Ransom (10 page)

Her intention was to go straight to Charmian's room and fold those clothes as fast as she could and get them in piles ready to pack away or send away somehow.

She paused at the front hall window for a moment, trying to still the wild beating of her heart before she opened the door to Charmian's apartment, for it somehow seemed to her that she would meet again the dead face of Charmian when she went in there alone, and the thought was not pleasant. There was nothing to be afraid of, of course, but she could not get away from the feeling.

As she stood there looking out into the street, she saw a disreputable-looking man walking up and down the opposite side of the street looking furtively toward the house, then turning and looking again; and while she stood there watching, the doorbell rang. She could hear the sound all through the big empty house, and her heart went up in her throat.

She drew back out of sight of the man who had now stopped and was looking across to the door.

And then the telephone rang in her father's room.

C
hristobel stood there with her hand on her heart, shrunk back into the corner of the hall, and wondered for an instant what she ought to do.

Death seemed to hover like a pall in the room across the hall, some unknown horror was perhaps down at the front door, and the telephone offered another possibility from which she shrank.

Suddenly it seemed as if she must drop down in a heap on the floor and cry. In one frenzied thought came the dull monotony of the past years in her dreary boarding school life. How she had chafed under the alienation from Father and home; how she had longed to be out in the world and living a normal girl's life. And now here she was, suddenly plunged into all kinds of tragedy, and her frightened unaccustomed soul quivered in indecision.

But Christobel was made of sterner stuff than just a silly child. She had unusually good common sense, and she commanded her trembling limbs to obey her and forced herself to go to her father's room and answer that telephone. For it had occurred to her that it might even be her father calling, and if so, she would tell him about that tramp across the street and ask if she should answer the door.

But when she took down the receiver and forced her shaking voice to speak, it was a woman's honeyed voice that answered her. And though it was not any threatening servant, nor the strange, frightening voice of a possible burglar, the voice she heard filled her with a far more subtle horror than any of her other fears made tangible would have done.

“Is that you, Christobel, darling?” the voice asked, and Christobel darling knew it as the voice of her caller of the evening before.

“This is Miss Kershaw!” she said coolly and had to take a deep breath to keep her voice from shaking. It seemed to her that her heart was turning to ice. It was all the worse that her father had suggested that this woman come and stay with her. It seemed so inevitable that somehow, somewhere, eventually, this woman was going to get her—to get her father away from her—and come into her life like another terrible cloud.

“Oh, you darling! How cunning that sounds!” gurgled the woman on the telephone, and somehow Christobel fancied she could almost smell the lazy perfume that she wore, even across the wire. She waited in silence.

“I guess you know who this is, don't you, darling Christobel?” said the obnoxious voice.

The girl could manage nothing but a frigid little, “I beg your pardon?”

“I said I guess you know who I am,” said the sweet voice. “I'm Mrs. Romayne, dear. I thought you would recognize my voice.”

“Oh!” said Christobel, trying desperately to think how to answer in a way that would get rid of the woman before her father came and yet not be so impolite that her father would be angry with her. “Oh, Mrs. Romayne! You are the lady who called last evening when Father was away?”

“There! Of course I knew you would know me!” gurgled the lady sweetly. “And I called again last evening and talked with your father. Didn't he tell you?”

Christobel did not want to answer this, so she hurried into something else.

“Oh, you are the lady who was kind enough to take a message for me last night.” She tried to make her voice gracious without too much intimacy.

There was second of dead silence while the lady recalled something she had all too evidently forgotten.

“Why, yes, dear child. Was I so careless as not to mention that last evening when I talked to your father? You see, your old servant was not at home. We waited for some time, and I tried to find someone to leave a message with, but the people who lived near seemed all to be out. I hope I didn't cause you any inconvenience. Could I take you there today, dear? This morning perhaps, and then you could all lunch with me later.”

“No, thank you!” said Christobel hurriedly. “I have other things I have to do. You are kind, but it won't be necessary. My brother will attend to it.”

“Well then, dear, how about coming to lunch? Haven't you got it arranged? I hope your dear father will come, and your little brother, too, if he would care to. I haven't seen him since he was a chubby baby. He must be quite a little boy by this time.”

“My brother is seventeen,” said Christobel coldly.

“Oh, you don't mean it! My dear! I had supposed he was only about ten. How time does fly!”

But Christobel was wondering. Did Mrs. Romayne's friendship with her father date back as far as when Rannie was a chubby baby? Was she perhaps an acquaintance of her mother's? Oh, she was being very wicked not to like this woman.

And then came the sound of the front doorbell again. Christobel was fairly frantic. It would not do to tell the woman on the wire the bell was ringing and she must answer it, for then she would have to explain all about the servants, and Father would not want his personal affairs talked about. And besides, this woman would immediately offer to come and run the house for them. She was quite sure of that. She might even suggest coming to cook for them if she knew how to cook, or at least getting new servants for them. Christobel was sure she would do that. And then she would somehow succeed in spiriting them all to her house for an indefinite time.

Meantime the smooth voice was going on and on, saying pleasant things, and Christobel, in her own thoughts, lost track of just what was coming into her ears over the wire. Pleasant nothings about how fast children grew and how pathetic it was that they had to be left without mothers who had always wanted young things about them and how not just anyone could step in and take their places.

Suddenly a great sob arose in Christobel's throat. Oh, she didn't want this woman to take the place of mother to her! Oh, what should she do, what should she say? If she could only round out the conversation to a polite close, say it was so kind of her to call and good-bye, or something like that. But somehow she could not bring her voice to say the words in just the right way. So she kept utterly still and let the woman talk on, except when she asked a direct question, and then Christobel answered in a low monosyllable, so low that she had to be asked over again because it was scarcely audible. All at once there came a thump on her ear, a clashing sound, and then silence. She had been cut off. She waited an instant to make sure and quickly hung up. Mrs. Romayne would doubtless get the conversation going again, but if the bell rang, she just wouldn't hear it. She went out of the room, stopped just long enough to look out of the front window to see that the tramp had disappeared, and then hurried back into her own room and shut the door. As a further precaution she opened the bathroom door and turned on the water full tilt. She did not want to hear that telephone bell. Yet even above the water she seemed to hear the faint jingle of the far-off bell. And finally her conscience troubled her, and she turned off the water and opened her door. At least the bell was not ringing now. And what was that? A key in the front door? Half fearfully she listened, and then she heard her father's voice calling her. She bounded downstairs eagerly, wondering if she ought to tell him about Mrs. Romayne telephoning.

But he gave her no time.

“Come on, Chrissie,” he called eagerly, using her childhood name by which her mother had called her most often, “get your hat and coat and come with us. We've finished up the disagreeable things and are going for a ride.”

Christobel dashed into her room for her wraps and came rushing down with great relief in her heart. To get away from this terrible house. How good it would be! “What have you got on?” asked her father, turning to look her over as she came out the door. “That's not warm enough. It's a cold winter day. Run back and get a good warm coat. You'll need your fur coat this morning.” She paused in dismay and looked down at herself. She was wearing a fall costume of dark green, elaborately trimmed with baby lamb fur. It did not fit her and was altogether too old and sophisticated for her. She never had liked it. She hated these castoffs of Charmian's, which were all she'd had for several years. Sometimes they were utterly impossible, and then she had either folded them away in her trunk or sold them to one of the seniors who admired stylish, sophisticated things.

But now, as she stood there in the doorway of the marble mansion with her father's eyes upon her, her cheeks suddenly reddened as if the objectionable garment had somehow been her fault.

“I didn't bring anything else with me,” she confessed. “I thought this was the most suitable thing I had for a funeral.”

“But that's not a winter coat,” protested her father, frowning at the suit, which somehow looked very inadequate and ungainly upon Christobel, who was tall and slim, while Charmian had been quite petite. The sleeves were too short, and the skirt was most abbreviated and very tight.

“Well, my winter coat is a bright sort of yellow,” said Christobel, fearful lest her father would be troubled. “It's very bright, you know, with a big reddish-yellow fur collar of bear or fox or something. It really is quite conspicuous.”

“But, my dear, why didn't you bring your fur coat? Surely gray squirrel is as quiet as anything you could wear. It is quite suitable for a young girl, I'm sure, for I see many girls wearing them.”

Christobel opened her eyes wide and then laughed.

“Why, I haven't any fur coat,” she said. “I never had one.”

“You
never had
one? But I sent you one for a Christmas present this very Christmas! What do you mean?”

“No,” said Christobel with a look of loving pain in her eyes, “you sent me a little squirrel neck piece. Don't you remember? I thanked you for the dear little squirrel. I didn't bring it with me because I couldn't wear it with this fur collar, and I had no other coat to wear. But it was dear. I loved it because you sent it to me.”

“Do you mean to say that you never received a long squirrel coat with a big high collar? Why, I helped select it myself!”

A sorrowful comprehension filled the girl's eyes as she slowly shook her head. And a dawning comprehension came into her father's eyes, and his jaw set in a firm line.

“I think,” he commented slowly, “that there have been a good many different kinds of things going on that I did not realize.” His face set sternly. Then he suddenly asked, “Did you buy that suit you have on, Chrissie?”

“Oh, no!” said Christobel quickly, and with distaste in her voice. “It was one that my—Charmian—sent me.” It had been Charmian's wish that the children should call her by her first name. She had not wished to be called Mother. It made her seem too old she said, but Christobel had never been able to say Charmian's name glibly. Her own mother had brought her up with a habit of respect for elders, and though Charmian was not much of an elder, still she occupied the position of a mother, and Christobel always felt she was being disrespectful, despite her sense of the fitness of things when she called the older woman by her first name. Of course, if Charmian had been at all loving and friendly, more of a pal, perhaps it would not have seemed so.

“I think it was one of hers she had got done with,” added the girl, feeling that more of an explanation was due her father.

Suddenly he turned to his daughter and looked at her with a searching, yearning glance.

“She was really very young you know, daughter,” he offered by way of apology.

“I know,” said Christobel quickly, eager to relieve her father from his worry. “She didn't realize it wouldn't quite fit me.”

Still he stood in the doorway thoughtfully.

“I am very much to blame for some things,” he said slowly. “I didn't realize, or I would not have permitted them.”

“Oh, that's all right, Father,” the girl hastened to say. “I didn't mind.” And then thinking perhaps that was not strictly true she added, “At least, not very much.”

The father gave his child another keen look and read in her honest, troubled eyes some reflection of the bitterness and disappointment that had been in her young life. The chagrin, perhaps, and even humiliation. While at home her young stepmother was rolling in wealth, satisfying her every whim.

“I can never forgive myself!” he said severely and then, after an instant of thought, “Just go on out to the car, Chrissie. I'll be there in a minute.”

Christobel got into the backseat. And in a minute or two her father came out bearing two big boxes and put them into the car.

“I thought we'd just stop at the store and return those fur coats,” he said casually as he got in beside Rannie, who was at the wheel.

“Oh, I say, Dad, it's good to get at this wheel again!” said the boy. “My, this engine is slick! Say, Dad, why can't I have a car at school this spring? A lotta fellas have cars. I'm old enough now ta be trusted, I should think.”

“I'm sorry,” said his father, “but I'm afraid you're not.”

“Aw, Dad! What's the little old idea? You let me drive this car. You said if I had good marks all right you'd consider it this spring.”