Coming Through the Rye (28 page)

“Chris, you are wonderful! And I'll never forget it of you, never! That's the biggest sacrifice a man can make for a woman, to just put aside himself and let her have her way, and if I lived a hundred years, I'd never find a greater love than that, I know. But Chris, that isn't real marriage. I'm sure it isn't. My mother has told me that. I could love you like a brother, and I will. My own brother has forsaken me, but you've done more for me than he ever did. But I couldn't marry you! It would be wrong!”

“It's
class!
” said Chris sadly. “I mighta known. But I couldn't help trying anyway. You aren't offended, are you?”

“Indeed, no! How could I be offended? Chris, I think that was a most wonderful thing! Other people gave me flowers and wrote nice notes and telegrams, and even came and helped me, but you tried to give me yourself. I think it's the most beautiful thing anybody ever did. I shall keep it in my memory like a treasure, and someday when you find a dear girl who loves you and whom you love, I shall tell her what a wonderful brother you've been to me, and how glad I am I wasn't selfish enough to let you do what you offered, and saved you for her.”

“There'll never be anybody else like you, Romayne!”

“There'll be somebody better, Chris! Somebody who loves you that way! Somebody God made for you!”

Chris sat staring blindly through big tears at a portrait of Nurse Bronson taken at five years old, with stringy ringlets around a chubby impertinent face.

“Well, mebbe,” said Chris with a long sigh, “but I don't see it now. What I'm thinking about is, how am I going to take care of you when you won't let me marry you?”

“Chris! Listen!” Romayne leaned forward earnestly. “You've not got to take care of me. God is doing that! He wants me to work my own way out, I'm sure of it. If He hadn't, He wouldn't have let things come out this way and left me to make my way alone. You mustn't feel you're responsible for me just because we're old friends. I tell you, God wanted me to be in this situation for some reason, or He wouldn't have let it happen.”

“Yes, and He left me here to take care of you!” said Chris doggedly. “If He didn't, why did I think of it?”

“Well, you
can't
!” said Romayne decidedly. “It's quite impossible.”

“If you were going to marry somebody like Evan Sherwood,” said Chris sadly again, “I'd be satisfied. You'd be taken care of a great deal better than I could do—”

“Well,
I'm not
!” said Romayne shortly. “Chris, please don't mention him again in that connection. He and I are absolute
strangers
, and neither of us has thought of such a thing. And I tell you, I won't marry
anyone
, not now, anyway. And Chris, you needn't worry about me; I can take care of myself. I really can.”

“Wouldn't you come and stay with my mother for a little while?” suggested Chris after a long silent pause, while he thrummed his hat brim round and round in his big nervous fingers. “She'd let you help her around the house, and she'd love to have you.”

“Oh, thank you so much, Chris,” said Romayne with a troubled face, “but I couldn't! Indeed I couldn't. Just think what people might say about me! You'll understand I couldn't do that. I must have a job and take care of myself. That's what all self-respecting girls do.”

They talked for an hour and a half, and finally Chris went sadly away, his broad shoulders drooping pitifully, his round face downcast. It wasn't so much that he had failed in his aspiration toward an angel as that he was worried what might come to the angel alone in this wicked world. There are just a few men like that who can forget themselves, and such love as theirs knows no class distinction. His dejection lasted till he went to see Sherwood for his usual evening orders.

Evan Sherwood listened to his reports of various matters that had come up that day—how Krupper had gotten bail at last and was out and away, but a watch was being kept on his movements because they felt sure he would try to communicate with Lawrence Ransom somehow; how nothing more had been heard of Lawrence and it was thought he was on some South American ship that had sailed within the last two days. He must have shipped under an assumed name, or else was working his passage. Search was being made by wireless and by radio, but as yet there was not the slightest clue. It was important that they get him because it was now known that he possessed papers that gave evidence against the gang and could be used to great advantage in the coming election. But as yet neither the Federal authorities nor the League had been able to get a hint of his whereabouts.

“Personally, I don't think they'll find him working his passage,” said Evan. “He's too lazy and too selfish. He'll make somebody else pay it, or he'll stay where he is till he can. Those papers are with him wherever he is, too.”

Having dismissed the business matters, he turned to Chris.

“Now, what's up with you, kid?” he said kindly, as Chris stood gloomily drumming on the window seat, staring down into the dark street.

And Chris told him the whole story.

Evan listened with a light of tenderness in his eyes and a growing thoughtfulness, now and then blurting out, “You said that about
me
to
her
, kid?” or “What did she answer to that?”

At last he called, “Come here, kid. I want you to know I think that was great! I know what your humility is, and how you must have struggled to go to a girl that you felt was above your class with a proposition like that. It's all nonsense, of course. There is no what you call ‘class' to real love. But you felt that way, and you did the best you could in spite of it. Now, kid, you're not to be long-faced about the result. You're no worse off than you were before, and I take it she is more your friend than before. You can't tell what may come—”

“No!” said Chris with a choking sound in his voice. “She won't change. She can't! She appreciates it, as you say, but she'll never feel different about me. I'm just Chris! That's ended! But what gets me is, what's going to become of her, with that Krupper let loose on the community again, and that gang coming home? They know her brother has something on them, and there's no telling what they'll do to her!”

Evan Sherwood lay still for some seconds thinking, and then he said slowly, “Don't you worry, Chris, I'm getting back on the job tomorrow, and I'll see what I can do.”

There was something in those words, and in the chief's eyes as he smiled at Chris and gripped his hand, that comforted the boy as he went his way. If the chief got down to business, something real would be done—he was sure.

R
omayne sent the check straight back again to Evan Sherwood with a brief, decided line or two showing how impossible it was for her to let anyone, be he person or League, pay any bills pertaining to herself or her family. She mailed it on her way to the house, where she had an appointment to meet the antique man.

Romayne had been very much touched but also very much upset by Chris's offer of marriage. She saw that it went deep with him, and this distressed her, but the immediate effect of his words had been to make her feel that she must lose no time in getting a job and putting herself on a plane where people would not feel they had to take care of her. She wondered what it was about her that made people feel that way. She studied her delicate, wistful face in the mirror before she started and decided she looked too babyish and unsophisticated, and her cheeks burned hot over the memory of Chris's suggestion that if Evan Sherwood would marry her he would be satisfied. Generous of Chris, of course, to hand her around this way to be taken care of, but her natural pride did not like it.

So she stopped at two employment agencies on her way to her old home and registered for a job. When it came to giving references, she gave Nurse Bronson and Chris, and then after some hesitation she added Dr. Stephens's name. After all, he could say what he pleased about her. Perhaps he doubted her, but she could not help it, and his influence, if he cared to give it on her behalf, would of course count more than either the nurse's or Chris's name. Surely, Dr. Stephens would give her a good character, and he had seemed friendly.

Nurse Bronson had warned her to be noncommittal with the antique man and not let him know whether she liked the prices or not until he was through with his estimates, so Romayne followed him around with pencil and paper and wrote down what he said he would give. Sometimes she remembered what her father had paid for a thing, and that helped a little. But for the most part she was utterly ignorant and knew she must trust to what he was willing to give. It was better to sell for a smaller price and get it done quickly. She longed to be out of the hateful house.

Chris sent one of the officers around that morning to hunt for some papers in the cellar so that she was not alone, and Nurse Bronson came flying in about noon with some parcels in her hand and suggested a lunch together. That helped, for the antique man had gone away, promising to return at two o'clock with a truck in which to take the articles she was willing to sell, so she had opportunity to go over the list with someone.

But Nurse Bronson was as ignorant as a baby concerning antiques, and so was Chris, who dropped solemnly in for a minute or two. They both agreed that the price the man offered “seemed pretty good for secondhand goods,” and except in one or two cases where Romayne happened to remember just what her father had paid for something, she felt herself that she was doing well.

There were a lot of things he would not take, of course, and these she easily sold to a secondhand man for a small pittance. It was amazing how little it all amounted to, a trifle over nine hundred dollars, when all was sold. On the other hand, the bills were coming in, things her father had bought, a hundred here, two hundred there, a fifty-dollar bill for plumbing that probably belonged to the business, but as Romayne was not dealing with the “gang,” she felt she had to pay it. Little by little her small fortune diminished until more than half was gone in little things that she had not known about. Then, too, she remembered that she had given away her last winter's coat because it looked shabby, and now the winter would be upon her again before many months. There would be other things she would have to have. Her face began to take on a careworn look before a week was gone.

She worked by herself in the big house with the doors locked, never daring to answer the bell without first peeping out the window, for she had an almost unreasonable dread of Kearney Krupper, and felt she would not dare meet him alone. It was only an idea of course, but she told herself that he gave her the creeps.

By the end of that week the house was nearly empty, and room by room, she had, with the help of the maid, given it a fairly good cleaning. There remained only her mother's little rocking chair of fine old mahogany and the highboy and chest of drawers that had been brought from Virginia and that she hoped to keep. Nurse Bronson's sister had offered her a place to store them until she found a home again, and Romayne had decided not to part with them.

But one morning, just as she was looking around and thinking that her work was nearly done, the antique man called her up and offered her fifty dollars for the chest of drawers, seventy-five for the highboy, and twenty-five for the chair. Just like that! And she had been worrying about her money going so fast and no job in sight yet! The best agency had told her that morning as she stopped in on her way down that there wasn't a chance of her getting more than ten a week till she could take dictation by shorthand, unless she wanted to go out to service, and then she could not say she was experienced, and that would be against her. She might not even make as much as ten a week.

With the receiver in her hand, she paused and looked around the empty room, her eyes full of trouble, and just then in walked Nurse Bronson, having called to the woman at the back gate to let her in.

“What's the matter, child?” she asked at once, seeing the anxious brow and set lips, the tired look, on the little white face.

Romayne told her briefly.

“Don't you sell 'em! Not at that price, anyway. You tell him to wait a few days and you'll think about it.”

“But he says somebody is there now who wants it. He may lose a sale if he waits.”

“Fiddlesticks end! He'll only be the more anxious to buy 'em if you hesitate, and he'll give you more money, too. You tell him to wait, and I'll see if I can't get somebody to pay more than that if you really want to sell.” He offered her another fifty dollars on the whole lot, but Nurse Bronson made terrible eyes at her and shook her head so vigorously that Romayne, after a moment's hesitation, said, “I'll let you know at three.”

Nurse Bronson seemed in a great hurry, although she had promised to take Romayne to see a man she had heard wanted a secretary. She said if she did not mind, she would try to come back later, or maybe not till the next day, and she hurried away again, leaving Romayne perplexed and troubled, wondering if she ought to sell her treasures, crying at the thought.

Nurse Bronson burst into the office where Evan Sherwood was sitting up a little while at his desk making out a report.

“Well, I've found the chance if you want to take it. Doesn't your Aunt Patty like antiques? Why don't you give her a chest of drawers and a highboy and a rocking chair? They're really very nice.”

“Just the thing! How much may I be allowed to pay?'

“The antique man has offered her seventy-five for the highboy, fifty for the chest, and twenty-five for the rocking chair. He added fifty when I made her tell him she'd let him know at three.”

“H'm! The highboy ought to be two hundred and fifty at least, if it's anything of a highboy!”

“Don't make it too big, or she'll suspect.”