Show r I IRISH EYES Kathleen Norris CHAPTER IX Continued 0 what'd you go to the library Sheila we wanted to see each You when I went to give back that blue purse and I lost but my money's here I left it and when I went to the Mc to give back the I got myself up like a so that they'd feel sorry for it seems that this Gertrude whose purse It Is a ward of the Mc Canns her father and mother died when she was and she grew up with the Mc And Peter McCann was right there and I hadn't seen him since Tiller's Beach because he had lost my address but I didn't know You and he liked each other at the that one And then we danced that then the next time you meet him It's four days before his marriage to another you were still In love with I sort of liked Sheila suddenly took a firmer I hate him she days her mother muttered In an fine a So you and Peter said you'd She watching her brother's face with drenched fighting back the she told them of her Incredible Presently Joe I want to believe and I want to get this But It sounds awfully Why should those men want to drag you and Peter Mc Cann along with Why shouldn't they let you go they were trying to hide they were They were trying to hide What happened we went bumping up and up and up into the most desolate old house you ever and I was so tired I lay down and went to sleep with all my clothes the next day yesterday there we were with three terrible-looking only they turned out to be not so and then this first man came up and I guess he told them everything was all we started down in the same truck only first I cooked dinner for I cooked a only I had to thicken it with because there wasn't any cornstarch so then they brought us to this place called Capitol when were you in Wc weren't in where your telegram came it couldn't have We gave him our names on Saturday at the and he said he'd send the telegrams right He thought Peter and I were or were going to anyway let's get this Were you married here In New you're or else I'm going I don't know We never were We hate each We never thought of getting guess you and I don't understand each Joe said after a long guess we're sort of in the Who sent He took a much-folded limp oblong of yellow paper from opened passed It to She flattened read and looked at Then she read It this time including a glance at the date March A. The message was Mc Cann and I married by justice of the peace this it happy letter It was signed For a long time Sheila sat staring at them all In The color drained from her that what he she at came Sunday Joe watching of course it's a she said never were In we never were You can go to the library and you'll see the marks on the roof where wc lumped I They're probably still there In the And you can see the tell you the And you can find Capitol Junction on the all believed the worst of Sheila getting all thought I'd run off and got married by a justice of the All of Angela and Ma and even she trem-oling and getting to her feet I will run You'll never hear of me I won't have the police chasing me up and printing that I eloped with another firl's fellow you've ruined You'll never see me for heaven's Joe your Getting a telegram like what else could Ma was just as bad as the rest of Sheila sobbed touch don't hold mel I tell you I'm going away and I'm never coming blessed Saint save Angela No heavenly intervention appeared But there was an Frame Mc Cann quietly opened the hall door and stepped Into the He was confronted by with blazing She had thrown off her brother's detaining her fingers had been on the knob when Frank turned Peter's older brother said in his pleasant voice as he look in the going on going Sheila answered with a heaving that my mother and my brother and sister don't believe 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 CHAPTER X here here don't be In such a Frank stopping her with a gentle got to Sheila told I wait a minute she told get out if your mother and sister and brother all double-crossed Gentle and dark and he smiled down at not freeing her arm from the grip of his I never double-crossed did me the girl said She looked and for the first time in her life she really saw a smiling young with Irish blue never double-crossed did Frank The girl spoke as If out of a you never double-crossed he Sheila did not move her a good Frank Suddenly she sat She still watched his face father is very anxious to see Sheila and Frank that we can begin to get all this straightened Joe and gave the thing to the papers at noon he added with a rueful was no it seems Joe but the evening papers have Joe clicked teeth and Carscadden began a put her fingers over her mouth else could we Frank He had put out a big hand and gripped Sheila's fingers as they lay the but he was not looking at had given the disappearance story to the police Saturday he the telegrams The quickest way to hush the whole thing up was to tell them that you and Pete had de- to give your families a surprise and get We made it as as dignified as we didn't We said that this followed up a friendship begun at Tiller's Beach last summer that kind of complicates lie directly to that when Sheila and Pete got to town tonight they went straight to a police station and turned in the The bootlegger I So that whatever we do it's it'll cause some little Frank with his grave half-smile for the distressed and attentive tell the Joe telephoned the police Frank they had already sent a man up to the Broadway We'll get the dope on and then we'll know how to go Probably the police will take it up at this All the time his hand rested on Sheila's and it was as If his spirit had laid quieting hands upon her spirit as she continued to sit docilely beside her bright eyes moving about the She did as a matter of hear anything that they were She was absorbed in a thrilling adventure of her The shabby the familiar pots and the oilcloth-covered table with the sticky sugar bowl and the dingy spoons handle Into a red glass tumbler all these were before her but she did not see She did not see her mother's anxious under her well-brushed gray nor Joe's dark nor Angela's pale skin and shadowed eyes and aureole of Now and then Sheila looked thoughtfully at Frank Mc studying his face with serious He was as dark as with Peter's blue But his shoulders were squar- and there was something poised about He made Peter seem like a little Just the twist of his square not quite all sympathetic as he occasionally glanced at her was enough to set her pulses moving to a rhythmic beat that seemed to be rocking the whole world as well as the heart of Sheila a good he had said to And he had called her After she had run away from all the from this suspicious and this reproachful and this totally unknown then she knew that she would take these magic phrases out of the very inner chamber of her soul and taste them over and over again on her tomorrow being St. Patrick's it's a Frank was my mother wondered if you and Joe and Sheila would come down to our house in the and then we can talk the whole thing There'll probably be a report from the police department by then and we can give out a statement to the press and straighten everything And by this time next Frank said will have forgotten all about It You'll be Ma glanced at and Joe Ma then said Frank stood looking at them mother wants you to know thought you'd want Frank that whatever you think Is my he Carscadden glanced at wouldn't be fair to your him in love another young she Sheila's bewildered eyes went from Frank's handsome face to her mother's returned to Frank's Color began to stain her are you talking she demanded you her mother feel as If you got the the rotten end of Frank with a might be that you and your mother that all of us It might be that we He his kindly smile finished the that feel they have reputations to Carscadden contributed Father my brother we all want to to do whatever wc Frank began disdaining laughed Frank like you know you Angela love himl You've always loved Why don't Sheila touched her sister's she said Angela was step out here Into the hall a Frank want to speak to Still and and with delicate umber circles about her dark blue Sheila It was marvelous how she liked to obey She leaned against the dirty wall of the odorous narrow hallway and Frank addressed a few urgent sentences to I know how you It's been terribly rough on Frank you mustn't blame your What else could they think when those wires but that you and Pete had run off whoever he must be a smart Frank went as Sheila merely raised her solemn eyes to his without probably the brains of the whole outfit He saw that an elopement would shut us all and give them It's too it's all as rotten as it can but it's nobody's You just have to keep your nerve for a few days the morning papers have the story that we were the girl they But what do you Frank changed the form of his words it's not he do she you look at the whole thing as a sort of something that might happen in a You and Pete will think this is a great some only one Sheila began after a troubled study of his dark won't marry Peter Mc Not if the Church he said his hand on her don't have to get so excited about it You don't have You don't have to marry if you don't want become a Sheila She saw Frank's characteristic half-smile brighten his won't have to go that if his mother and father expect me Sheila Frank reflected a moment he told her sure they The man spoke more thoy wouldn't want you to do anything you didn't want to They might think you wanted she in instant don't want Frank and looked my mother he began since you and Peter had been shut up In that place for two He and Sheila took it up I I And what's Peter was in my room that first what there was left of that But I don't It doesn't make the slightest was only a question of justice to you can tell your mother that I'm perfectly Kennedy my young lady Frank with my then she doesn't understand the way I Sheila said Frank was as at an angry a pretty wise young he as if he were merely thinking Sheila stood looking at don't think I ought to marry she challenged thought Her earnestness affected him in spite of and he looked at her with his kindest Sheila seemed small and in her scant old cotton with her tumbled coppery bang falling on her broad She was fighting for her thought you'd want Frank Suddenly she was clinging to jumbled against soft and warm and sweet let them make If he said anything to her she did not hear His arm was about her for a his face against her Then they had drawn and his that had been gripping were and he was running down the Sheila stood alone in the After a while she turned toward the a strange light was in her absent a dreamy smile on her She moved like a When Sheila re-entered the room it was to a sulphurous silence the part of her who was alone Joe had gone to bed in the front and Angela was in Sheila's place in the big or feigning Sheila could not It was a little hard to manage a dignified performance of disrobing and ablutions with her mother's steely eyes upon and with the consciousness that she would presently come to bed in the same small room with but Sheila achieved it Angela rarely slept in the big It was a tacit sign of Sheila's alienation from the family that she should be there tonight lot I Sheila thought all against She deliberately summoned Frank Mc Cann to her deliberately dwelt upon every look of every his smiling remoteness from any trouble of he that was so cool and faultless and amused at It girl would ever get that one into Sheila thought going off to At eleven o'clock the next morning she and her mother and Joe presented themselves at the Mc Cann Part of the way they rode fh a following the Fifth Avenue side of the park in the holiday-morning Crowds were already gathering for the St Patrick's Day Bands were There was snow left in the great stretches of under the bare and there were children skating and screaming on the It was a sunless with a sharp bite in the heavy Sheila maintained a sulky silence all the her mother and brother scarcely She was but this morning her life was ruined before No girl alive could live down headlines like no girl could go to an office with this to Most of the morning papers had run a conservative notice of the Son of Judge Mc Cann Surprises and Pair Married in that was the general BE |