Grandmother smiled affably.
“That’s like Max,” she said. “He always was scatterbrained. But I thought he had a good secretary. I was wondering where those papers were. I almost telephoned him about them. It was most kind of you to bring them. And now, let me present my granddaughter, Sheila Ainslee. If you’ll sit down just a minute I’ll get my pen and sign these right away.”
So Grandmother went her way into the library and left Sheila alone with the first really educated, cultured young man to whom she had ever spoken. Sheila was suddenly overcome with embarrassment.
Chapter 4
But the young man was not in the least embarrassed. He looked at the sweet girl in her childish little butterfly dress, with the glow of the firelight flickering over her delicate features, making purple shadows in the black waves of her hair that banded around her head so symmetrically, and he was filled with delight. Did they have girls like this over here? She seemed the kind one read about in old, old books of days long since gone by.
She had none of the assurance, the sophistication, the poise, the impertinence of the girls he had been meeting since he came over this time. She seemed not to be ashamed to be a woman, nor to keep in the background.
“You live here with your grandmother?” he asked eagerly as he pushed forward a chair for her to be seated.
She lifted shy eyes of uncertainty under those wonderful dark curled lashes.
“I—why—you see, I have just come today,” she answered, settling down in the chair, crossing her small feet in their laced blue shoes and letting her hands lie quietly in her lap with a shy stiffness he could not quite understand. “Grandmother has asked me to stay—” She finished with a sweeping glance that yet held not the least bit of coquetry.
“It seems a delightful place to stay,” he said with a quick look around that included the whole room with its vistas to dining room, stairway, and moonlit porch. He sat down beside the fireplace and looked at her again with clear eyes full of admiration.
“Oh, it is wonderful!” she said eagerly, her face flushing with pleasure, just like a child’s, her eyes starry. “Have you seen the garden? There are lilies and a hummingbird—a green and gold hummingbird!”
“I only caught a glimpse of the garden in the moonlight as I came in,” he answered. “The lilies were like silver specters trying to look over the garden wall to the sea.”
“Oh, do you think of them that way, too?” she asked earnestly. “I fancied they were little people. They are so lovely they must have thoughts. Flowers are always half human to me. But I’ve never dared speak about it to anyone but my mother.”
“Is your mother here with you?” he asked, just to have opportunity to watch the play of light and shadow on her speaking face.
It was like an April cloud coming in the sky to see the sudden sadness his question brought.
She shook her head slowly. “No, she is gone!” she said sorrowfully. “She is in heaven!” she added almost defiantly. “I’m sure she is.”
“I should think, of course,” said the young man thoughtfully, and added in his heart, Since she was capable of bringing up a girl like you.
The tension in her face relaxed, and she gave him a faint sparkle of a smile.
“Your home was far away from here?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said quickly, almost as if she were glad, “very far. Almost to the California line.”
“That is not far,” he said with pleasant smile. “Not when you fly. I’ve just come back from there. I might have passed over your house. Who knows? What was the name of your town?”
“It wasn’t a town,” said Sheila reservedly. “It was only a few little houses and a railroad junction. You wouldn’t be able to find it on the map. It was too small. There was nothing but wild land around there. A few ranches, all far apart. I went to school three miles away at a little settlement called Coburn, but there weren’t a dozen other houses there, and it was off the railroad.”
He looked at the shy grace of her and marveled. Then he spoke his thoughts: “You must have had a marvelous mother.”
“Oh, I did! She was everything! I don’t know how I am going to live without her.”
His eyes flashed tender sympathy. “I wish I had known I was to meet you when I flew over that part of the country. I would have liked to look down and see where you lived.”
Sheila gave a little ripply laugh. Her face was full of sparkle. Then she sobered and submitted a subject of conversation on her own account.
“It must be wonderful to fly,” she mused. “Planes used to go over us there sometimes, very far up. They never stopped. They did not come often either. But I always ran out to watch them if I could. I used to wonder what kind of people dared to go up there above the clouds with so much confidence. I never thought I would meet one of them.”
“Well, now that’s interesting,” he said. “I wish I’d known you were down there when I was flying over you. You know, I’ve been out in California part of the winter and all the spring. I often took short trips down into Mexico and, in fact, all about in that region. I would have loved to drop down and call upon you. Perhaps I might even have had the pleasure of taking you up for a little ride, if I had only known you then.”
Sheila’s eyes grew large and dreamy, startled, too. She was trying to envision what it might have been like to have had a young man like this call upon her at the Junction. She imagined the people he would have had to see, the threadbare garments she would have been wearing, the dance hall where her mother had to sing, the whole unkempt, tawdry appearance of the straggling settlement called the Junction, and then she looked up and shook her head.
“You wouldn’t have liked it,” she said soberly. “I don’t believe you would have liked me. I had to work hard, and I wasn’t dressed up.” She gave a quick glance of respect at the little blue dress she was wearing.
“You don’t think friendship consists in the clothes we are wearing, do you?”
Sheila looked thoughtful. “Perhaps it oughtn’t to,” she answered, “but—I should think it might make some difference—right at the beginning, anyway.”
“Well,” said the young man with a friendly smile just the least bit daring perhaps, “you’re wearing delightfully right ones tonight, anyway. And I’m hoping you are going to stay here this summer, because I’m planning to be here awhile myself a little later on. I’d like to be seeing you some more if you don’t mind.”
Sheila gave him a wondering smile. She didn’t quite know what to say to that. But she didn’t have to answer, for Grandmother came trotting back in a businesslike way, waving the paper she had just signed.
“My pen was empty, of course,” she said. “It’s always empty when I need it in a hurry, and I had a time trying to find the ink. Janet has been writing a letter in the kitchen, and she borrowed it. It certainly was kind of you to take all this trouble! I hope I haven’t kept you waiting too long, Mr. Galbraith.”
“No, indeed!” said the visitor, rising as if he were loath to leave. “I’ve been enjoying it here, and I wish I could stay and get acquainted with you both. This fire feels good even though we did have a pretty warm day, for the breeze off the sea has come up strong since sunset. I wonder if you’ll let me come back sometime soon? I’m going to be at Uncle Hugh’s off and on all summer.”
“Come soon and often,” welcomed Grandmother. “There was a note from Max in there saying you were one of Gregory’s choice friends. That’s introduction enough for me. You’ll always be welcome.”
When he came to shake hands in leaving, Sheila looked up with her eyes shining and managed a shy question: “Did you say you were flying back tonight? Do you go over this house?”
“Why, yes,” said the young man. “I will. Leave the porch light on for me, will you, Mrs. Ainslee? I’d like to look down and think of you two sitting cozily together beside this nice fire.”
“I’ll leave the porch light on all right,” said Grandmother with a twinkle. ?
??But we two’ll not be sitting cozily by the fire while you fly over our heads. We’ll be out in the garden yonder watching you fly. I always like to see my friends off, whether by land or sea or sky.”
“All right then, look for my card out somewhere in the garden tomorrow morning,” he said, smiling at Sheila. “You’ll find it, I fancy, unless the hummingbird gets there before you. I’ll be passing over here in a little less than an hour, I should think.”
They all stood together a moment on the porch with the moonlight making a halo behind his head, and then he was gone through the wicket gate, and they could hear his footsteps for a moment padding briskly along the hard wet beach.
“The Galbraiths are very nice people,” said Grandmother as she turned back into the room again. “This must be one of the Scotch nephews his uncle Hugh is always talking about. He seems a nice sort. We’ll have to invite him down. And now, child,” she said, dropping into her big rocking chair, “tell me about the man you ran away from. What was he like?”
“Oh, Grandmother!” said Sheila in dismay, putting a hand involuntarily over her heart. “You wouldn’t like to hear about him. He was dreadful! He was like a—a—snake!”
“Maybe not, child, but I guess I need to know about him. I might meet him sometime, and I’d want to recognize him at once, you know.”
“Oh, but Grandmother!” There was fright in the girl’s voice. “He wouldn’t come here! So far!”
“Maybe not, child! I don’t suppose he would. But I want to be prepared. How did he look?”
Sheila gave a little shiver and clutched her hands together nervously. “He was tall and bold and had shining black hair, just as if it were varnished. He had thick lips that sneered, even when he smiled, and showed a lot of big white teeth. People thought he was handsome, but he always made me shudder. I hated his lips. Once he tried to kiss me! Oh! It was awful! I got away, but I never went where he was if I could help it after that. He had eyes like—well, you’ll laugh, but they were like little white boiled onions. They were sort of full for their places. I heard people in the hotel say they were stunning eyes, but they looked wicked to me. And when he smiled it was like a dart of lightning.”
Grandmother was listening, wide eyed.
“Did he have a laugh like a horse, Sheila?” she asked in a startled voice. “And was he a friend of your father’s?”
“Why, yes, Grandmother! How could you know?”
“I know!” said Grandmother. “I suspected. That was Bucknell Hasbrouck, and he was always a bad boy. Even when he was in the primary school he was a bad little boy. He used to do the most devilish things. When he was only five, he took a little fellow out to the swimming pool down in the woods and pushed him in. They didn’t find his body until the next day. But another boy told he had seen him pushing him in, and finally he owed up he had because the other boy had candy and he wanted it. He took the candy and pushed him in. He said he didn’t know the boy couldn’t swim. They let him off, of course, because he was only a baby, but he went right on doing things and not getting caught, till one day he helped to hold up a freight train with some other bigger boys, and they sent him to jail. Then when he got out, he seemed to be a great hero to the rest of the boys. Your father was somehow under his influence. I never understood why. And when your father went away, it was the same night that Buck disappeared. And Buck was proved to have broken into the bank and taken two hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of cash and bonds that they couldn’t get back.”
“Oh, Grandmother!” said Sheila, her eyes big with trouble. “You didn’t think Father was in a thing like that, do you?”
“I never believed he was,” said Grandmother sadly. “He had always been honest. At least, I never had any cause to suspect him. He was a real bad boy and had to be punished a great deal, but I never knew him to be dishonest. But it did look bad for him, dearie. It almost broke your grandfather’s heart. He was a director of the bank and had to make good, of course, and he did, but it rankled in his heart that there was any possibility of suspicion attached to his son. Of course there were fingerprints to show that Buck had been there, and Buck had been in trouble before; and there was nothing to prove that our boy was mixed in it, only that he was always thick with Buck in the old school days and that he went away. I used to think maybe he had had some minor part in the affair without knowing how far Buck was going, perhaps, and got frightened when he saw how the thing had turned out. But we never knew. I often thought that hastened your grandfather’s death.”
“But didn’t my father write to you, Grandmother?”
Sheila had drawn a little footstool close to her grandmother’s knee and was sitting with her elbows on her knees, her troubled eyes looking up into the old lady’s, a new terror in her countenance.
“Yes, he wrote,” said Grandmother. “He wrote and said he had a good job out in Chicago, and we sent out there and had him watched and found he really was going pretty straight, working every day and boarding at a respectable place and not spending a lot of money anywhere, as he might have done if he had profited by Buck’s robbery. But he didn’t write often, and by and by he disappeared again for a long time, and then he wrote from away out West telling me about this wonderful girl he had met, and how he was going to keep straight now if I would only help him out. But—do you wonder, Sheila, that I thought it was only one more trouble he was getting into?”
“No, Grandmother! I don’t blame you at all now,” said Sheila with a trembling lip.
“Well, I blame myself. I should have gone out there myself right away and found out about everything. I shouldn’t have been so taken up with my new grandchildren and my own life. I had got used to thinking my Andy would never be any good. And then he disappeared again, and I didn’t know where to find him. Not for three or four years did I hear from him, and then he wrote that he was getting on nicely and told about you. But he still seemed hard and bitter at me and said things that hurt. I used to lie awake at night and cry about it. I used to blame myself, too, for not having done something when he was younger. But the next day all the children would blame me for worrying about a good-for-nothing, and I would shut my teeth hard and try to bear it. And I prayed for him every night always. Oh, my boy, my boy! He always went wrong, Sheila, from just a little fellow! Such a pretty little fellow! I suppose it was my fault somehow, but I didn’t know it at the time.”
“Don’t—dear Grandmother!” said Sheila, her own tears flowing now. “Perhaps he couldn’t help it!”
“Don’t ever say that about any living soul, child!” said Grandmother sharply. “He may not have been able to help it himself, but there is always God. And my Andy knew about God, from a little child he knew. When a man goes wrong, it is always because he wants to go that way, not because he can’t help it. But I never knew that man had followed him, or was with him. Or perhaps he followed Buck; I can’t tell which.”
“Grandmother, I’ve sometimes thought Buck had some kind of a hold over my father. I heard several things that made me think so. He hadn’t been around us long. Only a few months ago he came to the place and had something to do with the dance hall where Mother sang. He was the one who made trouble for Mother, cut her pay and made her work so hard. He didn’t like her because she wouldn’t be friendly with him!”
“My dear!” said Grandmother. “You must have had a most unusual mother!”
“Oh, I did!” said Sheila in a new burst of tears.
Then suddenly there arose a murmur that grew into a distant whirr, gradually differentiating itself from the steady murmur of the sea, until it sounded very near.
Sheila looked up, startled, and Grandmother sprang to her feet.
“That’ll be Mr. Galbraith. Let’s go out and watch him. He’s coming this way just to salute us. The planes usually go a little to the west of this spot. Hurry! He’ll be over us in a minute!”
Grandmother snapped on the porch light as she passed the switch, and together, hand in hand like two children,
the old lady and the girl hurried out into the garden.
They were just in time, for they could see the great plane skirting the sea, circling out over the water in a wide loop, and rushing on over the house and garden.
Sheila looked up and marveled. She had never seen a plane so close. It was swooping down right over the garden, which lay bathed in a silver sea of moonlight, and even as it came, a clean bright ray of signal light shot out from it and searched the ground below. Then the ray was shut off again, and down from the plane as it dipped, something bright and burning, a smaller ray of light, burning in itself, like a tiny ball of fire, came hurtling down straight as a die and dropped among the lilies where its little ray kept shining on, making the lilies stand out from the other flowers with a strange, lovely incandescence.
“Oh!” breathed Sheila. “What is it?”
They hurried down the garden path toward the lilies, Grandmother guiding, for Sheila’s eyes were up in the sky watching the curve of the great bird as it swept upward. Grandmother as eager as Sheila.
“There it is, child, pick it up! Right at the foot of that largest lily! My old bones can’t bend to reach it!” cried Grandmother.
Sheila brought her eyes down to earth for a moment and picked up the bright thing. A small metal flashlight with the light turned on.
Sheila looked at it in wonder.
“What is it?” she asked again. She had never seen one like it before.
“A pocket flashlight,” said Grandmother, giving it a quick glance. “It’s a wonder it didn’t break in falling. That’s his card tied to it. See, Sheila, he’s coming back again to give us another greeting. Answer it this time. Move that little button back and forth. That shuts off the light and turns it on again, see? Now, he’s sending down his searchlight again; isn’t that pretty where it strikes the lilies and delphinium? Now, hold yours up and move the button back and forth.”
They were like two children as they stood there among the flowers with heads lifted, hands raised waving, the little light answering the big one. Sheila never had had such a sweet time in her life, not since the days when her mother used to make strings of tiny paper dolls out of the paper that came around the sugar package and then blow them into the air, while Sheila would burst into gales of laughter.