The Prodigal Girl (10 page)

She folded Betty’s things neatly and laid them in piles on her bed, trying to put everything into as small a compass as possible. Shoes, warm gloves, hairbrush, comb…None of those ridiculous bottles and jars of cold cream would be needed. She need not bother about jewelry, either. A little dose of simple life would do Betty good.

She discovered as she went toward Jane’s room that the three big suitcases that fitted into the automobile trunk were standing ready in the hall. Poor Chester, himself ill, yet thinking of all these things, even telling Hannah about a lunch! Oh, would he get through the day without breaking? She sent up a swift prayer for him and hurried on with her work.

It did not take so long to lay the neat piles into a suitcase. There was going to be more room than she feared. She even in pity stuck in a string or two of Betty’s beads. The child would feel utterly lost without something of the sort.

Jane’s garments were less of a problem. Jane still wore gaudy woolen stockings with fancy tops on occasion. Jane wore pleated skirts and sweaters. Jane had several warm, pretty dresses. She made short work in there. Also the twins were no problem at all. They had their good sensible clothes. Betty would have her new fur coat, of course, and her old one, which she was supposed to wear to school—and seldom did now because she liked the new one better. The old one would do for Jane.

She worked swiftly. By half past nine she arrived at Chris’s door, suddenly remembering that Hannah had said she had not seen him that morning.

There he lay deep in sleep, and the hard lines of his young face, the weak sag of his handsome mouth, startled her. Chester had been right. They needed to get away at once. Eleanor went swiftly from drawer to closet, working with frenzied fingers, the tears running down her face, but Chris lay sound asleep and did not stir.

After she had packed the things she thought he needed, leaving out those he would have to wear, she turned toward him and laid her hand on his forehead.

He stirred uneasily and drew away from her touch.

But this was no time for sentiment. The minutes were flying, and she needed Chris’s help.

“Chris!” she called clearly, close beside him, but Chris slept on.

At last she brought a cold, wet cloth and washed his face. It would not do for his father to come back and find him sleeping while his mother was doing all the work alone.

He started awake angrily, furious at the cold water, not sparing his mother any rudeness that came into his cloudy mind.

“Chris,” she said firmly, “you’ll have to get up at once! I need your help. Your father has been very sick, and we have to go away. The doctor thinks it’s imperative!”

“What the deuce!” said Chris, flinging himself back on his pillow and blinking at her. “Dad was all right last night. I’ll say he was. What’s he trying to put over on us?”

“Chris, that’s not the way to speak of your father. And you must get up at once and get to work. There is a great deal to be done, and your father is a sick man. He’s gone down to the office for a few minutes, but he may be back any minute, and it would be dreadful if he were to find you still in bed. It’s half past eleven. Chris, your father has been going through a terrible time. I’m afraid he has lost all his money—everything! You’ll have to be very gentle and helpful! Hurry! I’ve several important errands I must send you on. Don’t waste time, get up at once.”

She left him, closing the door and going at once to her own packing of which she made short work, folding into the remaining suitcase her own and her husband’s plainest garments.

Hannah came up while she was doing it.

“Now, Mis’ Thornton, wha’ kin I do? I got the supper packed in the hamper, an’ I got a pot of soup on fer you all ta eat. What you want I should do after you all leave?”

She began as she spoke to smooth up the bed and tidy the room with a deft touch here and there that made it much easier to sort out things and pack.

Mrs. Thornton could hear Chris splashing about in the bathroom and knew that in course of time he would appear, so she gave Hannah a few directions and sat down to write some of the notes that she felt were imperative to send before she left. If Chris got ready in time he could take them, if not she would leave them for Hannah to deliver.

But Chris when he appeared was not inclined to deliver notes.

“What’s all this about going away?” he asked his mother, frowning as he stood imperiously in the door of her room and stared around at the suitcases and the general air of devastation the packing had wrought in his mother’s usually neat room.

His mother was finishing an important note and did not answer at once, and Chris further addressed her:

“I want you to jolly well know that
I’m
not going along! I’ve got important things to do here at home. If Dad’s broke I’ve got to get some money somehow, even if I have to accept a job somewhere! And you can just take my things outta that suitcase! I’m staying at home!”

His mother looked up sorrowfully, and it seemed to her that she had not really noticed before how her boy had changed. He seemed to have been suddenly transformed in a night, or was it that her eyes had suddenly been opened and she was awake now?

“Chris, there probably won’t be any home here to stay in,” she said sadly, the enormity of the situation sweeping over her anew, and the tears coming unbidden into her eyes and rolling down her cheeks.

“Whaddaya mean?” demanded Chris furiously. “No home. Whaddaya mean?”

“I mean just that. We’re going to have to leave here. I have not had time to talk with your father beyond a few minutes of planning for the immediate future, but I feel positive that the business has been swept away, at least so far as your father’s part in it is concerned. Your father has been going through a terrible ordeal, and the doctor told me last night that unless he gets immediate relief from the strain he will have a stroke of paralysis or something terrible like that. So, you see that if you make it any harder for him you may be responsible for his life!”

“Great cats!” said Chris irreverently. “Has Dad been speculating? I thought he had some sense! He had no business to let things get into a mess when he had us to take care of! A man has no right—”

“Christopher!” said his mother. “A mere boy has no right to criticize his father! Don’t let me ever hear you speak of your father like that again! You ought to be ashamed!”

“Aw well,” said Chris, walking into the room with an air of a young prince. “Looka hear, Muth. This leaves me in an awful fix. I’m broke. D’ya understand? And I’ve practically promised to buy Hal’s automobile day after tamorra. I swore I’d have the first payment for him, an’ a fella can’t let a thing like that go flooey. I ask you, cannee?”

“Chris, you don’t mean that you have bought an automobile without telling your father? You know what he said about not allowing you to drive yet!”

“Oh now, come off, Muth, don’t begin that! This is an offul good bargain. I could fix it up and sell it fer fifty or a hundred bucks more’n I paid, see? It would give me something steady to do outsida school, see? Dad’s always harpin’ on my being employed. As if a fella oughtn’tta have a little fun now an’ then.”

“Chris, for pity’s sake, don’t let’s talk about such things now. I want you to go up in the attic and bring down the large trunk over in the corner, the one with Grandfather’s initials on it. Bring it right away, quick! I’m in a great hurry. And then go back and bring down that pile of blankets at the head of the stairs.”

“Awwright, Muth, only waitaminute! I wanta ast you something. Say, Muth, this is very important to me. How much money have you got, Muth?” He lowered his voice anxiously, “B’cause, if you lend me some—about two hundred say, I’ll pay it up soon’s my allowance comes in, I mean over time, of course. I’ll pay half of my allowance every month till it’s all paid. Honest I will, Muth—”

“Chris!” said his mother, looking at him with a blanched face. “What are you talking about? What in the world could you possibly want with two hundred dollars? And you know what your father said about borrowing from me or anyone else. I couldn’t lend you any money if I had it, and I haven’t got it. I’ve just made out checks for bills we owe, which takes all but a dollar or two of what I had in the bank, and I don’t know when your father will be able to give me any more. You don’t seem to understand that your father is financially ruined. Now, will you get that trunk?”

“But Muth, I
gotta
have it! Right now, I gotta have it.”

He looked at her pleadingly, his miserable eyes piercing her very soul. She felt as if the earth beneath her was reeling. What had Chris got into now? At another time, even the day before, if Chris had come to her with eyes of anguish and pleaded like this she would have turned heaven and earth to get the money for him. She would have covered it up and thrown some kind of a sop to her conscience for helping him evade his father’s law about borrowing. But her eyes had been opened, at least halfway. She began to suspect that there was something wrong, something more than just what Chris put on the surface.

Downstairs the twins had come bursting into the house, home from school for lunch, and Jane’s voice could be heard outside calling merrily to her companions.

“Oh bother!” said Chris. “Oh
heck!
Muth, I simply
gotta
have that money ‘fore night! I’m up ta my eyes. My
honor’s
at stake!”

“Your honor?”
said his father’s voice in the doorway behind him. “Your
honor!
Just what is it you call your honor, Chris?”

Chris turned as red as a beet. His eyes drooped, and he wheeled and faced his parent like a thing at bay. When he lifted his glance to see how angry his father was, his eyes fell again as if they had been struck.

Eleanor came forward anxiously, her eyes on her husband’s white face:

“It’s nothing you need bother about, Chester,” she said. “It’s just a little matter between me and Chris. You needn’t worry. I’m just as firm as you are when it comes to things like this. You go and lie down and let me deal with this.”

Chester’s eyes looked at her sadly, and then he turned back to the boy again, who had already brightened under his mother’s tone.

“Just a little matter of two hundred dollars,” he said, as if it were a sword that he had held back from doing damage.

“Chris, step into your room for a few minutes. I have something to say to you.”

“Why, I can’t just now, Dad. I promised to get a trunk down for Muth,” said Chris with a show of haste. “She’s waiting for it.” “Very well,” said Chester. “I’ll wait.”

Chris tugged the empty trunk down the attic stairs, with many a thump and a snort as if it were very heavy indeed, and then went back for the blankets while his father waited at the foot of the stairs courteously, until the task was completed.

“Now, if you’re quite ready, Chris, we’ll step into your room,” said Chester.

When the door closed behind the two, Eleanor Thornton sank back into her chair again and buried her face in her hands. She was so tired and frightened and worn out with various emotions that it seemed to her she must just sink down on the bed and cry.

The clamor downstairs roused her. Jane was teasing the twins, or they were teasing Jane. It didn’t matter which. There was sound of breaking crockery and Hannah’s sharp voice remonstrating. This was no time for weeping. She had promised to be ready.

She hurried downstairs and started the children to eating. Jane was clamoring that she must hurry back. They had a rehearsal of the play fifteen minutes before the afternoon session. She begged that she might have bread and butter and plum preserves and go right back, eating it on her way.

“Sit down, Jane. You’re not to go back to school today. We’re going away!”

“Going away?” screamed the twins in chorus. “Gee! Where? Can we go, too?”

“Yes, we’re all going. Now eat your lunch. There isn’t time to talk. There’s a great deal to be done. Jane, sit down! Didn’t you hear me?”

“Mamma, I can’t go anywhere today,” said Jane, assuming Betty’s best manner for the occasion. “I think it’s the limit for you to go away somewhere when you know I can’t go. You know the rehearsal lasts all this afternoon—”

“Jane, sit down, and I’ll explain. You are not going back to school. We are going away. They will have to get along without you at the rehearsal.”

“But they can’t, Mamma,” said Jane with her mouth full. “I’m in every scene. I’m really the
star!
It wouldn’t be
honorable
of me to go away and leave them in a hole!”

Honorable! There was that word again. What a strange sense of honor her children seemed to be suddenly developing.

Eleanor tried to explain.

“Circumstances have taken a most unexpected turn, Jane. I haven’t time to explain to you now. But your father or I will see that your teacher is notified. It isn’t as if there isn’t plenty of time before the play to supply your place, and you told me yourself that at least two of your classmates were both eager and able to take your place, so we shall not be seriously inconveniencing anybody.”

“Do you mean that you’re not going to let me be in the play at all?” asked Jane, aghast.

“We will not be in town, Jane. We are going away this afternoon.”

“I won’t
stand
it!” Jane shouted with a quick burst of angry tears. “I won’t, I
won’t!
You
shan’t
do a thing like that to me! I’ll run away! I’ll—I’ll—I’ll stay at Emily Carter’s.” She paused in her outburst and brought out a tempestuous little smile with a tilt of her small chin and a toss of her curly head.
“That’s
what I’ll do, Mamma. I’ll stay at the Carters’ till you come back, or—or—till after the play’s over.”

“Under no circumstances will you stay at the Carters’, Jane. And your father is quite unwilling that you shall either act or rehearse in that play even once more. He saw quite enough of your part last night. If I had known what it was that you were doing, if I had understood—”

“Why, Mamma, it wasn’t like what I did last night. I changed it just for fun. There’s nothing you couldn’t like about the play, really. If you’ll just come over and watch me rehearse, Mamma. Please—”