The Prodigal Girl (11 page)

“Jane, sit down!” said her mother severely. “Sit down and eat your lunch. We have no time for further discussion. I’ll explain everything later. As soon as you are through, go up and change to the dress that is lying on your bed, and be quick about it!”

But Jane in a storm of tears dashed into the living room and flung herself upon the couch to howl.

“Jane, you must stop this noise at once,” said Eleanor, following her. “Your father has been very ill, and you will make him worse.”

Jane wept on, growing louder.

John appeared on the scene, his face smeared with plum jam and a blackberry tart in either hand:

“Aw, cut it out, Jay,” he called. “We’re goin’ ta have a corkin’ time. Hannah says we haven’t any money anymore an’ we’re goin’ away off to live on a farm where they have pigs and cows and a haystack to slide down and ponies and a wheelbarrow.”

Jane sat up and looked at him. She made a face at him, and then she went on crying.

“I—shan’t—g–g–g–go!” she sobbed out tempestuously.

About that time the door of Chris’s room opened upstairs, and Jane heard her father’s footsteps, heard his voice in grave tones. She remembered his grip of her arm last night and got up from the couch. She came slowly back into the dining room, mopping her red nose and eyes and catching her breath in broken sobs as she slid into her seat at the table.

The dining room became very quiet. Even the twins were still, eating tarts and drinking more milk.

Chris was walking downstairs behind his father.

“Yes, sir!” they could hear him say in a subdued tone. “Yes, sir.

I will.”

They came into the dining room silently and took their seats. Chris did not look at his mother. He sat down and began to eat from the plate Hannah gave him. He asked for coffee, but he did not look at anybody. His eyes were down upon his plate as if he was ashamed, or afraid, his mother could not tell which. Her heart began to quake with new fears.

Chapter 8

W
here is Betty?” asked Chester Thornton, looking with troubled gaze around the table.

“She got off to school before I woke up,” said Eleanor apologetically, “and I haven’t had time to send word for her to come home.”

“But she ought to be here by this time,” said her father, looking at his watch.

“She ain’t comin’ home,” volunteered John. “I saw her go into the cafeteria with some kids fer lunch. She told me to tell Mamma she wouldn’t be here.”

“I had better telephone for her,” said Eleanor, rising anxiously.

“No!” said Chester sharply. “Just get her things ready, and we’ll stop for her on the way. We haven’t time to wait for her to come home.”

Eleanor sank back into her chair once more, finished the coffee, and took one more bite of her bread and butter, but she felt as if she could hardly swallow anything.

“The truck will be here soon,” said Chester. “There’ll be room for a trunk or two and all the blankets and pillows you need to take. How soon will you be ready?”

“Oh!” said Eleanor feebly. “Why, yes. Very soon.” “Chris and I have an errand to do,” announced Chester. “It may take us fifteen or twenty minutes, and when we get back I’ll be ready to start whenever you are. I noticed you had my things pretty well packed.”

Eleanor marveled at the restrained voice of her husband. He seemed deathly white, and she feared for him. She wondered what the errand was that was important enough to take him away even for fifteen minutes. She looked keenly at Chris, but he went on eating with his eyes downcast. Her heart seemed heavy like lead. She swallowed the scalding coffee and rose without attempting to eat anything more.

“I’ll go up and put the last things in,” she said. “Jane, you had better come with me.”

Jane looked at her father.

“Daddy?” she said with a quiver in her voice. “Daddy, do I have to go?” Her question ended in a wail.

“Yes!” said Chester, looking at the little girl with a reminder of last evening in his eyes, until she quailed.

“But—Daddy”—her lips were quivering with the pretty, pitiful plea that had always won her what she wanted—“Daddy, I can’t leave my teacher in a h–o–o–ole!”

“I will explain to your teacher,” said Chester Thornton. “Jane, your mother needs you upstairs.”

Jane arose slowly, reluctantly, sobbing into her handkerchief despairingly, but her father and Chris went out without noticing her. Chris walked as though he was about to face an ordeal.

When they had gone out the front door Jane returned to the dining room to retrieve the last tart from the twins and went slowly upstairs, emitting crumbly sobs occasionally.

“Jane, sit on this suitcase while I fasten it,” called Eleanor, and Jane, discovering her old last year’s sweater and cap, grew suddenly interested. She looked around and discovered the other suitcases and the big trunk. Somehow the affair took on new meaning. There might be something interesting in it all, even if one didn’t get to act in the play. There would be other plays, and they would likely be coming back someday. It was rather fun after all to be taken out of school and go off on a mysterious trip.

Chester and Chris did not come back in fifteen minutes. Eleanor watched the clock anxiously, not because she cared how late they started but for fear of what might be unearthed of Chris’s misdoings.

Then Michael, the driver, arrived with the truck, and she had her hands full getting the right things loaded in. Of course having the truck come made things a thousand times easier. She could just wrap a lot of things in an old quilt and have it piled into the back, without bothering to pack.

During this episode Jane disappeared and was discovered just turning the corner of the street. It was Michael who ran after her and brought her back.

“I was only going to get some things I left at Emily’s and then run around and say good-bye to the school,” she explained sulkily.

Eleanor set her to work scrubbing the tart off the twins, and searching in the hall closet for all the galoshes.

“I don’t see what we need these for,” said Jane. “We’re going in a car, aren’t we? Where are we going, anyway?”

“To a nice place where Daddy used to live when he was a boy,” explained Eleanor. “We’re all going off to have a good time, because Daddy is all tired out and needs a rest.”

Jane eyed her keenly. She had a lurking suspicion that the migration had something to do with her performance at the drugstore, but she said nothing.

Then Chester arrived with a subdued-looking Chris. Eleanor tried in vain to read from their faces what had happened but could not in the bustle of leaving.

Hannah came down to the car to take last directions, and there was no more time. She had to count up the suitcases, run back to look through all the rooms, and make sure that nothing important had been left behind.

Then they all piled in, Eleanor in the backseat with Doris in the middle leaving a place for Betty; Jane, still sulky, and John, too excited to sit down, in the middle seats. Chris was in the front, with Chester driving.

Chester slammed the door shut and put his foot on the clutch. Hannah came running with the other thermos bottle of hot chocolate for the twins and an extra milk bottle, and Eleanor looked back at the home she so loved and wondered if she would ever see it again.

The twins were excited now and were talking.

“Daddy, will there be plenty of pigs?” asked John.

“Cut it!” growled Chris importantly and then subsided again as if he suddenly remembered.

The car started and went down the street. Jane looked hungrily toward the Carter house and twisted her neck to get a last glimpse of the drugstore on whose steps lounged two prep boys, smoking illegal cigarettes. She gave them a grimace with her tongue in her cheek, which was not unnoticed by her mother, and then settled down to the excitement of going on a journey. Jane was not at the stage of life where an impression had very deep hold. A new one could easily erase it.

They turned down the street on which the high school was located, and suddenly Eleanor’s heart gave a thud of fear. There had been so many that day. Now what would Betty do? Make a scene, probably. What would that lecturer have suggested in a case like this? But then of course that lecturer would never have allowed things to go as far as this. She would likely have said that the children had a right to express themselves. They had their own lives to live, and if they did not want to live them as their father and mother wanted them to do, they should not be forced into it. Bah, what foolishness it all was. Something was wrong. Why had she not seen it all before? It was a wrong basis to start out on. Expressing themselves! What were “themselves” anyway when they didn’t know what it was all about yet?

Chester stopped the car and got out. He walked briskly up the steps of the high school and disappeared within the great doors. Jane had a satisfying reflection that Daddy would meet his match in the superintendent. Perhaps there was still hope that they might not have to go anywhere until school was over. What a lark it would be
then
to go off on a mysterious journey to a new place!

Betty was applying lipstick to her pretty mouth, carefully, thoroughly, vividly, behind her largest study book propped up on her desk.

Her seat happened to be at the back of the room, and as the teacher was busy with a class in the front of the room she was not likely to be discovered. It was counted a misdemeanor to apply makeup in school, especially so in that teacher’s precincts, but Betty felt a little pale, and the class meeting to be held immediately after school was one of the places she liked to be particular about her appearance.

Betty never attempted anything but the faintest makeup around home. She knew her mother did not consider it good taste, and her father could not endure it, so she always went early to school and paid a good deal of attention to patting her face into order behind the door in the cloakroom before she went into her classroom. It was annoying to have to plan, and be stealthy, just to be decent. A pity one’s parents were so behind the times!

She was thinking about it as she put the finishing touch to the gory little cupid’s bow she was making of her mouth, her lips pursed up like a cherry, when she heard her name called and felt the searching eyes of Miss House come down and pierce behind her Latin textbook.

Lipstick and mirror went down like a flash. Out came a small white handkerchief and gave a quick polish to her chin while she assumed an interested manner and lifted innocent eyes to her teacher’s call.

“Miss Elizabeth Thornton, you are wanted in the office at once!”

Betty arose, annoyed. Surely Miss House wouldn’t send her down to the office just for brushing up her lips a little, all so quietly in the back seat with no one sitting near to watch her. She had waited till the psychology class came in to recite before she even started, and it hadn’t taken her but a minute.

Betty went down to the desk haughtily to protest, but Miss House waved her toward the door.

“Someone in the office waiting to see you. Professor Morley said you were to come at once!”

Wondering, yet somewhat relieved, she made her way down the hall.

Someone to see her! Who could it be? Surely Dud hadn’t taken this way of communicating with her. He wouldn’t dare openly. He would likely call up and make an appointment in code sometime late in the afternoon. But who on earth could it be?

As she turned the knob of the door there came a sudden thought of her father like a sharp little pain going through her heart. Perhaps something had happened to her father! Perhaps he was worse, and her mother had sent for her! How terrible if one’s father should die, as Hattie Blaine’s father had done last week!

Then girding herself up and lifting her chin a little haughtily she entered the door and stood face-to-face with her father.

She stared at him, half-relieved, half-frightened. Had Chester gone crazy, tracking her around this way? What could have happened? She forgot entirely the vivid color that she had just applied to her lips and could not understand the startled stare her father gave her for an instant before he spoke. Then his voice sounded harsh and stern as he said:

“Get your hat and coat, Betty, and come with me! Professor Morley understands you’re going, so you need wait for nothing but to get your things. Hurry! I will explain it all to you on the way. We are late already!”

Betty’s face darkened ominously, and her little red lips went thin and hard with determination.

“I couldn’t possibly think of it,” she said. “Wherever you’re going, Chester, you’ll have to go without me. I’ve got commitments all the afternoon, and I haven’t a minute to spare. I’ve one more recitation before three o’clock, and I’m not quite ready for it.”

“You are excused from recitations, Betty. I have arranged all that.” “But I have a class meeting and an important report to give. I couldn’t possibly go if it were a trip to Europe. And we have basketball practice this afternoon.”

“That has nothing to do with it, daughter. Something far more important has come up, and you will have to come with me at once! If you have any message to send to anyone I am sure Professor Morley’s secretary will take it for you.”