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Show (S1NORR1S THE STORY SO FAR: Charlotte (Cherry) Rawlings, an orphan since she was seven, had been at Saint Dorothea's school for girls. She knows almost nothing noth-ing about her early history. Judge Jud-son Jud-son Marshbanks, her co-guardian with Emma Haskell, a trained nurse who had taken care of her mother, arranges for her to leave the school, and take up a secretarial position with the wealthy Mrs. Porteous Porter In San Francisco. But first she goes to the Marshbanks mansion. She dines alone with the Judge as Fran, his young wife, and his niece, Amy, are dining out. Kelly Coates, an arUst, drops in, and Fran and Amy stop on their way out, nodding only casually when Cherry is introduced. It Is evident to Cherry that Coates and Fran are Interested In-terested In each other. As Fran and Amy leave she hears laughing reference to herself and her convent clothes, and is bitter. Her surroundings are luxurious luxuri-ous when she goes to work for Mrs. Porter, Por-ter, but soon she finds life most monotonous. mo-notonous. Kelly, horseback riding in the park with Fran, stops to talk with her as she Is motoring with Mrs. Porter and later sends her a box of candy. Mrs. Porter gives a big party for her niece, Dorothy Page-Smith. Cherry finds Dorothy Doro-thy crying. Now continue with the story. CHAPTER VI The hours went by; chill daylight came into the room. She got up jaded and weary, bathed and brushed her thick hair and somehow was at breakfast with Emma as usual at eight o'clock. Emma gave her a sharp look as if she thought that even last night's activities should not have left such traces, but she said nothing; both women rustled the morning papers and drank their coffee almost in silence. The customary miracle of service was going on in the house, was accomplished ac-complished when Cherry walked through the downstairs rooms at noon after a full. Are-warmed morning morn-ing in Mrs. Porter's apartment, the ordinary procedure of letters and compliments and telephone calls. The great house had reassumed its aspect of luxurious mausoleum. Cherry felt stifled. She told Emma she did not want any lunch; she took a long walk instead, for Mrs. Porter, all cheerful restoration and amazing vitality at breakfast, had admitted in mid-morning that she felt sleepy not one bit tired, but sleepy. So the machinery of the day had been stopped. Cherry was free until late in the afternoon. She walked toward the Presidio Hmim its narrow eucalyptus- shaded paths to the cliffs, and so along by the bay shore. Right across the bay, under the arch of the long red bridge, was Sausalito, and somewhere there was Kelly's studio, "Topcote." Cherry sat down on a wall and stared wistfully at the hills as if her thoughts could cross the miles, and somehow find him and somehow let him know how eager she was to make her apologies. "Topcote" could easily be reached on a long afternoon's after-noon's walk; it would be but a short half-dozen miles in all. Her fancy began to play. Some day her next all-free day-she day-she would start early and walk straight across the bridge, and when v, oor-VioH thp ereat ramus on the Marin County side, she would ask someone where Spanish Farm Road was, and follow it to some gate or fence that said, "Topcote." Emma, quiet and stern-faced and impersonal, had to concede herself sufficiently like the rest of humankind human-kind to succumb to a heavy chest cold when changeable March weather weath-er was vexing the city, and for a few days the household was seriously serious-ly alarmed about her. Her old employer em-ployer was ill too, and a nurse who had often cared for Mrs. Porter was installed in the rooms of the mistress; mis-tress; there was a second nurse as well to relieve the first. For the little time that Mrs. Porter Por-ter needed diversion, her nurses read to her or chatted with her and Cherry formed the habit of spending spend-ing the early evening hours with Emma, as Emma grew convales-cent convales-cent Although the older woman never acknowledged in words that i, liirprl her companion or missed her or waited for her, Cherry grew to enjoy these evenings, and suspected sus-pected that Emma did, too. Emma was about fifty, but she might have been any age between Sirty and seventy. Her face was thin narrow and marked by stern-, stern-, nes and reserve. Her graying hair : she wore coronet fashion in tight Draids in which never a ha.r was awry. A strange, cold, repressed woman, wom-an, Cherry used to think, as Emma be ted into a gray wrapper, sat back Ranting against her pillow. .and tacked the day's bills, menus reports re-ports Cherry brought up a lamp that illumined the ceiling and sent a fo?t light down for the invalid , eyes brought up a glass bowl of crocus blossoms and set it on the e put a Chinese plate of brown SSbs' in the sunshiny south window where Emma could employ times of where watching their almost !f " rW change And finally, shyly, he Drought Emma a tiny kitten a fundi of wet, wailing fur that she had found by the Presto wall. Emma laughed a short, scornful atrrnVTarrsaside Mh whTch the small stray, newly W' H and fed was advancing to-::S'S to-::S'S nguid hand, prom- W.N.U.RELEASF She was some blocks away from borne when a low slung, open, disrep-utable disrep-utable car drew up close to her on the curb and a voice said, "Jump in." ised with great confidence that she would remove the little creature the minute he became troublesome. From that moment the cat was visibly vis-ibly the absorbing consideration of Emma's life. "Did you go first to the Marshbanks Marsh-banks as a nurse, Emma?" Cherry asked idly one night. Emma looked at her quickly, hesitated before speaking. , "Yes," she answered then. "I'd taken the boys, Fred and Judson, through tonsil operations, and then through scarlet fever, at the hospital hos-pital when I was in training. The old lady took a liking to me, and when they'd come back from abroad a few years later and I'd been widowed, wid-owed, the old madame as we used to call Mrs. Marshbanks, though I don't suppose she was more than fifty then sent for me to take care of the colonel. He'd been struck down with sleeping sickness; he was on a couch for years. Then Miss Louise she was the only daughter and had married an engineer from Springfield came home to have the baby. The old lady was so pleased about it they both talked so much about the grandchild. And then to have both die yes, that was a bad time. "I stayed on as a nurse and housekeeper; house-keeper; I had my sister to support, and it was a comfortable place. I wasn't twenty when I graduated and came to them." "How'd you know my mother, Emma? Did you meet her at the Marshbanks'?" , Emma looked thoughtfully at her companion. "No; I knew her before that," she finally said. And then, after another an-other pause: "Your mother was my sister Charlotte." Cherry stared at her. The words did not seem to make sense. "My mother" she began in a whisper, and stopped. "Yes. Your mother was my sister. sis-ter. You were named for her. "But Emma," Cherry said breathlessly, breath-lessly, ' confusedly conscious of shock and reluctance, "you never told me!" "Well, you don't always tell children chil-dren everything," Emma said after aft-er a moment. "You weren't but a little thing when your mother died." "I could have known that!" Cherry Cher-ry exclaimed. A thousand bright dreams vanished with the revelation, revela-tion, and she felt hurt and wronged. But amazement still had first place in her thoughts. "Maybe I never told you because I didn't think you'd be especially pleased," Emma said dryly. The girl's color came up warmly. "It's not that! Of course I'm I'm glad," she stammered. "I've never had any family, and and of course I'm glad!" . And, immediately, to her own amazement, she burst into tears. She had often imagined what her connections might be; she had never nev-er dreamed this. Emma so contained con-tained and cold and distant her own aunt! Cherry pushed the table away blindly and went to the window, win-dow, and stood looking out at the dark night, and the far city lights that shot arrows and flashes through her tears. "Mother mother never told me!' she stammered. "I wish she had!" Cherry looked down at her cards with blinded eyes, and made herself her-self move them here and there as if she were playing. She finished her game, and said with a shaking voice that she was tired and thought she would go to bed. Emma still making no comment, Cherry put away the table and asked Emma if there was anything more she could d- "No," Emma said, 'nothing. The' girl came to the bedside, looked down. "Good night then," she added m a light, level tone, with a resolute smile. ' "Would you I would if you liked shall I call you Aunt Emma?" she added hesitatingly. Emma eyed her steadily for a few long seconds. "No," I don't know that I'd make any change," she said then, in the same emotionless voice that Cherry had used. "Need more ice?" "No; I'm going to listen to the radio and then I'm going to sleep. "Good night," Cherry said, with a parting second attempt af a pleasant pleas-ant smile. She walked to her own room, slipped into bed and lay with narrowed nar-rowed eyes and a bitten lower lip, pondering. Thought, long denied, came with a rush, and she was drowned in the bitterness of it. Other girls had mothers and fathers fa-thers and homes. And she had she had only the drab background of Saint Dorothea's and this humiliating humiliat-ing revelation tonight! Slow tears began to creep down Cherry's cheeks; presently she began be-gan to sob heavily. She cried herself her-self to sleep. One morning Cherry found herself free at noon, and determined to take one of the long walks she loved. She was some blocks away from home when a low-slung, open, disreputable car drew up close to her on the curb and a voice said, "Jump in." The world wheeled about her for a few dizzy seconds, for it was Kelly Coates who had spoken; he was driving the car and beside him sat Fran Marshbanks smothered in soft fox skins, with a daring red hat topped on her dark hair. "I want Mrs. Marshbanks to come over and have lunch with me," the man explained it honestly with his wide, flashing smile, "and she won't come unless you do." "Are you free from those old ogres for a while?" Fran asked in her careless, fascinating, hoarse voice. "I'm free until half past four." Cherry did not want to go and yet was wild with eagerness to go. The thought that he was in love with Fran made being in Kelly's company compa-ny exquisitely painful to her, but she had hungered to see these persons per-sons again, to be one of them, to know what was going on, and this golden opportunity would not come twice. "I'd love to," she said, smiling as she climbed in and wedged herself her-self snubly beside Fran. The moment mo-ment she did it she regretted it, wondering through what fatuity of complacence she had accepted the invitation to play a third in their affair. Why had they asked her? she wondered. "Mrs. Marshbanks," Kelly said, "once went to a movie in which a girl visited an artist in his studio, and everything went wrong for fifty years afterward. Was that it, Fran?" "Something like that," said Fran's exquisite voice lazily. "So she didn't want to come home and lunch with me," Kelly went on. "Perhaps I know my own weakness," weak-ness," Fran contributed idly. They crossed the bridge and on the eastern shore moved along a wide, smooth highway for a few miles, turned left and mounted an earth road that wound up the hill. Scattered cottages, hidden among oaks and eucalyptus, faced the road here and there. Kelly's place was at the head of a small tree-lined canyon, can-yon, and consisted of a cottage of perhaps three rooms, a large white barn, various sheds and fences that suggested that the place had once been a small farm. There was an arbor covered with young grape vines, sheltering a long table and two benches, young berry bushes just in leaf, a languishing little garden gar-den whose neglected rose and geranium ge-ranium bushes were choked with last season's dried grass and some apple and apricot trees getting ready to bloom. Cherry was under the spell of the peace of Kelly Coate's place, its simplicity, its beauty almost before be-fore she had gotten out of the car; she had never dreamed of anything so informal, so comfortable, so complete. They were all hungry; they fell upon preparations for luncheon together. to-gether. All this went on in the small kitchen, for a bleak wind had blown up from the south and it was too chilly and overcast out of doors for the arbor to be the dining room, much to Kelly's disappointment. They were very much in love, Kelly Kel-ly and Fran; Cherry could see that. Or at least Kelly was. Perhaps Fran was only pretending; Cherry could not be sure, but this was evidently evi-dently a game of which she knew every move. (TO be coatzaxed |
