Kerry

by Grace Livingston Hill

  She got several yards of velvet ribbon, green to match the coat, for she was sure it would match her dress. She found a lovely lace cape collar like the one she saw in the window, not real lace, of course, but none of those in the windows seemed to be real. And if one were neatly and becomingly dressed what difference did it make after all?

  She found a store where all the felt hats were reduced. A whole window of lovely little felts for two ninety-eight apiece! There was a dear little green one just the right color!

  Kerry was growing excited now. Here she was getting a whole outfit and not spending half the price of one of those impossible Fifth Avenue coats!

  She found her shoes at a bargain sale on Seventh Avenue, amazingly pretty and cheap. And then, suddenly, she realized she was tired and wondered what she should do next. It was still only half past four and quite daylight. She did not want to get back to her lodging until dusk, so that if Dawson should be lingering around she need not encounter him. It would be easier to linger, and reconnoiter when it was dark. So making inquiry of a policeman she took the elevated train to the park.

  It was wonderful to sit down there in the comparative quiet and rest. She piled her bundles on a bench beside her, and went happily over her purchases in her mind, arguing with herself about each one as a woman will when she has spent herself and her money, and distrusts her own judgment after it is too late

  Kerry had almost forgotten her keen disappointment in McNair’s sudden disappearance, and her anxiety concerning Dawson’s appearance on the scene. But now it all came back and sat upon her. The happy evening she spent with McNair last night seemed now a dream, as far away almost as her father’s death, and much more improbable. It was just as lovely, just as treasured in her heart as it had been last night when she lay down to sleep, but it seemed ages ago. A whole day of experiences in a new city is a great leveler. She felt as if she had been utterly on her own in New York for several months.

  Yet she dwelt on the past dream wistfully, tenderly. She thought of the things she had heard in the meeting, of the great truths McNair had taught her, and sent up a swift prayer that they might not seem unreal also.

  There were children playing in the park, with nurses gossiping in groups and wheeling baby carriages. Kerry watched them awhile, now and then glancing down at the big white suit box that held her new coat, and the little packages in her lap, pleased that she was to have some new things. She wondered if she could mend the handle of her briefcase with needle and coarse thread so it would do for an overnight bag. For she had spent all the money she meant to spend no matter what she had forgotten.

  She glanced at her watch. It was only five o’clock. The approaching spring made dusk slow in coming. But in an hour or so she would go and find a cheap restaurant and get some supper, though she was almost too tired to eat.

  She was planning how she would make her green velvet bows for the chiffon dress when she heard footsteps approaching. She did not look up. She was watching a little child in the next path feeding peanuts to a little gray squirrel, a cunning little fellow who put his gray hand over his white heart and begged for more.

  “Good evening!” said a flat, thin voice. “I thought I’d find you somewhere around here! People always go to Central Park sooner or later when they first come to New York!”

  Kerry looked up with a start, growing dismay in her face, a kind of consternation upon her that stunned her for the moment.

  Dawson stooped over and picked up the coat box, moving as if to sit down beside her.

  Kerry caught at the cord of the box, and drew it toward her, standing it on edge on the bench, like a barricade between them.

  “That’s all right, I can hold it,” persisted Dawson, still holding the box.

  “I prefer to have it here,” said Kerry out of a throat that had suddenly gone dry as a reed.

  “Oh, then, all right. Suit yourself !” laughed Dawson disagreeably. “I suppose you don’t trust me. Well, that’s what I came about. I want to explain.”

  “It’s really not necessary to explain. Mr. Dawson,” said Kerry suddenly, gathering up her packages and looking obviously at her watch. “I was just going—I was just waiting till it was time—”

  Dawson looked at her warily.

  “You don’t think you’re waiting for McNair, do you? Because I can tell you he’s gone. Took the midnight train last night. You knew that, didn’t you? You see we were at the same hotel, and I happened to be down in the office when his telegram came calling him West. I used to be an operator on Western Union, several years ago when I was getting ready for college, and of course I couldn’t help reading the code as it came in.”

  Something cold and powerful seemed to be gripping Kerry’s throat like a vise. Cold chills started running up and down her spine. She felt all at once very little and helpless.

  Oh, God, my new Father—God! she cried in her soul. Help me quick!

  This man was uncanny! There was no getting away from him! She did not know just what it was she was afraid of, but she knew it was time to run for cover, so she cried to the only help she knew.

  Lifting her eyes with a wild desperation in them, she saw in the near distance, a big green and white double decker bus come rumbling along toward the curb at the end of the little path that led to her bench. Gripping her coat box and her little packages, she sprang to her feet.

  “Oh, I must get that bus,” she cried and fled away down the dusky path barely reaching the curb in time before the bus started on again. She did not look back. She dared not. She climbed in and sat down in a far corner, glad only that she had got away, having a strange feeling that she was protected by an unseen power.

  She did not know which way she was going, nor whether her enemy had followed in some passing taxi, or whether she might not be going in an entirely wrong direction. She only knew she was going. By and by when she was far away from this spot she would ask some questions of the sphinx-like conductor. She would go so far that if she was out of her way she would have to stay in this same bus and come back with it.

  So Kerry rode to the end of the line and back again into the region she knew. By that time she was half ashamed of herself for her foolishness. After all what could the man do? He was just annoying, that was all. She had no more papers that he could steal. He would gain nothing by doing harm to herself. She must be sane and simply freeze him out if he turned up again.

  She stopped at a little restaurant and got her supper, and in the early dusk went back to her lodging house, feeling that she had shaken off her foolish fear of Dawson.

  As she stepped into the gloom of the poorly lighted hallway a figure appeared in the door of the stuffy little parlor on the left, and a flat voice broke upon her startled ear.

  “I was just about to say, when you broke away and ran for that bus, that I have tickets for a good play tonight, and I’d be glad if you would go with me!”

  Chapter 14

  Kerry stood nonplussed. She felt almost too angry to speak. It was almost like an insult that a man who had twice stolen from her and evidently even now must have some ulterior motive in his constant following of her, should presume to pay her attention of this sort. Still there was nothing gained inletting him see her annoyance, so she summoned her patience and replied coolly, “Thank you, Mr. Dawson. I am very busy this evening. It would be impossible for me to go out anywhere.”

  “Well, then we’ll make it tomorrow evening,” he said calmly in his flat, businesslike tone.

  “I shall be away over the weekend,” said Kerry and then was sorry she had admitted even so much.

  “All right, we’ll say Monday night,” said the unbaffled little fox. “I’m sure there’ll be some good play Monday night.”

  Kerry drew herself up to her full height and looked him in the eye.

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” she said curtly, “I don’t care to make an engagement to go out. As I told you, I am very busy all the time.”

  Kerry tried to pass o
n to the stairs, but Dawson planted himself in her pathway.

  “Look here!” he said determinedly. “You can’t always keep on running away from me. You’ve got to hear me out. I was attempting to proceed in the usual way, but your abrupt manner makes it impossible, so I’ll come to the point at once. I intend to marry you!”

  “Oh, mercy!” said Kerry, taken off her guard, and ending her exclamation suddenly with a clear hysterical laugh. Then sobering as quickly she said in a freezing tone, “That is quite impossible, Mr. Dawson! I have no intention of ever marrying you! Will you let me pass, please?”

  She swept past him and up the stairs, her head up, the very set of her slender shoulders expressing haughtiness.

  Dawson stood below watching her, a kind of conceited doggedness clothing him like a garment. As she swept out of sight on the floor above and paused to unlock her door his voice came flat and distinct, like a heavy bundle falling on the floor beside her.

  “That has nothing to do with the case, Miss Kavanaugh. I still intend to.”

  Kerry got herself inside her room and locked the door. Dropping into a chair with her bundles beside her she dropped her face into her hands and shook with ill-suppressed laughter, but when she lifted her face again she found it was wet with tears also, that had drenched her hands.

  She got up presently and went and washed her face, but every now and then the hysterical giggles would break out anew. She just could not stop laughing and crying. And yet it was not funny that she should be pestered with this horrid little man. It was most annoying. It was a desperate situation. His last words echoed up to her door made it quite plain that she had not squelched him in the least. How long could a thing like this last? How long could one stand it and not go mad?

  She threw herself across her bed and buried her face in the pillow.

  “Dear Father God, won’t You please help me!” she cried again and again. By and by she grew calmer and was able to think the thing through. There was a reason of course for this sudden development, and she began to see what it probably might be. Failing in his first purpose of gaining notoriety from stolen bits from her father’s new book, he had conceived the idea of gaining his point in a wider and more definite way by accepting the position of son-in-law to a great man. He would thus assure himself of at least reflected glory, and climb to fame over her dead father’s name, using his wonderful book as a stepping-stone.

  A surge of indignation went over her, leaving her weak and furious at the thought, and making her loathe the little man beyond his worth.

  “I must stop this!” she said aloud to herself, and sat up, smoothing back her hair. “I am God’s, and He will take care of me. Besides, He has made a way for me to get away from it all over Sunday and when I come back I shall have my new work.”

  So she got up and went to making green velvet bows for her dress. Later she took her chiffon dress down to Mrs. Scott’s neat kitchen and pressed it. When the bows were added, it looked quite as if it just came out of the store. Mrs. Scott came up to see how it looked with the bows in place, and Kerry put it on. They had a nice little homelike chat together over the dress, and when Mrs. Scott went downstairs Kerry felt cheered and comforted. Perhaps most of all because Mrs. Scott had told a little incident or two of her life in the McNair family, how kind and thoughtful Graham McNair had always been, and what a wonderful mother he had had. Kerry, as she locked her door and lay down to rest, felt happy in the thought that she might call him her friend. How different he was from Dawson! Oh, if he could only have stayed a little while perhaps Dawson would not have dared tag her around this way! Still, now he had declared his purpose it would really be less sinister, because she would surely avoid him most of the time and perhaps he would get discouraged after a while.

  Kerry slipped across the road to a shoemakers early in the morning and got the handle of her briefcase mended. It would have to do for an overnight bag, for the only bag she had was far too large, and shabby.

  Several times during the morning Kerry thought she heard the door at the head of the third-story stairs open for a moment then close again, as if some one were listening at the head of the stairs, but at last about noon she heard Dawson come down and go out the front door. Then she hastened her preparations and soon was out and away, hoping perhaps she had escaped his vigilance. Yet she half expected to see him lurking around the train gate as she went out with Mr. Holbrook.

  If he was there she did not see him, and was greatly relieved to be seated at last in the train and on her way to a suburb along the Hudson.

  The trip, which lasted a little over a half hour, was a pleasant one. Holbrook talked much about her father and the reverence in which he was held in the world of scholars. Kerry found herself wishing again that her mother could hear all that he was saying. Oh, if her mother had only realized what the world thought of the man she had so quickly forgotten for a little ease and luxury! Kerry knew Isobel well enough to know that she would almost have been willing to starve rather than lose the prestige of being the wife of a man whom the world held in high honor. But her mother never had believed that Shannon Kavanaugh was anything but an idle dreamer. A shabby idle dreamer. Dear, of course, in a homely way and good to use as a mirror in which to reflect her own lovely, useless little self, but a nonentity as far as the world was concerned.

  The home at which she presently arrived in a shining limousine from the station seemed palatial to Kerry, who was used to cheap hotels in back streets in the crowded portion of Europe cities. It was built of stone with many arches, and wide porches, and fascinating gables, roofed in heavy slate that gave the effect of thatching. English ivy climbed lavishly everywhere, and the grounds were lovely and well kept. Even this early in the spring the lawn had an air of freshness and tidiness, as if there had been no winter. There were daffodils bursting out in riotous bloom along the hedges and borders, and a large bed of pink and white and blue hyacinths filled the air with wonderful fragrance.

  Even before she got out of the car Kerry could see the river shining like a big band of silver in the distance, and boats plying up and down. She exclaimed in delight at the view as they stood for a moment on the porch before going in.

  “Why! It must be almost like heaven to live in a place like this!” said Kerry.

  The tired business man looked down indulgently on the sweet girl face, framed in that halo of red-gold hair, and wondered what it was about this girl that was so refreshing. He wished—

  He did not know what it was he wished, for the door opened at that instant and another girl about Kerry’s age stood there with a reproach on her lips, and sharpness in her eyes.

  She might have been a pretty girl but there was too much makeup and lipstick to even pretend to be natural, and the black hair was too severely arranged, showing the whole of the pretty ears, giving her a touch of boldness.

  “For cat’s sake, Dad! Why this unearthly hour? I told you to come on the twelve train. You knew we were due at the country club at two. Now we’ll have to simply rush through lunch and no time to change!”

  “Have a care, Natalie, child, don’t be rude!” protested her father indulgently. “This is Miss Kavanaugh. You can surely take time to speak to her. As for the twelve train, I told you that was out of the question. Saturday is the busiest day of the week. I was lucky to get off on the one train.”

  Natalie surveyed her guest with cool appraisement.

  “Awfully glad to see you,” she announced coolly. “Where is your bag?” She glanced disapprovingly at the briefcase whose mending stitches seemed suddenly to Kerry to shout to her hostess for recognition—and get it, too. “Now, Dad! Didn’t you tell Miss Kavanaugh to bring her golf and evening things? I told you the very last thing last night you know!”

  “Look here, Nattie, can’t you let us come in? I had no opportunity to tell Miss Kavanaugh anything, child. We met at the train gate five minutes before one. You wouldn’t have had her wait and go back to pack, would you? Certainly you must hav
e things enough to lend her if she hasn’t brought hers with her.”

  Here Kerry rose to the occasion with a bit of her own lofty manner acquired somewhere in Europe and used only on rare occasions.

  “Oh, don’t mind me,” she said with a queenly lift of her chin, and a smile that could be daunted by nothing. “If I haven’t the right things for the occasion, I’ll just sit here on the porch and watch the view. It’s grand enough to fill several whole days and nights, too, I should think.”

  Natalie stared at her and gave an odd little laugh of contempt.

  “Oh, if you feel that way!” she said. “That’s the way Dad talks. That’s why we’re stranded out in this dead dump instead of being in our town house. Well, I’m sure I’m glad if you enjoy it!”

  The lunch was indeed a somewhat rushed affair, for Natalie occupied the center of the stage and kept things in tumult.

  Mrs. Holbrook proved to be a slender, nervous woman, smartly dressed, and rouged, an older edition of Natalie. She was wearing her hat all ready to go out. Between them they nagged the husband and father most unmercifully about everything that was mentioned, yet he seemed fond of them. The mother was scarcely warmer in her greeting than the daughter had been, yet there was about the home an atmosphere of informality, as if every member of the family brought home whom they pleased quite freely, and Kerry felt almost at once set down as a visitor on account of the office, to whom they had to be polite for business reasons.

  When the meal was half done two young men came in, one dark and slim and lithe, Natalie’s twin brother, Harrington Holbrook, the other a big Celtic-looking athlete who immediately absorbed Natalie to the exclusion of all others. Kerry would have been quite willing to sit in the background and listen, but Harrington Holbrook was seated beside her, and he at once began to talk to her with far more friendliness in his voice than either his mother or sister, who after their first greeting, had left her practically to herself. Mr. Holbrook’s whole attention was taken up in lazily and amusedly defending himself, which he did in much the same manner as he might have brushed off a litter of puppies or kittens that were swarming over him. There was a stroke and a pat in his voice each time he put them off.