Tomorrow About This Time (7 page)

His most amazing child had rattled on without letup thus far, and this was the first period he had been able to grasp. He hurried to make use of it, meanwhile glancing nervously at the clock. “School!

Yes. School! May I ask why you are not in school yourself?”

“Oh!” she wreathed the dimples coquettishly around her lips. “Why, didn’t you know I had been expelled?” She dimpled charmingly as though it were something to be proud of. “I suppose Lilla didn’t tell you because she was afraid you’d be shocked, but you might as well know all about it at the start. It saves misunderstandings. You see, we had a pajama party!”

“A pajama party!” cried the horrified father.

“Oh now, Daddy Pat! You needn’t pull a long face and make out you never did such things. You know you had jazzy times when you went to school, and you can’t be young but once. There isn’t anything so terrible in a pajama party! You see the whole trouble was I got caught out on the fire escape in mine and all the rest got away, so I had to be expelled, but it was fun. I don’t care. I’d do it all over again just to see how Guzzy Foster—that’s the math prof—looked when that ice and salt went down his back. You see it was this way. One of the girls had a box of treats from home, and she happened to tell one of the boys from the military prep that she had it, and he coaxed to get some of the things. So May Beth told him if he and some of his friends would come under the fire escape at exactly midnight she’d drop down a box of cake for them. Well, everything went all right till the party was almost over and the girls had eaten all they could stuff, and they had the box for the boys all packed and I was to go out and throw it down to them because May Beth had an awful cold and her pajamas were just thin silk and she was all of a shiver anyway from eating so much cold ice cream. So I said I didn’t mind even if it was cold. I thought it would be fun, and I went out with the box and whistled softly for the boys, and they answered once, and then it was all very still. It was moonlight, and I could see them lined up among the bushes on the campus. I swung the box over the railing and whispered, ‘Here she comes,’ and just as I did it I somehow caught my toe in the burlap that came off the ice-cream freezer—I had on Tillie Irvin’s pink satin slippers with forget-me-nots on them, and she was sore as a boil at me about that, too—and then before I knew what was happening, I somehow hit the ice-cream freezer and knocked it over, and
slosh!
Out went all the sloppy ice and salt water through the iron grating on the fire escape, and I looked down and there was Guzzy Foster—he and his wife have their apartment right under my room, and we thought they were away for the weekend, that’s why we chose my room for the party. He was just inside his window with his head stuck out of an old red bathrobe looking up—the old ferret. He was always snooping round to stop any fun that was going—and he caught the whole stream of icy salt water full in his face and down his old mathematical back, and I hope he gets pneumonia from it. He’s the limit! Well, I heard him gasp and splutter and draw in his head, and I heard the boys snicker down in the bushes and scatter out to the street—they got the cake all right. I called one of ‘em up on the phone at the station before I left and found out—and I just danced up and down in those pink satin slippers with the forget-me-nots and howled for a minute, it was so funny. And then all of a sudden I realized it had got very still behind me, and I looked in the window and the lights were out. There wasn’t a sound of a girl to be heard, and down the hall I could hear hard steps that sounded like Mrs. Foster, so I tried to get in the window, but it was fastened! Babe Heath did that because she thought if the window was locked they wouldn’t think to look out. But there I was in thin silk pajamas and the wind blowing up from the river like ice! It was grand skating the next day so you may know it was pretty fierce! But I stuck it out till she found me, and they expelled me so quick Lilla didn’t have a chance to come and see what was the matter. They just sent me home that night chaperoned by Guzzy Foster himself. His name’s Augustus Charles, but we call him Guzzy, and I had a horrid, horrid time, so it’s up to you to be good to me!”

Patterson Greeves gasped and grasped the arms of the big chair into which he had dropped as Athalie entered, looking at his child in abject helplessness. The distant sound of an approaching train stirred him to nervous action once more.

“I certainly cannot approve of your outrageous conduct,” he began, in a tone such as he might have used in his classroom. “It was inexcusable, impossible, indecent! I cannot think how a girl could bring herself to so demean herself. And the first thing you must do will be to write a humble acknowledgment and apology to the principal of the institution and promise that for the future your conduct shall be irreproachable. I will see at once about your reinstatement, and I cannot accept in future any disregard of the rules of the school or of the rules of good breeding.”

But the girl broke in with a boisterous laugh: “What’s that you say? Me go back to that school? Well, I guess anyhow not.
Not on your life, I don’t!
You couldn’t
drag
me within sight of the old dump. I’m done with it forever, and I’ll tell the world
I’m glad
! Why? Don’t you like me? Doesn’t this dress suit you any better? I’ve got some stunners in my trunks. When do you think they will bring them out from the city? Can’t we get a car and go after them? I’m just dying to show you some of my things and the big portrait of Lilla she had taken for the general!”

Greeves arose, white and angry.

“Get on your traveling things at once!” he almost shouted. “We are going back to your school. It is impossible for you to stay here. I am a very busy man. I have important work to do.” He glanced wildly at his watch and then gave a quick look out of the window as he strode to the bell and touched it, flinging open the hall door and looking up the stairs.

“But I am not going back to school!” declared Athalie with a black look. “I’m going to stay right here! I won’t be the least trouble in the world. I’ll have my friends, and you can have yours. I’ll go my way, and you can go yours. That’s the way Lilla and I always did. Only, Daddy Pat, have we got to have that old limb of a housekeeper around? I hate her! I couldn’t get on with her a day. I’m sure I’d shock her. She’s a pie-faced hypocrite, and you’d better fire her. I’ll run the house. I know how! Daddy Pat—may I call you
Pat?”

“No!
” thundered the scientist. “You may not. You may say ‘Father’ if it’s necessary to call me anything!” He glared at her. “And you may go to your room at once and stay there until I send for you!” he added suddenly, as he glanced once more out of the window and saw an automobile draw up before the door. Then both of them became aware that Anne Truesdale stood in the open door, her face as white as her starched apron, a look of consternation upon her meek face, and her hands clasped nervously at her belt.

Chapter 6

I
t
had not occurred to the minister until he came within sight of the station and heard the whistle of the approaching train that he had come on a most embarrassing errand.

It had appeared to him as he talked with her father and read her letter that the girl he was about to escort to her home might be anywhere between twelve and fifteen years old. His information concerning Patterson Greeves’s history had been vague and incomplete. He looked like a young man for all this experience, and the minister had jumped to the conclusion that both girls were quite young.

But when the train drew up at the station and the only stranger who got out proved to be a lovely young woman dressed with quiet but exquisite taste and with an air of sweet sophistication, he became suddenly aware that the errand he had come upon was one of an exceedingly delicate nature, and he wished with all his soul he had not undertaken it.

She carried a small suitcase in her hand and walked with an air of knowing exactly where she was going. She paused only an instant to glance around her and then went straight to the station waiting room and checked her suitcase. She did it with so much apparent forethought, as if she had been there before and knew exactly what she had to do, that the young man hesitated and looked around for a possible other arrival who might be the girl he had come to meet. But the train snorted and puffed its way slowly into motion and started on, and no other passengers appeared. As she turned away from the checking desk he came hesitantly up to her, and their eyes met.

She was slight and small with a well-formed head poised alertly and delicate features that gave one the sense of being molded and used by a spirit alive to more than the things of this earth. The impression was so strong that he hesitated, with hat lifted in the very act of introducing himself, to look again with startled directness into a face that was so exactly a counterpart of what he had dreamed a girl someday might be that he had the feeling of having been thrust with appalling unreadiness into her presence.

She had violet eyes with a frank clear glance, hair that curled naturally and frilled about her face catching the sunbeams, lips that curved sweetly but firmly, and the complexion of a wild rose newly washed in dew. She looked like a spirit flower that yet was entirely able to take care of herself on earth.

“Is this—” he hesitated, remembering that he did not know her name, and finished lamely, “Mr. Greeves’s daughter?”

She lifted her eyes with a quick searching look and smiled. “You are not—You could not be—my father.”

Bannard smiled. “No, I have not that honor. Your father is—” he hesitated again. Why hadn’t he thought up some excuse for the father who was not there? It seemed inexcusable—now that he saw the daughter—not to meet such a daughter! “Your father is—importantly engaged! He has only just arrived himself!”

He felt he was doing better.

“He only had opportunity to read your letter a few minutes ago, and it was impossible for him to get to the train. He asked me to meet you—”

She smiled with a rich warm welcome for her father’s friend, and he felt a glow of comfort.

“My name is Bannard,” he finished. “I hope we’re to be friends also.” He put out his hand, and she took it graciously and thanked him.

He directed her to his car and helped her in then hesitated: “Your baggage? Didn’t I see you check a suitcase? Wouldn’t you like me to get it?”

A soft rose bloomed out in the girl’s cheeks, and her lashes drooped deeply over her cheeks for an instant, then she lifted steady eyes and said: “No. I believe not, thank you. I’m not sure until I see—my father—whether I shall remain or go on to New York this afternoon.”

He found himself strangely disturbed over this state of things. He wanted to assure her that of course she must not go on anywhere. This was the place that needed her. But of course he could say nothing. He might not even tell her that her father was in trouble. He had not been given permission to do anything but bring her to her home and that by as long a route as possible.

“We’re going by a roundabout way,” he explained as he headed his car for a detour quite away from the old Silver place. “There’s a bad bit of road they are repairing—” He was thankful that he had happened to notice the men at work on his way down and therefore could truthfully give an explanation to this clear-eyed maiden who it seemed to him must be able to read his embarrassment through the very fabric of his coat.

“Shall we pass the old Presbyterian church?” she asked eagerly, leaning forward and looking around as though it were a spot she knew well by heart but had never seen with her eyes.

“Why, yes, we can,” he responded eagerly. “Are you especially interested in that?” And he looked down with a smile and then a wonder at the light in her eyes.

“It is where my father went to church,” she answered, as if repeating things she had learned well. “And there is a cemetery where my relatives are buried. I was interested to see it.”

He drove the car down a smooth ribbon of a road that curved around with wooded land on one side and mellow fields of rippling green on the other, with a glimpse off at the right of the Silver River and Frogtown factories smothered in pale budding willows against a turquoise sky.

“It is beautiful here, isn’t it?” The girl’s eyes glowed. She drew in long breaths of the spring air. There were violets at the side of the road, and it came to him how like her eyes they were.

They crossed a stone bridge and headed more directly toward the river, and she exclaimed over the bright winding ribbon of water. Just because he had promised to make the trip long, because he liked to see the wild rose color in the round cheeks glow when she opened her eyes wide at the view, he slowed down the car and checked some minute squeak in the engine. Not that it was important. Not that he did anything about it. Just a pleasant little delay. It seemed to him he was experiencing a charmed privilege that was slipping by all too quickly and that he would grasp as it went. It might not ever come his way again.

On their way again they wound around the clump of beeches and came into the main street of Silver Sands, all shining in the morning sunlight with serene houses on either side in long stretches of green, and new gardens in geometrical lines behind the houses flanked by regiments of beanpoles. A wide straw hat sheltered a lady picking strawberries in the patch of luxuriant vines. The breath of the day was sweet with growing things. The people walked crisply down the pleasant maple-shaded pavements as though the going were enjoyment. The anvil rang out with silver sound from the blacksmith shop as they passed. People began to hail the minister with a glad lighting of eyes, and he was kept busy lifting his hat and waving his hand cheerily. Even the boys in the street greeted him, and then curious half-jealous eyes turned to study his companion as they swept on their way.

“They all know you,” the girl commented. “I’m sure you must live in Silver Sands.”

“I do,” he responded. “It is a good place to live. My particular corner is just down that next street, the white house with the rose trellis over the door. I board with a blessed old lady whom everybody calls Aunt Katie Barnes. She nearly turns herself out of house and home trying to find new ways of making me comfortable. It is a very friendly community. They take one in heart and soul.”