The Prodigal Girl (2 page)

Which one of those three Mermaid Eights would Betty rather have? The yellow one was out of the question of course, entirely too loud for a young girl. Perhaps it would be better to let her choose but no, that would spoil the joy of the surprise. This first real gift that was really worth anything he would choose just as he wanted it to be.

And he knew in his heart that the deep rich green like the heart of the woods would be his choice. Of course the blue was good, too, but blue was so common now. No, that green one with the sporty little gray top and the nickel trimmings was distinguished enough for any girl. Yes, he would get the green one. Perhaps he would not even tell Eleanor about it. He would just surprise them all.

His gaze wandered from the newspaper, which he was not reading, to the window with its lights flashing past. How beautiful it was out there with the river far below surrounded by lights clustering along its banks, little red lights like red berries on the barges tied up at the empty wharfs. Smoke billowing softly, cloud-like from the tall stacks of factories, more lights in clusters, stars above, stars below. Why, how beautiful it was! What a world to live in anyway, when even the riverbank down by a factory could appear beautiful at night. Someone ought to write a poem about it. The beauty of a city at night. Perhaps someone had. Perhaps others had noticed this beauty; he never had. It took an easy mind to just sit down and see beauty. He must remember this and get more time to look around him, see the beauty in the world before he got old!

It certainly was good to feel that great load of anxiety gone that he had carried now for ten years. Success in sight and writ large! His heart swelled gratefully.

It was then that the words struck him. They hurled around his protective newspaper and got him by the throat like so many demons taking him unawares to destroy him.

He had heard those two young voices; boyish, silly, vacuous, he had unconsciously labeled them when their conversation reached his averted consciousness. He had heard without knowing what they were saying, until suddenly his daughter’s name was mentioned followed by a loud, nasty laugh, the kind of a laugh a demon from the pit might give after a dastardly deed of depredation.

Instantly the father’s senses were alert, stung into horror, unable to believe his ears. If the two youths who were so frankly talking over their conquests could have seen his face, could have known who was sitting behind them listening to their depraved confidences, they would have slung themselves with little delay from his earshot. But in cheerful ignorance of his proximity, and with confident casualness, they proceeded, in no hushed voices, boastfully comparing experiences and girls!

“Little rats! Little dirty rats! Vile dirty devils!” A voice from Thornton’s soul away off in the distance seemed to be crying, “Throttle them! Choke them! Rub their faces in the dust of the earth! Strangle them! Pull out their tongues by the roots!
Exterminate
them!” The words seemed to be tumbling over and over in his brain, while his heart turned cold with horror and anger, and his brain seethed with helpless phrases. For a moment he knew how a murderer felt. He must kill them. Of course he must kill those vile creatures who had presumed to speak of his upright, precious daughter in such vilely intimate terms.

And yet when he tried to throw down the paper and rise, his hands trembled and had no power to release the sheet from his hold! And the power was gone from his feet! He could not move his eyes to see those two who were blaspheming his child in his hearing. An icy hand had his throat by a terrible grip, and something was binding his heart with fearful pressure so that it seemed as if the very veins in his temples would burst. Was he having a stroke? Was this paralysis that held him hand and foot from dragging those low-lived youths the length of the car and flinging them from the platform into a passing field?

Gradually his heart beat more steadily, and he could think a little. His eyes, which had been staring so blindly, began to see the larger letters on the sheet before him, although he did not comprehend their meaning. He was groping, reaching out, trying to steady himself. Perhaps he had been overdoing lately. Those blinding headaches to which he had been subject the last few months were a result of overwork and worry, and now that the pressure was relieved somewhat he was feeling a reaction. Surely he
must
have only fancied that he heard those awful words, the loathsome laughs that were like crawling serpents coming toward him, menacing the one he held so dear. What had they said anyway? He recalled the words, forced himself to bear again the shock of their meaning. Surely, surely they were lying! Boasting to one another! Trying to outdo one another, the dirty little vermin! Surely, they only chose his daughter’s name to accompany such boasts because she was so high, so pure, so far above any possibility of a breath touching her reputation that the boast was all the greater! Of course it could not be true—his
daughter!
Betty! Why,
little Betty! They must be made to suffer for this!
It was not true! He must do something about it, though! He must take them out when the train stopped, take them somewhere perhaps to the garage and put them through a grilling and then wallop them till they were sick. Would that be sufficient for such a hellish offense? He must control himself. He must remember his daughter’s fair name. He must not bring her into the public eye by attacking the criminals here in public. He must put a hold upon himself.

He was startled at the strength of the fury that had been unleashed within him—righteous fury!

Yet there he sat frozen in his seat, and those boastful voices were speaking further of his Betty, setting forth her personal charms with a frankness that was more than revolting, comparing her exquisite intimate loveliness to that of some other girl whom they called Judy! Why did he not reach forward now and grip that boy by the throat? Call the conductor and have him arrested! What was it that held him this way from making a single move?

Was it? Could it be that he was afraid lest Betty? No! But
had
Betty been
indiscreet?
Could she have allowed intimacies without realizing, meaning to? Innocently of course. Oh, no—impossible!

His Betty! But yes, that must be what held him back!

He thought of her exquisite rose-leaf body as a baby lying softly in the white blanket when he and Eleanor had looked at her alone together for the first time, almost to worship her, so fresh and sweet she was from God, like a bud dropped down to earth from heaven. It had seemed a sanctuary just to stand and look at her. Her father’s heart had turned to God more closely at that moment than ever before, when he realized that God had trusted him with such a flower of perfect life to love and guide. It had made him feel that he must somehow purify his own life to be worthy of so great a trust. And through the years when she had been growing up he had always felt this more or less whenever he looked at her glowing beauty. He felt almost like worshipping her, giving her reverence for her exquisite purity and beauty.

And now, these swine dared to joke about her charms as if—He paused and stared about him as the train came to an abrupt halt at his home station, and passengers arose all about him swarming out.

He let his paper fall from his numb fingers and tried to stand upon his feet. The two youths in front of him were noisily dragging one another up, laughing irresponsibly. The one who had spoken those first terrible words caught the falling newspaper and returned it to Thornton’s nerveless hand. The father lifted his stricken eyes and recognized the youth as the son of a neighbor, a classmate of Betty’s in high school. Thornton’s face was ashen, but the boy was not looking at him. He was still employed in a whispered line of jokes with his companion, his eyes following a girl who had just come down the aisle. The little swine! He had not even known that the father of Betty had heard what he had said! Would he have cared if he had noticed?

The stricken father stood there dazed, filled with loathing of life, trying to think what he should do. He seemed to lack the power to move out of the car. Yet he knew that when all the others were out he must get out quickly and go after those boys and—What should he do? What could he do that he would not have to explain and thus bring his Betty into disgrace! Oh, he understood now why men sometimes became murderers!

But when he had gone out to the platform and the train had passed on its way, he seemed dazed by the dark. He tried to look around for those boys, but they were gone. Before long everyone else was gone, too, and he was left standing alone on that platform with the rows of lights and the sound of the station agent slamming the late baggage into the baggage room, getting ready for the next train down to the city.

He dragged his heavy feet across the track. He had the feeling his heart was a great burden that he had to carry home and that his feet were too frail for the task. His head, too, bothered him. He could not think. He could only hear those awful words about his Betty beat over and over in his brain, and he could not decide what to do. Should he go to Dudley Weston’s house, ask for Mr. Weston senior, and demand—What should he demand? What was adequate for a young girl’s name and intimate sweetness defamed even in thought?

He knew of course that there were stories being told about the frankness of youth, the lengths to which they would go, the orgies, the debaucheries—But these were not young people like his own. Such a thing could never touch his family, reared in refinement, guarded and taught the right from babyhood with such a home and such a mother! No, of course not! Betty would never allow intimacies! And yet these boys had dared—Had said that she—

He would get to that point and every time would halt and recall the boy’s words, phrases what Betty had said, what Betty had—Oh, God! Could there be any punishment for desecration like that?

Oh, yes, the boys and girls had stolen kisses when he was young, and thought it smart, had held hands on a sleigh ride or a hayride, or coming home in the moonlight. But nothing like
this!

Petting parties! Was that what they meant when they mentioned in the papers and magazines the doings of young people? And referred to them lightly! The writers could not have understood! Oh, it could not be that a thing like this, a loathsome cancer, could steal into the heart and life of a rose of a girl like his Betty and defame it!

Yet all the while in the back of his mind was that fear growing as he dragged his heavy feet along the path, the fear that Betty had inadvertently been a party to the whole thing. Giddy and pretty, fun loving, daring, she might have led her companions on unwittingly He got no further than that. Yet it was something that might bring shame on her sweet self if brought to the light of inquiry, and what was he to do?

He groaned aloud so that a passerby hurrying down to the next train turned and looked after him and wondered if he ought to offer help.

And now the necessity for getting home and seeing Betty rose within him like a frenzy. One look at her sweet flower face would of course dispel these groundless fears and give him strength to go out and bring vengeance on her maligners. He felt sure that all he needed to set his spirit right and give it the accustomed strength to act was to look in his Betty’s eyes and see her sweet, pure smile. His little daughter Betty!

And then he came within sight of his home, a comely stone dwelling with welcoming windows set with shaded lamps and a glow of firelight in the cheerless night.

He paused a moment to look at it all once more and think how dear it was before he stepped within and learned the truth. Before its charm could be shadowed by anything that could sadden the beautiful life they had lived within. Why had he thought they needed another home? This one had been so gracious, so wonderful, so satisfying. Even if he came to have millions, why should he change such a home as this for the fairest mansion earth could offer?

There was Eleanor standing by the fire, one foot resting on the fender, and Doris hanging on her mother’s arm. Jane was playing something on the piano, a dashing little jazzy melody that rang out cheerily through the closed window. Chris was seated in the window reading the sports page of the evening paper, and John was working away in the corner with his radio. Thornton saw all this as he stepped up on the porch and hungrily looked in the window. His home! Why hadn’t he been more mindful, more grateful for having such a home?

And they were all waiting for him. He must be very late! It seemed ages since he had got off the train and started to walk home. He could see through the open door beyond that the table was ready. The pantry swing door opened a crack, and the maid looked in crossly and out again.

But where was Betty?

His heart contracted sharply, and he hastened to open the door and step within to dispel that ghost of fear again.

Betty was just coming down the stairs as he closed the door and looked around. She was dressed in a little rosy taffeta, slim and straight to her narrow waist and then hooped on the hips and flaring out like the petals of a lovely flower. Her exquisite head with its sleek gold cap of close-cut shining curls was tilted delicately as if she knew her power, and her slim, white lovely arms and neck gleamed against the darkness of the staircase as if they were also of the texture of the rose. She poised on her little high-heeled silver shoes, fussing with a spray of silk roses on her shoulder and called crossly to her father where he stood staring by the door.

“Well, is that you, Chester, come at last? You better cut this out!
I’ve
got to go out this evening, and I can’t be kept waiting all hours! We were just going to eat without you! I didn’t see any sense myself waiting all this time. Come on, Eleanor, he’s here at last, and you better give him a dose of medicine. He looks like a stewed prune. Do get a hustle on, I can’t wait all night!”

Chapter 2

T
he lovely little daughter pirouetted lightly on the lower step of the stair till the light over her head showed full upon her loveliness, accentuated here and there—a touch of carmine on the pouting imperious little mouth; a soft blush on the cheek that he had always called her lovely complexion; a darkening of lash and brow; a shadow under the great blue eyes that somehow wore a dashing look of boldness and impertinence tonight that he had never seen before. It seemed that the hall light was cruel. Those overhead lights were always severe. When she got out to the table he would see her as she really was, and then this horrible fear that was gripping his heart now so that he could scarcely breathe would leave him forever. Just let him get a good look into her dear eyes and see her smile. He wished she wouldn’t call him Chester in that pert tone. It didn’t sound respectful. When she had first taken it up playfully it had been a joke, but tonight—well—tonight it hurt!