the early evening and was interested in all the hurrying people going to their homes. New York seemed a dear friendly place. Graham McNair was coming pretty soon to take her out. It would be the first time in her young life that a young man had ever taken her out in the evening. How strange, how wonderful it was going to be!

  She put on her little evening dress. It was the only “dress-up” she had, and she brushed her little black hat and coat, and polished her shabby shoes. Then she hunted out the string of pearl beads, her only ornaments. She looked at herself a trifle wistfully in the mirror. It would have been nice to have something new to wear this first time going out with a young man. But there! She must not be dissatisfied, with such wonderful things happening all day long!

  With a sudden wonder coming into her face she dropped upon her knees beside the bed.

  “Oh, dear Father—God, I thank Thee!” she said.

  McNair arrived at half past seven, and sent up a bunch of cool purple violets. In delight Kerry pinned them to her coat. He reported that there were no musical concerts that evening, but he had tickets for the next night at Carnegie Hall. The symphony orchestra would present a fine program with a wonderful Russian violinist as soloist.

  “However,” he said, “I ran across an old friend from Scotland. I did not know he was on this side of the water. I find he is speaking this evening. He is rare. I know you will like him. And you’ll be especially interested because he is talking on the Lord’s Coming and the signs of the times.”

  So Kerry went to a wonderful meeting, almost the first religious meeting she had ever attended, because the Kavanaugh family as a rule did not frequent churches or meetings of any kind, except to drop in now and then for the music. Isobel Kavanaugh was apt to have a headache when church was proposed of a Sunday. It rather bored her unless she had a new hat. And Shannon Kavanaugh had lived his life so within himself that he had got into the habit of staying at home unless somebody pried him out. So little Kerry had grown up without the habit of church-going.

  It was all new to her. The company of earnest people came because they loved it, and all brought their Bibles. The two or three gospel songs that were sung while they gathered thrilled her with their words. She delighted in the hearty, genuine way in which the audience sang. The prayer was a revelation, just as if the petitioner were standing face-to-face with God. And then the address from the man with the sweet, rugged face, and the burr on his tongue! It was not a sermon, just an unfolding of scripture compared with scripture, until the whole made an amazing story of something that was shortly to be!

  Kerry was deeply stirred, more deeply than she had ever been before. And then, quite suddenly at the end, the speaker said, “I see my dear friend, brother Graham McNair, in the audience. Will he lead us in a closing prayer?”

  If the wall behind the pulpit had suddenly opened and disclosed God’s throne, perhaps this new child of God would not have been more thrilled than to have the man beside her stand and begin to talk to God in that wonderful way, just talking about them all, and bringing them to the notice of the Father in the name of Jesus. She felt as if he had made special mention of her own name when he spoke of all their needs, so perfectly did his words fit the longings of her inmost soul.

  They stopped at a restaurant afterward, another quiet, exclusive place with a good string quartette playing somewhere at a distance.

  “For you know, we haven’t really had but two meals today,” McNair explained with a smile.

  He told her while they were eating that he had found some disturbing mail at the hotel. There was trouble and misunderstanding out at the new western office, and he might have to go out sooner than he expected. He had sent out several telegrams that might straighten things out, but it was a little uncertain yet. However, they would fill the time with sightseeing and interesting things as long as he was there, that is, as much time as she could spare.

  They arranged to meet early in the morning and do certain parts of the city so that she might learn her way quickly around. Then they began to talk about the meeting. Kerry was full of questions about the wonderful signs of the times of which she had never heard before until McNair himself had told her on the ship.

  She hurried upstairs after he had left her to look out of the window before she turned on her light, and see if she could see him. Yes, there he was standing under the arc light at the corner just across from her window. How tall and straight he was! She watched until he hailed a taxi and stepping in was whirled away out of her sight. Even then she stood staring at the empty spot that he had just left, conjuring her vision of him.

  A figure stepped down out of the shadow of a doorway across the street and came and stood in the light, looking after the departing cab. Then he turned and looked back toward Kerry’s lodging, and up toward the windows, and walked slowly up the street opposite the house. Something in the swing of the shoulders, the turn of the head, reminded her of Dawson, but of course it could not be. She watched the man a moment then pulled down her shade and turned on the light, humming a measure of the hymn they had sung in the meeting that evening. How glad and thankful she was to be on land and in a quiet safe house with a good woman, and to have such a friend as McNair to show her the way around the city. Gladder than all to be free from the bondage and care of that awful, precious manuscript and to know it was safe in the hands of the publisher and he was now responsible.

  Then she remembered that she had meant to ask Mrs. Scott for a drinking glass for her room, and decided to go down at once and get one before the woman had retired for the night.

  But when she opened her door she felt a draught as if the front door was open, and listening she heard voices—a man’s voice and Mrs. Scott. The man was asking if she had any vacant rooms, and she was offering to show him a room on the third floor. She could hear the front door closing and their footsteps coming up the stairs. Just in time she retreated, and pulled her door closed, but not too soon to hear Dawson’s familiar flat voice ask, “And who is on the second floor front? I should like the second-floor room if possible.”

  And Mrs. Scott replied, “No, that’s filled. A very nice young lady from England just took that room today.”

  They passed on up the stairs and Kerry could hear no more, but presently Mrs. Scott came down alone, and apparently the new lodger had taken the room and remained for the night.

  Kerry thought no more of getting her drinking glass. She sank down in despair on the edge of her bed with her hands over her face. What should she do now? If that was really Dawson then he meant to dog her steps. For it could not be just a happening that he had found the same house. He must have traced them somehow.

  And now, what should she do? Get out again and get away somewhere? She could scarcely do that. She had paid a week’s rent in advance, and could not afford to lose even the small price that had been charged. Besides, if she went somewhere else he might find her again. She could not keep up the game of hide-and-seek continually. She almost wished that she had had the man arrested that morning. Perhaps that would have frightened him away. But what could be his possible object now? Unless indeed he thought she still had the manuscript and there was a chance of getting possession of it again.

  When this idea came into her head Kerry got up and went to work as quietly as possible moving furniture around. She put her trunk across the door firmly, then made a further barricade of the bureau, a table, the bed, and two chairs, straight across the room, wedging a pillow securely between the last chair and the bed so that even if the door were unlocked it would be
impossible to budge it an inch. Until it was removed no one could get either in or out. She wondered grimly what would happen in case of fire, but decided it would not take long to push her barricade away if it became necessary. Anyway, she was free from burglars tonight, and tomorrow she would ask McNair’s advice. Then she went to bed and slept soundly.

  She was awakened by a tapping on her door early in the morning. Instantly alert she sprang from her bed wondering if Dawson would dare knock. She removed both the chairs in a twinkling. She threw her robe around her shoulders, and began to shove her trunk away when she was reassured by the voice of the landlady.

  “It’s just a telegram for you, Miss Kavanaugh,” she called, “I signed for it. I’ll shove it under the door.”

  Kerry thanked her and was quickly in possession of the telegram.

  A telegram! Now who would telegraph her? Her mother? Sam Morgan, perhaps? But how would they have her address so soon? Even detectives could hardly have managed that yet. The publishers? But she had not yet told them where she was located.

  A vague premonition of trouble pervaded her as she tore open the envelope and read.

  FOUND TELEGRAM AT HOTEL CALLING ME WEST IMMEDIATELY. AM LEAVING ON MIDNIGHT TRAIN. SO SORRY TO MISS DAY TOGETHER. WILL RETURN SOON AS POSSIBLE. MEANTIME USE CAUTION. ADVISE WITH PUBLISHER OR LANDLADY IN ANY ERPLEXITY. AM WRITING. ANXIOUS ABOUT YOU.

  GRAHAM MCNAIR

  Kerry found her knees growing weak under her, and sank into a chair, the yellow paper trembling in her hand. He was gone! Then she was all alone! And Dawson now in the same house with her! What should she do?

  Chapter 13

  It seemed to Kerry that the very foundations of the earth were shaking under her again. And when she came out of the first disappointment and began to look her soul in the eye honestly she had to own up that it was not the thought of Dawson in the house that had appalled her. It was only that her new friend was going far away and not knowing how soon he would return, if ever.