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Show f 1 li if1 1ETW " Kathleen Norris O KATHLEEN NORRIS WNU SERVICE ": CHAPTER IX Continued 1 -9- -."And what'd you go to the library V, Sheila?" "Well, we wanted to see each oth-t oth-t , Joe. You see, when I went to :, Kje back that blue purse and I (Fw'l it, Ma, but my money's here C-fe, I left it home! Well, and then, iTe, when I went to the Mc Canns, give back the money, I got my-ar my-ar tlf up like a beggar, remember? and that they'd feel sorry for me, d Cce? Well, it seems that this Ger-?0i Ger-?0i ;ide Keane, whose purse it was, is A hi: ward of the Mc Canns her fa-ing fa-ing er and mother died when she was ;ht .tie, and she grew up with the Mc !548,mns. And Peter McCann was right ;igr,sere and I hadn't seen him since i yotIler's Beach because he had lost Of y address but I didn't know - forat " "Slow up, Sheila! You and he :ed each other at the beach?" "Just that one day. And then we .need that night." "And then the next time you meet r' 51lm it's four days before his mar-atlemge mar-atlemge to another girl?" "You see, Joe?" "But you were still in love with m?" "Well, I sort of liked him." Sheila ddenly took a firmer tone. "But I ite him now!" she said. T "Three days afther ye've merried m!" her mother muttered in an s idertone. "That's fine doin's!" 0f "Wait a minute, Ma. So you and )ovei2ter said you'd meet?" jjav,She swallowed, nodded, watching brother's' face anxiously, with "Sheila, for heaven's sake!" Joe protested. "Be your age. Getting a telegram like that, what else could Ma think?" "Ma was just as bad as the rest of you!" Sheila sobbed wildly. "Don't touch me, Joe, don't hold me! I tell you I'm going away and I'm never coming back, never!" "Oh, blessed Saint Joseph, save us!" Angela prayed, frantically. No heavenly intervention appeared likely. But there was an interruption, interrup-tion, nevertheless. Frame Mc Cann quietly opened the hall door and stepped into the kitchen. He was confronted by Sheila, pale-faced, pale-faced, with blazing eyes. She had thrown off her brother's detaining hand, her fingers had been on the knob when Frank turned it. "Hello, hello!" Peter's older brother said in his pleasant voice as he took in the scene. "What's going on here?" "What's going on," Sheila answered an-swered hotly, with a heaving chest, "is that my mother and my brother and sister don't believe me, and I've had about enough of being treated like a thief and a liar and a street-walker and I don't know what else besides!" CHAPTER X "Well, here here don't be in such a hurry!" Frank said, stopping her with a big, gentle hand. "I've got to go!" Sheila told him, breathlessly. "But wait a minute " er, and ihere was something definite, defi-nite, poised about him. He made Peter seem like a little boy. Just the twist of his square mouth, not quite smiling, all sympathetic as he occasionally glanced at her was enough to set her pulses moving to a slow, rhythmic beat that seemed to be rocking the whole world as well as the heart of Sheila Carscad-den. Carscad-den. "Be a good girl," he had said to her. And he had called her "Sheila." "Shei-la." After she had run away from all the hatefulness, from this new, accusing, suspicious Angela, and this reproachful Joe, and this totally to-tally unknown Ma, then she knew that she would take these magic phrases out of the very inner chamber cham-ber of her soul and taste them over and over again on her tongue. "Now, tomorrow being St. Patrick's Pat-rick's Day, it's a holiday," Frank was saying. "And my mother wondered won-dered if you and Joe and Sheila would come down to our house in the morning, Mrs. Carscadden, and then we can talk the whole thing over. There'll probably be a report re-port from the police department by then and we can give out a statement state-ment to the press and straighten everything ev-erything out. And by this time next week," Frank said cheerfully, rising, ris-ing, "everyone will have forgotten all about it. You'll be down?" Ma glanced at Joe, and Joe nodded. nod-ded. "I will!" Ma then said solemnly. Frank stood looking at them all. "My mother wants you to know my enched eyes. Then, fighting back jg tears, she told them of her in-ng in-ng 'edible adventure. .Presently Joe interrupted. , "Sheila, listen. I want to believe riu, and I want to get this straight. 'mit it sounds awfully fishy. Why n- Wd those men want to drag you P id Peter Mc Cann along with. cs,,(em? Why shouldn't they let you s lc home?" . ;"Well, they were trying to hide les tmething, Joe; they were afraid. !yafney were trying to hide some-'led some-'led ing!" '"Go on. What happened then?" rlcl!,:"Then we went bumping up and o and up into the most desolate d house you ever saw, and I was tired I lay down and went to , eep with all my clothes on. t0 "And the next day yesterday ere we were with three terrible- " oking men, only they turned out to ; not so fierce, and then this first and'an came UP a"d I guess he told ;ncjiem everything was all right, be-bottiuse, be-bottiuse, anyway, we started down in neie same truck only first I cooked (. 0f nncr for them. Ma, I cooked a uli'Ot-roast, only I had to thicken it You wouldn't," she told him. "You'd get out if your mother and sister and brother all double-crossed you!" Gentle and dark and good-natured, he smiled down at her, not freeing her arm from the grip of his fingers. "Well, I never double-crossed you, did I, Sheila?" "Let me go!" the girl said angrily. angri-ly. She looked up, and for the first time in her life she really saw him, a dark, smiling young man, with Irish blue eyes. "I never double-crossed you, did I?" Frank said. The girl spoke dazedly, as if out of a dream. "No, you never double-crossed me." "Sit down, then," he said. Sheila did not move her eyes. "Be a good girl," Frank urged. ' Suddenly she sat down. She still watched his face expectantly. "My father is very anxious to see Sheila and you, Mrs. Carscadden," ' Frank said. "So that we can begin to get all this straightened out. Unfortunately Un-fortunately unfortunately Joe and r M I "Well, they may. But what do you care, if" Frank changed the form of his words "since it's not true?" he asked. "I do care," she said, stubbornly. "Can't you look at the whole thing as a sort of adventure, something that might happen in a movie, say? You and Pete will think this is a great joke, some day." "There's only one thing," Sheila began suddenly, after a troubled study of his handsome, dark face. "I won't marry Peter Mc Cann. Not if the Church itself" "Listen, listen," he said soothingly, soothing-ly, his hand on her arm, "you don't have to get so excited about it. You don't have to. You don't have to marry anyone, if you don't want'to!" "I'll become a nun, first!" Sheila whispered, fiercely. She saw Frank's characteristic half-smile brighten his face. "You won't have to go that far." "But if his mother and father expect ex-pect me to " Sheila began, anxiously. anx-iously. Frank reflected a moment. "They don't," he told her briefly. "You're sure they don't?" The man spoke more slowly: "Why, they wouldn't want you to do anything you didn't want to do. They might think you wanted to." "Well," she said, in instant relief, re-lief, "I don't want to." "You know, Sheila," Frank began, and looked away, hesitating. "You know, my mother thought," he began be-gan again, "that since you arid Peter had been shut up in that place for two nights " He hesitated, and Sheila took it up defiantly: "Yes, I know. And what's more, Peter was in my room that first night, what there was left of it, that is. But I don't care! It doesn't make the slightest difference." "It was only a question of justice to you, Sheila." "Well, you can tell your mother that I'm perfectly satisfied!" "Miss Kennedy my young lady la-dy " Frank persisted, "agreed with my mother." "Well, then she doesn't understand under-stand the way I feel!" Sheila said hotly. Frank was smiling, as at an angry an-gry child. "She's a pretty wise young lady, Bernadette," he said, as if he were , merely thinking aloud. Sheila stood looking at him, panting. "You don't think I ought to marry Peter!" she challenged him. "I thought " Her earnestness affected af-fected him in spite of himself, and he looked at her with his kindest expression. ex-pression. Sheila seemed small and pale, in her scant old cotton gown, with her tumbled coppery bang falling fall-ing on her broad forehead. She was fighting for her life. "I thought you'd want to, Sheila," Frank said, sympathetically. "Frank!" Suddenly she was clinging cling-ing to him, jumbled against him, soft and warm and sweet "Don't let them make me!" If he said anything to her she did not hear it. His arm was about her for a minute, his face against her hair. Then they had drawn apart, and his fingers, that had been gripping hers, were loosened, and he was running down the stairs. Sheila stood dazed, alone in the hallway. After a while she turned toward the kitchen; a strange light was in her absent eyes, a dreamy smile on her lips. She moved like a sleepwalker. When Sheila re-entered the room it was to a sulphurous silence on the part of her mother, who was alone there. Joe had gone to bed in the front room, and Angela was in Sheila's place in the big bed, crying, asleep, or feigning unconsciousness, uncon-sciousness, Sheila could not tell. It was a little hard to manage a dignified dig-nified performance of disrobing and ablutions with her mother's steely eyes upon her, and with the consciousness con-sciousness that she would presently come to bed in the same small room with her, .but Sheila achieved it, Angela rarely slept in the big bed. It was a tacit sign of Sheila's alienation alien-ation from the family that she should be there tonight. "A lot I care!" Sheila thought angrily. an-grily. "They're all against me!" She deliberately summoned Frank Mc Cann to her mind, deliberately dwelt upon every look of his, every word, his smiling remoteness from any trouble of hers; he that was so cool and faultless and amused at it all! "No girl would ever get that one into trouble," Sheila thought, going off to sleep. At eleven o'clock the next morning morn-ing she and her mother and Joe presented themselves at the Mc Cann mansion. Part of the way they rode in a bus, following the Fifth Avenue side of the park in the holiday-morning excitement. Crowds were already gathering for the St Patrick's Day parade. Bands were abroad. There was snow left in the park, great stretches of it, under the bare trees, and there were children skating and screaming scream-ing on the pond. It was a cold, sunless morning, with a sharp bite in the heavy air. Sheila maintained a sulky silence all the way; her mother and brother scarcely spoke. She was but twenty-one. And this morning her life was ruined before her. No girl alive could live down headlines like those, no girl could go to an office with this to face! Most of the morning papers had run a conservative notice of the marriage. "Second Son of Judge Mc Cann Surprises Family," and "Missing Psir Married in Eos'.on" that was the central order. fl'O .'' COMIMTU) " iaith flour, because there wasn't any rhis)rnstarch so then they brought us jjji this place called Capitol Junc-ititon Junc-ititon " nly "But when were you in Boston, u-ieila?" the Jl "In Boston! We weren't in Bos-:nty'n-" rs." "That's where your telegram ttljime from." j jj "Why, it couldn't have been, Joe! e gave him our names on Satur-jy Satur-jy at the studio, and he said he'd :nd the telegrams right away. He lought Peter and I were married, were going to be, anyway " "But listen, Sheila, let's get this .e, traight. Were you married here in andew York?" "Married! Joe, you're crazy, or .se I'm going crazy. I don't know hich! We never were married. ifll'e hate each other! We never (fought of getting married!" i"I guess you and I don't under-Iland under-Iland each other," Joe said slowly, Htcr a long pause. "I guess we're B)rt ol in the dark. Who sent . I He took a much-folded limp ob-,ng ob-,ng of yellow paper from his pock-SS:, pock-SS:, opened it, passed it to Sheila. , She flattened it, read it, and looked , lp him. Then she read it again, icin's ''me '"eluding a glance at the ?c,llte line, "Boston, March 15, 12:13 ". M." I6 The message was brief: , "Peter Mc Cann and I married f justice of the peace this eve-ng." eve-ng." it said. "Very happy letter st !on." ill It was signed "Sheila." For a long time Sheila sat staring : them all in silence. The color D.-nincd from her face. "Is that what he sent?" she whis-pred whis-pred at last. "That came Sunday morning," eloe answered, watching her. Luii' "Well, of course it's a lie, Joe," Bte said simply. "We never were ins-1 Boston, we never were married. "Jjou can go to the library and you'll om'.e the marks on the roof where we frnpi'd out, I suppose. They're robably still there in the snow. And jjijjpiu can see the studio. Peter'll ciU ynu the same. And you can find Tpitol Junction on the map!" yy "You all believed the worst of e," Sheila answered, getting an--S-y- "You all thought I'd run off .id got married by a justice of the 3-ace! All of you, Angela and Ma id even Joe! "-""All right," she stammered, trem-aling trem-aling and getting to her feet. "All jfght, I will run away! You'll never Dj;ar of me again! I won't have the 0plice chasing me up and printing , xiries that I eloped with another irl's fellow you've ruined me, be- Svcen you! You'll never see me Jjjgain!' I, here, gave the thing to the papers at noon today," he added with a rueful rue-ful laugh. "There was no marriage, it seems now," Joe said. "No, but the evening papers have it." Joe clicked teeth and tongue. Mrs. Carscadden began a wail, put her fingers over her mouth again. "What else could we do?" Frank argued. He had put out a big hand and gripped Sheila's fingers as they lay on the table, but he was not looking at her. "We had given the disappearance story to the police Saturday night," he said. "Then the telegrams came. The quickest way to hush the whole thing up was to tell them that you and Pete had decided de-cided to give your families a surprise sur-prise and get married. We made it as as dignified as we could, didn't we, Joe? We said that this followed up a friendship begun at Tiller's Beach last summer that kind of thing. "What complicates it," he said, directly to Joe, "is that when Sheila and Pete got to town tonight they went straight to a police station and turned in the story. The bootlegger boot-legger story, I mean. So that whatever what-ever we do now, it's well, it'll cause some little confusion," Frank concluded, with his grave half-smile for the distressed and attentive circle. cir-cle. "I'll tell the world!" Joe said. "Papa telephoned the police station." sta-tion." Frank resumed, "and they had already sent a man up to the Broadway place. We'll get the dope on that, and then we'll know how to go on. Probably the police will take it up at this point." All the time his hand rested firmly, firm-ly, encouragingly, on Sheila's and it was as if his spirit had laid quieting hands upon her spirit as well; she continued to sit docilely beside him, her bright eyes moving about the circle. She did not, as a matter of fact, hear anj-thing that they were saying. say-ing. She was absorbed in a strange, thrilling adventure of her own. The shabby kitchen, the familiar pots and pans, the oilcloth-covered table with the sticky sugar bowl and the dingy spoons slipped, handle up, into a red glass tumbler all these were before her eyes, but she did not see them. She did not see her mother's square, anxious face, under her thin, well-brushed gray hair, nor Joe's dark features, nor Angela's pale skin and shadowed eyes and aureole of gold. Now and then Sheila looked thoughtfully at Frank Mc Cann, studying his face with childlike, vague, serious eyes. He was as dark as Peter, with Peter's blue eyes. But his shoulders were squar- "I thought you'd want to, Sheila," Frank said. that whatever you think is right, my brother'll do," he said. Mrs. Carscadden glanced at Sheila. "It wouldn't be fair to your brother, broth-er, an' him in love wit' another young lady," she said. Sheila's bewildered eyes went from Frank's serious, handsome face to her mother's face; returned to Frank's again. Color began to stain her cheeks. "What are you talking about?" she demanded flatly. "Niver you mind, miss!" her mother answered. "We feel as if you got the the rotten end of this, Sheila," Frank explained, with a half-smile. "It might be that you and your mother that all of us it might be that we felt" He floundered; his kindly smile finished the sentence. "There's ger'rls that feel they have reputations to lose!" Mrs. Carscadden contributed stingingly. "My Father my brother we all want to well, to do whatever we can " Frank began again. Sheila, disdaining words, laughed scornfully. "Come," Frank said, "you like Pete, you know you do." "Sheila," Angela breathed, "you love him! You've always loved him. Why don't you " Sheila touched her sister's hand. "Shut-up," she said mildly. Angela An-gela was still. "Sheila, step out here into the hall a minute," Frank said. "I want to speak to you." Still disheveled, and pale, and with delicate umber circles about her dark blue eyes, Sheila obeyed. It was marvelous how she liked to obey him. She leaned against the dirty wall of the odorous narrow hallway and Frank addressed a few urgent sentences to her. "Sheila, I know how you feel. It's been terribly rough on you," Frank began. "But you mustn't blame your folks. What else could they think when those wires came, but that you and Pete had run off together? "This Ken, whoever he is, must be a smart devil," Frank went on, as Sheila merely raised her solemn eyes to his without speaking. "He's probably the brains of the whole outfit. He saw that an elopement would shut us all up, d'you see, and give them time. It's too bad, it's all as rotten as it can be, but it's nobody's no-body's fault. You just have to keep your nerve for a few cays . . ." "Will the morning papers have the s'ory that we were married? " the girl asked, somberly. |
