Show under PE K U K E 0 chamberlain george gcorge agnew by george agnew chamberlain CHAPTER I 1 joyce sat on a leather puff beside her small paned window looking out and down at the turning maple leaves she was nineteen tom tomorrow or she would be twenty nobody living knew it but herself nobody she had lied bed about her true birthday since she was eight and owing to a single overwhelming catastrophe it had been easy enough to confuse her father twelve years twelve years in Elsin boro six of them without hini him terribly alone with her stepmother yes you could be alone with somebody else tar far lon lo nelia elior than if you were by yourself she was alive tremendously alive inside that was the trouble it had to stay inside she palpitated with dreams of what might be the secret dreams of a young girl who longs to believe in life as something warm something you can hold in your arms but when she looked outside herself she stared at a wall Elsin boro has its counterpart in olean or elmira but not in wilkes barre scranton or pottsville spottsville Potts ville forty thousand strong it has known no overpowering ireian foreign infiltration and presents a cross section ot of the american scene old style from a miniature tammany to anelite who read french talk liberalism and discriminate between one dollar and another there are plenty of dollars gathered by adventurous sons from the four corners of the earth but there were no fab fabulous fortunes until bolivar smith got an idea 15 years ago six roughnecks rough necks believed in it and became multi millionaires almost overnight they took over the section now known as platinum hill and built their incongruous chateaux in a huge circle but joyce sewell was not ol of them in fact she had no part or parcel of Elsin boro new or old she vas ivas pure north shore descended irom from generations ot of the sewells who christened more clipper ships when the american merchant mer chapt marine overtopped over topped the fleets of the world than any other tribe her presence in the town was an accident one of those tragic accidents that leave their mark for the whole of life the scene so tar far away so long ago lived in her eyes shut or open she would listen too her ears trembling lest they hear but memory is IE silent part of its terror lies in silence no crash of guns reached her now only the remembered flash no thud of bullets on stone wood and flesh no choking scream only the indelible the unforgettable scene her mother unspeakably murdered A pause the eternal pause that had lasted but a second her father snatching her up under one arm a petaca pataca under the other to rush along interminable corridors followed by shots and the derisive jeers of the marauders who believed he be could not possibly escape stairs wooden stairs stone steps the secret door and the garden black beneath towering cypress and spreading ash hurry hurry the postern unlocked then locked the starlit open night immersion in the icy lake a dugout and finally refuge in a humble peon hut but no not finally followed days in a pannier on the back of a mule hours in a crowded train a week on a refugee ship bound for new orleans and on that ship mrs irma thorne of Elsin boro new york irma thorne then three years a widow believed it was her mission to do people good whether they liked it or not she was not a refugee but a returning traveler with a well vell filled pocketbook she had soft to bacco colored eyes but there the softness ended though the truth would have surprised and wounded her her chin her stocky body her will and her conscience were as tough as rawhide the mere sight of cutler sewells lackluster eyes gone dead in his head staring at his little daughter but eternally seeing something else was a supreme challenge to her peculiar aptitude tor for service and abnegation she took look charge she gave joyce her first bath in ten days and made her a frock out of her own best skirt she rushed father and daughter to her home in Elsin boro she was undoubtedly a good woman and by every rule in the copybook joyce should have loved her gently admonished moni shed by her father she tried pitifully to do so and tailed failed it was no use she was too young to think things out all she knew was that a barrier of ice stood between her heart and her benefactress daddy lets go away we cant joyce not just now cow at present I 1 a cent please pa pacito I 1 dont like her you say that ashes a good woman a very good woman 1 I know quavered joyce bewildered wil dered by her own detestation but face to face ace with a tact fact I 1 oh please pa pacito please he compromised yielding to the endearing pet diminutive that had never yet tailed failed her on the excuse she ought to keep up her span ish as a possible asset for the future he took her into his bis study tor for an hour every afternoon that hour had been sacred proof against any form of interruption from the day when a knock on the door had thrown joyce into a paroxysm of screams followed by prolonged sobbing yet she was no crybaby cry baby that one convulsive protest was her last but it had been enough she and her father talked spanish in peace not always tor for the fun full hour sometimes quite content to be at his side she watched him write letters long painstaking letters always to one ot of two addresses when the answers came he filed them away ever more and more sadly in the petaca pataca it was a tunny funny little trunk covered with rawhide stretched on the frame while still wet the hair was mostly worn off but there were still arabesques of brass headed tacks to which he had added a card bearing the following signed inscription upon my death nil 4 t ja f 1 I 1 t I 1 afa itza VC 4 I 1 la 11 the matter with joyce this box and contents become the property of joyce sewell my daughter and sole heir with each addition to the dossier he weakened became less the man of property and more the chastened chasteney chast ened sacrificial goat the day came when irma thorne married what was left of him tor for appearances sake and tor for his and for joyces joycea not for or her own perhaps he knew the der would kill him but at least his orphaned child would have a roof over her head she was sixteen when he died helm blackadder was a rock ot of a man forty nine and virile with bushy brows steely eyes and crisp gray hair he was a native son a product of Elsin boro so interwoven in the towns pattern it had never occurred to him to consider any other place as a base yet in his capacity as an excellent engineer and a daring promoter he had burrowed in south africa combed korea and lived in chile with varying degrees of profit in the intervals he had known irma bostwick irma thorne and finally irma sewell part of him frankly admired part of her she had a bulldog quality and so had he now she had sent tor for him and as he entered her very comfortable for table living room he wondered why well irma on your mind its joyce helm but do sit down take that big chair it looks as it if it had been made tor for you the matter with joyce mrs sewell frowned and then substituted s a look of patient resignation you know oil all ive done tor for her dont think I 1 mean I 1 begrudge it since it was my duty and theres no greater satisfaction in life than seeing ones duty and doing it but can you believe in spite of everything she actually dislikes me she does though I 1 think she always has she waited but since blackadder retrained refrained irom from comment she continued but not the worst of it ashes harming herself deliberately libera tely destroying her great chance how he asked bluntly oh all this extra curriculum studying ashes been doing ashes kept up her spanish so think she could teach it anywhere but now she wants to take a business course secretarial no she give it any fancy name just plain stenography and typing wrong with that demanded blackadder its the way several of the highest paid women in the world got their start and I 1 can name hall half a dozen cases where its been a royal road to marriam marriage so I 1 dont see how it could lit hurt joyce you dont said mrs sewell she edged forward on her chair listen helm I 1 tell this to anybody but you howard emil and michael kirkpatrick have all proposed to her over and over again half of platinum hilll said blackadder scowling well ashes no business woman and never will be why why do you say that because if i she were shed marry aern all one after the other and retire oh gasped mrs sewell truly shocked which one of the three do you think shed find it easiest to fall for and to handle what I 1 wanted to ask you its got to be one pretty soon or none why the hurry cant you think it out tor for yourself it if platinum hill goes after a girl with no money its largely because she a stenographer Black adders scowl deepened 1 I hate to agree with you but I 1 guess youre right its a shame one town should be saddled with three of that brand of snob but if ashes so attractive what about a boy or two of the good old stock arent any of them hanging around they would if they could afford it but they know they cant the nice boys she knows are all in college with years to go before begin looking for a job too young I 1 have enough income to manage on and wait but I 1 know joyce she wont stay with me much longer and she a penny what about her father I 1 remember hearing he owned one ot of the show places in mexico do you know what chat that means A hacienda that run over acres would be at the loot foot of the class he lost it everything he had he even compensated for or the murder ol of his wife though his lawyer assured him he would be cutler used to speak of it as blood money and have thought of taking it except lor for joyce and its irs she that matters now ashes got to be saved from rom herself and you must help 1 17 I why me because youre real helm and the only man I 1 know well enough to turn to theres something in her frightens me sometimes ashes a burning bush and the next instant ashes quicksilver please helm this child was put in my charge by a direct act of god whether she loves me or not its my duty to guide her life along the lines of common sense which do you want her to do go around looking tor for a job at 15 a week or be the first to bring a little culture to platinum hill which gives her the best chance for a full life A missionary eh said blackadder his lips quirking oddly he lifted his heavy shoulders and let them tall fall well mike to be so bad I 1 remember his father as a ditch gang foreman with a laugh and plenty of punch besides mrs sewell sighed resignedly 1 I would have chosen howard but trust a man to pick a man is a good rule though we women seldom follow it so its to be mrs michael not mike kirkpatrick anyway it sounds a lot better than mrs at that moment there was a sound of somebody entering the hall joyce is that you yes maam ashes never once called me mother whispered mrs sewell to blackadder a hurt and bewildered look in her liquid brown eyes then she raised her voice come here dear we want to talk to you blackadder disliked being rushed and felt he was being drafted without his consent but immediately joyce entered he was conscious of an odd reaction as though all his gears had ione gone suddenly into reverse she nodded to him and turned to her stepmother well oh do sit down joyce cant you sit down and talk reasonably for once in your life TO BE CONTINUED |