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Roy Glashan's Library
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The Munsey Magazine, August 1924, with "Who Is This Impossible Person?"
A portly, white-haired, majestically self-possessed woman—Mrs. Nathaniel Journay—arrives alone at a deserted rural station on a rainy night. Her reluctance to move is revealed to stem from her vanity: she insists on wearing shoes far too small for her feet. She finds a taxi, but refuses to share it with a young man, Jerry Sargent, whom she dismisses as a "chance acquaintance." She is fiercely protective of her niece Lynn, and avoids any social contact "especially on Lynn's account"....
THE up train stopped, a porter sprang down the steps with two heavy bags, assisted a lady to descend, climbed on board again, and he and the train went off, leaving the lady and the bags there. The platform was deserted, shining like a treacherous sheet of water beneath the dim lamps. The rain fell steadily. It was the blackest and most dismal night that ever was.
For some time the lady stood just where she had been left, with an annoyed, affronted expression upon her face, as if she was waiting for some one to come and remove this unpleasant weather. Nobody came, nothing stirred, and she herself was strangely inactive.
Did she look like a submissive or helpless creature? On the contrary, she was a portly, white-haired lady, dressed in black of a somewhat majestic style, and not only her face, but the set of her plump shoulders and even the jet ornament on her toque, seemed to be alive with energy and resolution.
Yet she did not move. She turned her head to the north—rain and darkness were there. She turned it to the south—the same thing. Behind her she knew there was nothing but the railway track; so, with a sigh, she picked up the bags and went on toward the waiting room.
Then, had there been any one there to see, the secret of her reluctance to move would have been revealed. This imposing and dignified lady, whose very glance was a rebuke to frivolity, had nevertheless one outrageous vanity—she would wear shoes that were too small for her.
Setting down the bags, she turned the handle of the door, and it was locked. Through the glass she could see into the dimly lit room, where there were plenty of benches upon which a sufferer might rest. Exasperated, she rattled the knob and rapped upon the glass, but all in vain. Picking up the bags again, she made her way painfully to the end of the platform, to see what she could see.
The town of Binnersville, however, was one of those illogical towns which are almost invisible from their own proper railway stations. There lay before her a forlorn and lifeless street lined with small shops, all tight shut, and not a human being in sight.
Her sharp eyes, however, caught sight of something very welcome. At the end of the street, standing before a faintly illuminated drug store, there was a real, civilized taxi. With all the speed possible to her she went toward it, to seize it before it could vanish.
The street was slippery, the bags were heavy, and the portly lady in her little high-heeled shoes made a dangerous progress. Nevertheless, she got there. Seeing no driver where a driver should have been, and being a woman of enterprise and resource, she set down her bags, leaned across the seat, and blew the horn three or four times—great, loud squawks that resounded startlingly through the night.
At once the door of the drug store opened, and a young man appeared on the threshold.
"Kindly take me to No. 93 Sloan Street," said the portly, white-haired lady.
"But I'm not the driver," said the young man.
"Then kindly call the driver!" said she.
Opening the door of the cab, she managed, with considerable effort, to shove one of her bags inside. The young man was there to help her with the other.
"The driver's in the shop," he explained, "getting something taken out of his eye; but—"
"Be good enough to tell him I am waiting," said she.
"He'll be along in a minute, and then he can take us both to—"
"Pardon me!" said the portly lady, in a perfectly awful voice.
The young man seemed a little taken aback. She was now settled inside the cab, and he was standing outside in the rain. It was very dark, and they could not see each other; but so expressive was her voice that he fancied he knew how she looked.
"I shall instruct the driver to return here for you, if you wish," said she.
"But, you see," said the young man, quite good-humoredly, "I had engaged this cab. It's late, and the weather's bad, and I'm going in your direction. We can—"
"Pardon me! I cannot consent to that."
"What?" persisted the young man. "Why not?"
"It is not my custom to encourage chance acquaintances," replied she. "If you insist upon getting in, I shall get out."
"But look here!" protested the young man. "I—"
She was already struggling with the handle of the door.
"Very well!" he said curtly. "I'll go!"
As he turned, he saw the driver coming out of the shop, holding a handkerchief to his eye.
"This lady wants to go to No. 93 Sloan Street," said he. "Oh, never mind me!"
And he set off on foot up the hilly street, in the pelting rain. The portly, white-haired lady watched him go.
"I cannot," she said, half aloud, "encourage chance acquaintances—especially on Lynn's account."
FOR years the house at 93 Sloan Street had displayed a sign announcing that it was "to let or for sale," and these words might as well have been followed by "take it or leave it," for that was the owner's attitude.
It was a hopeless house, dark, damp, and badly arranged, standing in a garden where enormous old trees cast so dense a shade over the front lawn that not even grass would thrive. As for the back garden, only the queerest, most obstinate, ancient shrubs were there, huddled against the side fence, because anything less tenacious was inevitably carried away by the river in its annual spring flood.
Just now the river was low, dolloping along dejectedly between its brown and uninteresting banks. Everything was brown—the water, the bare trees, the fields, the road in front, and No. 93 itself. Altogether the breath of life had gone out of Sloan Street, and to any one coming down from the sunny, breezy hilltop it seemed a sorry spectacle.
Some one had come down from the hilltop this morning—a brisk, neat little red-haired lady. She came smartly along the road to No. 93, pushed open the gate, and walked up the garden path. She saw the portly, white-haired lady standing on the veranda, looking down the road.
"Good morning!" said the visitor. "I'm your neighbor, Mrs. Aldrich."
She waited at the foot of the steps, because she thought she would not go up on the veranda until she was invited. Well, she never was invited.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" she asked, with honest and neighborly good will.
The portly lady looked down at her as if doubtful whether such a creature could really exist.
"Thank you, there is not," she said.
Mrs. Aldrich was greatly taken aback.
"I thought perhaps—" she began, in a tone not quite so neighborly, but the other interrupted.
"Very good of you, I'm sure; but I shall do very well, thank you."
That last "thank you" seemed capable of lifting Mrs. Aldrich out of the garden all by itself.
"I wouldn't set foot in that place again," she declared, "if she begged me on her knees!"
This declaration was addressed to her nephew, Jerry Sargent. She had made it before, to her husband and to a neighbor or so, but she found special pleasure in telling things to Jerry, for the strange reason that he never agreed with her. She was a shrewd, sensible, rather peppery little woman. She had been his guardian when he was younger, and she still interfered pretty considerably in his affairs—which he good-humoredly permitted.
"If you could have seen the way she looked at me!" she went on. "As if I were a—a toad!"
"I know," replied Jerry. "I didn't see her, but I heard her, and I know the sort of look that would go with that tone. 'Who is that impossible person?' She told me she didn't encourage chance acquaintances, and it looks as if she meant it!"
"I should have made her get out of that taxi and walk—in the rain!" cried Mrs. Aldrich, who had been informed of the episode of the previous night.
"Of course you would," her nephew agreed, with a grin. "I know you! And you'd have called her names out of the window as you passed her, wouldn't you? But I'm much milder. I was ashamed of being a chance acquaintance, anyhow. It didn't seem respectable."
"I wish you wouldn't take everything so lightly!" complained Mrs. Aldrich, but she didn't mean it. The thing she loved best in her nephew was his careless and generous good humor, his utter lack of malice or resentment. "You ought to have more pride, Gerald, than to allow yourself to be trampled on."
He rose to his feet, and stood looking down at her with an expression of great severity; and though his aunt knew it to be assumed, she thought it very becoming to his face. A big, handsome fellow he was, with the gray eyes and black hair and all the wit and charm and grace of his blessed mother, and all the energy and practical good sense of his father. A good man of business he was, but into the dullest matter of routine, into the most trifling details of everyday life, he brought his own sort of laughing romance.
"Very well, madam!" said he. "You're disappointed in me because I've let myself be trampled on. Now you'll see what I can do when my pride is roused!"
"Jerry, you ridiculous boy! Where are you going?"
"Down to No. 93," said he. "The turning worm! Good-by!"
And off he went, down the hill, whistling as he walked.
WITHOUT the slightest hesitation Jerry opened the garden gate, went up the path and up the steps, and rang the bell. At least, he imagined that he rang the bell, but as a matter of fact he did nothing except turn a handle which was connected with nothing. After two or three attempts he began to suspect this, and knocked instead, which soon brought some one running along the hall to open the door.
He was astounded—not because it was a girl, and not because she was pretty. He had seen pretty girls before, and knew that they were likely to crop up anywhere; but this girl had exactly the sort of prettiness he had been looking for and waiting for so long that he had almost given up hope of finding it.
She was tall, slender, dark-browed, so gracious and serene, with lovely, fragile hands; and her eyes! They were black eyes, so clear, so quiet, so luminous and untroubled! It didn't make the least difference that she was wearing a gingham apron and carried a rolling pin under her arm. She was matchless, she was incomparable, in her was personified all the romance left in the world.
"Did you—" she began, and hesitated. "Are you—"
"I thought—" he answered, still a little dazzled. "That is, I thought maybe—"
It was this tremendously important and significant conversation that the portly, white-haired lady interrupted. She appeared suddenly in the background, and regarded them with severe astonishment.
"Are you the plumber?" she inquired of Jerry, raising her eyebrows. "Run away, Lynn!"
"I don't think so," he answered absently, because he was watching Lynn "run away" as slowly as any healthy human being could well move.
"Indeed!" said she. "The plumber should be here."
The inference evidently was that Jerry Sargent should have been the plumber.
"No," he added, with a smothered sigh. "I just stopped in to see if there was anything you wanted done."
"There are several things that I want done," she replied; "but I trust I shall be able to find the proper workmen to do them. I need a plumber and a carpenter. Are you a carpenter?"
Now Jerry knew very well that she knew he wasn't a carpenter, and that she simply wished to be obnoxious. On the spur of the moment, looking steadily at her, he answered:
"Yes, I am. Any little odd jobs you'd like done?"
She returned his glance with one quite as steady.
"There are," she said.
With that, he promptly took off his coat, and she, equally determined to see the thing through, led him into the dismal front room.
"I want shelves put up," said she. "Three rows—on this wall. There are boards in the cellar for that purpose."
Fortunately Jerry was by nature "handy," and in his younger days had had much experience in building chicken houses and rabbit hutches and such things. With the calmest air in the world he set to work, wondering for what possible reason she could want a triple row of enormous shelves. For some time the portly lady watched him, but that didn't worry him, for he felt sure that she knew even less than he did about putting up shelves; and at last she went away.
When he was alone, he couldn't help laughing. It might have ended that way, with Jerry thinking the whole thing a rather idiotic joke, in which he was getting somewhat the worst of it, if something had not happened to change the aspect of the situation.
He was hammering away at a bracket which would—he hoped—support one end of one of those monster shelves, when he heard a light footstep behind him. He turned and saw the incomparable girl.
She smiled in her serious way, and Jerry tried to look equally serious, but did not succeed very well. In the first place, it wasn't natural to him to be serious, and, in the second place, he was extraordinarily pleased to see the incomparable girl again. He couldn't help fancying that she shared at least a little in his delight.
Anyhow, she was very friendly toward this strange carpenter. She asked him if he needed anything else for his work. He thanked her earnestly and said that he did not. Then she advanced a little farther into the room, and laid one of her slender little hands on the boards standing against the wall.
"Is the work very hard?" she asked.
"No," said Sargent. "I like it—very much!"
There was a long silence. She was still standing beside the boards, running her delicate fingers along the edges, with her eyes thoughtfully downcast. The shifting sunshine, filtering through the leafy branches outside, threw a wondrous light upon her gleaming dark hair and her pale, clear features. Somehow it hurt Jerry to look at her. There was something about her, some intangible shadow over her young face, which made him feel sure that she had endured much, and had endured it with fortitude and courage.
"The poor little thing!" he thought. "Shut up here in this dismal hole, with that dragon! Oh, the poor, poor little thing!"
He suddenly realized that he was in his shirt sleeves. With a hasty apology, he put on his coat.
"You know," he said, "I'm not really a carpenter."
"I knew you weren't," said she. "I knew you were—well, I mean, I knew you weren't."
Another silence.
"Would you like a cup of tea?" she asked. "I'd be—oh!"
"What's the matter?" cried Jerry.
"Nothing," she answered, but he saw her pull a handkerchief out of her pocket and wrap her hand in it.
"Let me see!" he commanded.
"Really it's nothing," she protested; "only a splinter from those boards. I should have known better."
Well, splinters ought to be taken out, lest they fester; and it was the most natural thing in the world for Jerry to insist upon performing the operation. She fetched a needle, and he burned the point in the flame of a match, and grasped her injured hand firmly.
He hadn't realized what it would mean. The splinter was long and deeply embedded, and he could not help hurting her. She winced and bit her lip. When at last the heartbreaking job was done, his face was quite pale. He still held her hand, and was looking at her with the most miserable contrition; but she smiled.
"You mustn't be so silly!" she said. "It's really—"
"Lynn!" said an awful voice.
Lynn, suddenly growing very red, escaped at once, and Jerry saw her no more that day.
He would perfectly well endure being called a plumber, a carpenter, and a chance acquaintance, but he could not endure this. He no longer wished to laugh, he no longer saw this thing as a joke. On the contrary, he was immeasurably offended by the suspicious and scornful glare he got from the portly, white-haired lady.
NEXT morning the postman delivered a letter at No. 93, addressed to Mrs. Nathaniel Journay, who was none other than the portly lady.
DEAR MADAM:
In order to avoid a misunderstanding which has often been a cause for dissatisfaction in our tenants, we beg to call your attention to that clause in your lease which restrains the tenant from driving any nails into the walls, or in any way defacing or marring the walls or woodwork of the premises.
Trusting that you find the house entirely as represented,
Very truly yours,
COOPER & COOPER, Agents.
"Humph!" said she, very much taken aback.
Lynn looked up from her breakfast.
"What is it, auntie?" she asked.
"Nothing," said the other calmly. "Simply one of the necessary annoyances of a business career."
She was prepared to say a good deal more than that to a certain person. She was by no means stupid. She put two and two together, and chalked up a mighty black four against that fraudulent carpenter. He was the talebearer. Very well—only wait until he presented himself again!
In the meantime the indomitable woman finished the carpentering herself. The noise of the hammering made her very nervous, but she made up her mind to defy Cooper & Cooper if they should appear. She had to have those shelves, and she would have them.
That afternoon a man came by, asking for work. He said he was a gardener; and after Mrs. Journay had cross-examined him until he was reduced to an abject condition, and she felt sure he was no spy, she set him to work.
The next morning she had another letter from Cooper & Cooper, pointing out to her that it was strictly prohibited to tenants to remove shrubs in the garden, to lop off branches from trees, or in any way to mar or deface the garden.
This time she wrote a tart answer, remarking that the garden was in a lamentable condition which no one could deface or mar, that the branches lopped away had been those which shut off light from the house, and that she would really be justified in sending the landlord a bill for this work. Nevertheless, she did not employ the gardener again.
For a few days she and her niece were invisibly busy within the house, but at last, one bright morning, they came out with a ladder, which Mrs. Journay held while Lynn climbed up it and hung out a glittering gilt signboard, lettered in black:
YE OLDE NEW ENGLAND BOX SHOPPE
The sign shone in the sun like a warrior's shield. The two women regarded it with pride and pleasure.
"I believe the customers will begin coming to-morrow," said the elder.
But the first thing to come the next day was a letter from Cooper & Cooper.
DEAR MADAM:
It has no doubt escaped your notice that the premises at 93 Sloan Street are upon highly restricted property, which restrictions forbid the use of the house or grounds for any business purpose. You will find this covered in the fifth section of your lease, any violation of which, if willfully persisted in, renders the contract null and void.
Very truly yours,
COOPER & COOPER, Agents.
"Let 'em!" she cried aloud, dismayed, but valiant as ever.
"What is it, auntie?" inquired Lynn.
"Never mind, my dear!" said the other. "You go on painting your boxes, and I'll attend to the business arrangements."
Mrs. Journay spoke in her usual confident manner, but at heart she was alarmed and not at all certain as to what she ought to do. She was certain, however, that her niece must not be worried by these unexpected developments. To protect Lynn was her chief duty on earth, and her chief pleasure, too. Terrible as she might be to others, to Lynn she was never anything but kind and generous and affectionate, in her august fashion.
"I'd rather know, auntie," insisted Lynn. "I think I really ought to know. We're partners, aren't we?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Journay. "Yes, I know that, but—"
"We can't carry on our business," Lynn continued, "unless we both know everything about it—can we, darling?"
She was now standing behind her aunt's chair, resting her soft cheek against that imposing coiffure. Mrs. Journay frowned.
"It doesn't seem necessary," she said.
She was already conquered, however. To tell the truth, her serious and quiet niece had always been able to wind Mrs. Journay around her little finger.
"Let me see the letter, auntie dear!" said Lynn.
She did see it, and the two former ones.
"It's that man!" declared Mrs. Journay. "There's no possible doubt of it. He came here to spy. Some one sent him. My theory is that some one knew we were going to start this shop, and, fearing the competition, determined to drive us out!"
Lynn stood looking down at the letter with a curious expression.
"I see!" she said.
From her face one might imagine that whatever it was she saw gave her very little pleasure.
They were both silent for a time, with their meager little breakfast forgotten between them. They had always been more or less poor, but never in this way. Until recently they had lacked neither dignity nor comfort. They had had their friends and their little diversions, and a cozy sort of existence, until something happened. It doesn't much matter what the catastrophe was. The important fact is that their small income vanished, and here they were, gallantly prepared to make a new one for themselves.
And was this enterprise, into which the very last of their savings had gone, to be wrecked by Cooper & Cooper? Mrs. Journay would not permit it. Often in the past, when she had coldly ignored people, such people had disappeared from her sight—beneath the surface of the earth, for all she knew; and she decided to try this on Cooper & Cooper. She would scornfully ignore them. The shop should go on—it must!
She was about to say this aloud, when Lynn began to speak.
"Auntie dear," she said, "let's give it up!"
"Lynn! I am surprised!"
"Yes!" Lynn went on, with a sort of vehemence. "Let's give this up and go away from here."
"Lynn! Your boxes! The beautiful boxes you've painted!"
"I'd like," said Lynn, "to see them all sailing down the river! Oh, auntie, do let's go away! I hate this house and this place and—we'll go back to Philadelphia, and I'll take a position in an office, and—"
The girl stopped short at the sight of her aunt's face.
"Oh, my dear!" she cried. "I didn't really mean that! No—we'll stay here, of course, and we'll make a wonderful success of the shop."
She sat on the arm of her aunt's chair, and they talked with enthusiasm of their dazzling future; but they didn't look at each other—not once. They talked, they even laughed, and after breakfast they went about busily preparing for customers; but all the time there lay over them the black shadow of this persecution. Why should any one wish them ill?
"I'd really be glad to go," thought Mrs. Journay, "if it weren't for Lynn; but I can't and won't have Lynn working in an office. I'll make this—this disgusting shop a success!"
Lynn went on painting boxes all the morning.
"He was the only one who knew about the shelves," she said to herself. "Out of petty, despicable spite against poor auntie, he went off and told the agents; and after he'd been so—not that I care, though. I knew all the time that he was one of those men who always—who always pretend to—to like people!"
Still, in spite of not caring in the least, it seemed to her that this incident was harder to bear than all her other misfortunes—harder to bear than exile from her old home and her old friends, than her desperate anxiety about money, or than the frightful tedium of painting boxes.
"Because it's such a humiliation," she explained to herself.
The admiration of young men was certainly no new thing to Lynn, but that a man should look at her like that, should speak as he had spoken, and then so basely betray her aunt and herself—
Her cheeks burned with just anger, or perhaps with shame, that even for a moment she should have thought so well of him.
NO one came to molest them that day, or the next, or all that week, or that month, but this good fortune was counterbalanced by the fact that no customers came, either.
Mrs. Journay and her niece took turns in attending to the shop with the regularity of deck officers standing watch; and, having once arranged a schedule, they were afraid to depart from it, for fear of admitting in any way that trade was not brisk. Lynn went on and on painting boxes, because, in the first place, they had a large stock to be painted, and, in the second place, she had nothing else to do; but the dismalness of sitting in that big, dim room, to see the boxes piling up on the shelves, and to make calculations which showed that the money decreased even faster than the boxes increased, was not a life to give animation to a girl, or comfort to an elderly lady.
Indeed, the only thing that supported them was their splendid, ridiculous Journay fortitude and obstinacy. They had gone into this thing without help or advice. They wouldn't ask help or advice now, and they wouldn't complain.
It was Lynn's turn in the shop that afternoon. She sat there behind a long table on which were a tin cash box, wrapping paper, twine, and a pile of pretty little blue cards on which was printed:
Ye Olde New England Box Shoppe—Hand-decorated gift boxes for all purposes—Chests made to order.
She was sewing, but when she heard a step on the veranda she hid the sewing in a drawer and began to write busily on a pad. The front door was open, and the customer entered the room. Lynn looked up with an alert, businesslike expression—and it was that man!
"I've been away," he began eagerly. "Otherwise—" He stopped short, looking at Lynn. "Is anything wrong?" he asked.
"No," she said evenly.
For an instant her clear eyes rested on his face, and then they glanced away, as if he wasn't worth regarding. She was not rude, or scornful, or awe-inspiring like her aunt, but her attitude was unmistakable.
"I'll have to ask you to excuse me," she said politely. "I'm busy this morning."
Rising, she moved toward the door.
"No!" he cried. "Please wait! Please tell me what's the matter! Every minute I've been away, I've been thinking of getting back and seeing you again. I—please don't go! Just tell me!"
"I have nothing to tell you," said Lynn, with energy. "I have nothing to say to you at all, except that I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't come again."
Then she vanished. Before Jerry had recovered himself, he was confronted by his mortal enemy, Mrs. Journay.
"Kindly send your bill for the carpenter work you did," said she, "and it will be attended to promptly."
He tried a smile.
"That was just a little neighborly service—" he began.
"I prefer not to accept it as such," she interrupted.
"Well, I prefer not to send bills," said he, resolutely good-humored. "If you'll allow me, I'll introduce myself—"
"I do not allow you."
"I'm sorry," he replied firmly, "but it's time it was done. I'm Mr. Sargent, your landlord."
This was a blow to stagger Mrs. Journay, but she rallied superbly.
"Indeed!" said she. "Now I see it all! Very well, call your Cooper & Cooper to put us out. Let them—"
"But there's no question of that!" he protested. "I'm only too glad—" She really was magnificent!
"I refuse to be under obligations to you," she said. "Your agents may forbid me to do such and such a thing, and I shall do it. I defy them. I defy you. I intend to continue in this course until I am forcibly ejected. Instruct your Cooper & Cooper to that effect. I do not recognize you!"
THIS was ordinary rain. From a sullen sky it came driving down like a sheet of fine wires, digging into the sodden ground, dashing on the roof, beating down the tiny new leaves on the trees, riddling the muddy water of the now hurrying river. This was the worst of three rainy days, and the house on Sloan Street was in a sad state. There was water in the cellar, there were spots of mold on the walls, and everywhere there was a most miserable, dank, bleak chill, which even these two resolutely cheerful women could not ignore. They did not appear to relish their breakfast.
"I—" began Mrs. Journay, and, for the first time since Lynn had known her, she visibly hesitated. "If you can look after the shop alone," she said, "I'd like to—to—attend to some business."
Now, if she had not been so intent upon her own duplicity, Mrs. Journay would have observed that Lynn's conduct was unusual. The girl showed no surprise at her aunt's singular decision to go out in such weather. On the contrary, she seemed relieved and pleased.
"I don't mind at all," she replied. "Not a bit! I—not a bit!"
So Mrs. Journay put on an old raincoat with capes, and a hat that was good enough for the rain, and her overshoes, and set off.
Lynn, watching that erect and imposing figure tramping through the mud of Sloan Street, took out a handkerchief and cried into it for a good ten minutes. She planned treachery that day. She had made a secret appointment with a wholesaler who would, she hoped, buy all those boxes for a lump sum, and thus put an end to some of their financial difficulties—and also to the shop.
Fortunate that she did not suspect her aunt's errand! Even Mrs. Journay, with her unconquerable spirit, was very, very unhappy that morning.
"But," she said to herself, "there wouldn't have been enough to pay that man his rent on the 1st of next month, and that I could not bear!"
She, too, had renounced the shop, and intended to tell Lynn so in the evening.
In the meantime, on she pressed. The mud was slippery, the rain disconcerted her by beating in her face, and her shoes were even more uncomfortable when worn with rubbers. What was worse, her way lay uphill, and up a mighty steep hill at that, and she had a heavy heart to carry with her. She turned her ankle rather painfully, the top button burst off her raincoat—she breathed so hard—and the rain ran down her neck. Still, as was her admirable way, she reached her goal. At last she stood upon the summit of the hill, and though to be sure she did not cry "Excelsior!" she felt a little like that.
She turned for a last glance behind her. There lay Sloan Street far below, and No. 93 was plainly visible in every detail. She sighed sternly, faced her destiny again, and turned in at the gate of a fine stone house before her. She rang the bell.
"Mrs. Aldrich?" said she to the maid, and presented her card.
She was asked to step into the music room, but would not. She was too wet. She would stand in the hall; and there Mrs. Aldrich found her when she descended.
Now Mrs. Aldrich, when she saw that card, had meant to treat Mrs. Journay as Mrs. Journay had treated her; but it was impossible. In the first place, Mrs. Aldrich was not capable of a majestic manner. She was peppery and sharp, sometimes, but never hoity-toity. In the second place, the caller looked so forlorn and tired and wet that all her rancor vanished. She held out her hand with a smile and a friendly greeting.
"Pardon me," replied Mrs. Journay, in the most frigid tone she had ever used. "I fear you mistake my purpose. I have come"—here she opened her purse and took out a bit torn from a newspaper—"I have come to apply for this position as cook."
"Oh!" cried Mrs. Aldrich.
"If the position is not filled, I believe I have at least some of the qualifications you desire. I understand cookery in all its branches. I am honest, clean, and strictly sober."
This was awful! This was intolerable!
"Oh, but, my dear Mrs. Journay!" cried Mrs. Aldrich, immeasurably distressed. "I—don't you see? I can't! Let's sit down and—"
"Thank you," interrupted the other. "Then I must apply to the next place on my list."
"Oh, dear!" said Mrs. Aldrich, for she could not endure the thought of Mrs. Journay going out into the rain again, and tramping about, looking for a position as cook. She could not endure to see this magnificent creature so humbled. "Can't—something else be done?" she asked.
"Thank you, it cannot."
"Then," said Mrs. Aldrich, "if you really feel that you must, then please stay here with me."
"Thank you. I shall ask you to allow me to use the telephone for the purpose of sending a message to my niece. May I safely say that I shall return to her at ten o'clock this evening?"
"Oh, much earlier! Whenever you like!"
"Pardon me," said Mrs. Journay, "but I believe I understand the requirements of such a position."
"The dam has burst," said old Mr. Cooper.
He made this melodramatic announcement with great calm, because it was a very unimportant dam, and not likely to evoke much excitement; but Jerry Sargent, his employer, sprang to his feet.
"What?" he cried. "Elliot's dam? Then Sloan Street must be under water!"
"I'm afraid so," said Cooper, somewhat startled; "but No. 93 is the only house there that's tenanted, and I didn't imagine you'd be much upset about them."
He was still more startled by the expression he now saw upon Sargent's usually good-humored face.
"What do you mean by supposing that?" thundered Jerry. "On the contrary, they're—they're special tenants. They—"
"Well," said Mr. Cooper, "you see, in view of the correspondence we had with them—"
"What correspondence?"
"Why, those letters that Mrs. Aldrich directed us to send while you were away. You distinctly said we were to take directions from her in your absence."
"Let me see those letters!"
Mr. Cooper produced them. Mr. Sargent read them.
"It's an outrage!" shouted Jerry. "It's persecution! It's—"
He flung himself into his overcoat, jammed a felt hat well down on his head, and started out, slamming the office door behind him. His roadster stood at the curb. He got in, started off with a jerk, and went down the street, around the corner, and out into the road that led to Sloan Street from the town. It was a good road, and he took advantage of it. He turned another corner, and Sloan Street lay before him at the foot of the hill.
Oh, Sloan Street was under water, sure enough! It was, in fact, a shallow stream, moving sluggishly. It was certainly not more than six inches deep, and there was no danger, visible or implied; yet to Sargent it was horrible, that sullen, muddy stream, under the merciless downpour of rain, with stanch old No. 93 standing there among the tossing, dripping branches of the trees.
He left his car, ran down the hill, and splashed into the water, ankle deep. His feet sank into the mud, the rain beat in his face, but he bent his head and floundered on, the slowness of his progress putting him into a dogged fury. He wanted to get there at once, to explain.
He stumbled over something, fell to his knees, and lost his hat while regaining his feet. He wiped his rain-blurred eyes with a muddy sleeve, and went on.
"Mr. Sargent! Mr. Sa-argent!"
He stopped, turned, and saw Lynn standing on the hill he had recently left.
"Oh, please come back!" she cried. "Please, Mr. Sargent!"
He did come back, and stood before her.
"I had to come," he said, "to tell you that I didn't know anything about those letters from Cooper & Cooper. I never heard of them till to-day."
Never in his life had he imagined that a girl could look like this. Her hair lay dank across her forehead, giving to her glowing face an adorably childlike look. Her dark lashes were wet, and were like rays about her clear eyes; and the kindness, the heavenly kindness of her regard! The poor fellow had positively no idea that she was a forlorn, bedraggled little object. There he stood, looking up at her, and she looked at him, and tears came into her eyes.
"Don't!" he cried.
"But you don't know!" she said.
She meant that he didn't know how splendid and gallant and handsome he appeared, bareheaded in the rain, with a great streak of mud across his face, and how deeply touched she was by his coming through a flood to explain about the letters; and of course she didn't wish him to know.
"I—my boxes!" she said, by way of explaining the tears. "I've been into the city to see a wholesaler, and he's bought them all. I had them all on the dining room floor, ready to pack, and I'm afraid—"
"I'll see what I can do," said Sargent.
"No! No! Mr. Sargent, come out of that water!" said she sternly. "It doesn't matter!"
"It does," said he. "Wait here!"
Off he splashed again.
No. 93 was built on the side of a little slope. The front door was reached by a flight of steps, but the back door was level with the garden, and Jerry knew very well that the house must be filled with water. He kicked open the gate, made his way along the path and up the steps to the veranda, and put the pass key he carried with him into the lock.
The key turned readily, but the door would not open. He pushed his hardest. At last he drew off a little and crashed against the door with his shoulder. Then it opened, and a great flood of water, dammed up inside, came rolling down the steps in a cascade. Suddenly something heavy, borne on the swift-moving current, struck Jerry on the shins, knocked him backward, and, sailing on, struck him violently on the head. The chill, muddy water rolled over him, but he was as indifferent to it as the fleet of hand-decorated boxes that went down the front steps with him.
MRS. ALDRICH and Mrs. Journay sat in the kitchen, side by side, on two straight-backed chairs. They had just had a quarrel, due to Mrs. Journay's obstinately refusing to eat her lunch with Mrs. Aldrich and insisting upon having it in the kitchen. In the course of this quarrel Mrs. Aldrich had explosively confessed that it was she who had ordered the Cooper & Cooper letters sent, and who had observed from her hilltop all that went on below.
"Because I didn't like the way you treated my nephew," she explained. "Can you forgive me for that?"
"I can," said Mrs. Journay, calmly. "I should have felt the same, if it had been my nephew."
"Then," said Mrs. Aldrich triumphantly, "if you really do forgive me, the least you can do is to come in and have lunch with me decently!"
But Mrs. Journay would not, so Mrs. Aldrich had sent away the two servants and eaten there in the kitchen with Mrs. Journay. In the beginning both of them were very angry, but they became more and more friendly every minute. They had a great deal to talk about—they had Lynn and Jerry to talk about.
"Jerry tells me that your niece is a charming girl," said Mrs. Aldrich. "He's talked about her incessantly ever since he first saw her; and it isn't like Jerry to be so enthusiastic."
"She is a charming girl," replied Mrs. Journay complacently; "and as for your nephew—"
The front doorbell rang, and Mrs. Aldrich went to open the door. Mrs. Journay sat where she was.
"Jerry!" she heard Mrs. Aldrich cry in a tone of fright.
"Don't worry!" answered a cheerful voice which Mrs. Journay recognized without difficulty. "It's only a scratch; but—this is Miss Journay. She saved my life!"
"Oh!" protested Lynn. "Really I didn't!"
Mrs. Journay then entirely forgot her position, and hurried into the hall. There she saw that man, with a bandage around his head, and Lynn standing beside him.
"Auntie!" cried Lynn, amazed. "You here?"
"Why not?" inquired Mrs. Journay. "I might ask why you are here!"
"Mr. Sargent got hurt trying to save my boxes," Lynn explained anxiously; "so you see, auntie—"
"What am I expected to see?" asked Mrs. Journay, with lifted eyebrows.
Mrs. Aldrich now intervened.
"Jerry," said she, "now that I've had an opportunity of knowing Mrs. Journay better, I see that I was wrong—altogether wrong. I want her and her niece to stay here with us until that horrible old barn is put in order for them again—if it ever is; and I want you—"
Jerry stepped forward and held out his hand, smiling. Lynn thought, with a flash of hope, that even her aunt could not resist him; but Mrs. Journay regarded him sternly.
"Lynn," said she, "introduce this young man to me. I do not know him."
"But, auntie!" protested Lynn. "You've seen him—"
"Not properly," said Mrs. Journay.
"Mrs. Journay, this is my nephew, Gerald Sargent," said Mrs. Aldrich.
Then Mrs. Journay took his outstretched hand and smiled, the jolliest sort of smile.
"I always liked that boy!" she observed aside to Mrs. Aldrich
Roy Glashan's Library
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