Katy to the Rescue
Linda delivered Donald Whiting at his door with an armload of books
and a bundle of miners’ lettuce and then drove to her home in Lilac
Valley—in the eye of the beholder on the floor-level macadam road; in
her own eye she scarcely grazed it. The smooth, easy motion of the car,
the softly purring engine were thrilling. The speed at which she was
going was like having wings on her body. The mental stimulus she had
experienced in concentrating her brain on Donald Whiting’s problem had
stimulated her imagination. The radiant colour of spring; the chilled,
perfumed, golden air; the sure sense of having found a friend, had
ruffled the plumes of her spirit. On the home road Donald had plainly
indicated that he would enjoy spending the morrow with her, and she
had advised him to take the books she had provided and lock himself in
his room and sweat out some information about Monday’s lessons which
would at least arrest his professor’s attention, and lead his mind
to the fact that something was beginning to happen. And then she had
laughingly added: “To-morrow is Katy’s turn. I told the old dear I
would take her as soon as I felt the car was safe. Every day she does
many things that she hopes will give me pleasure. This is one thing I
can do that I know will delight her.”
“Next Saturday, then?” questioned Donald. And Linda nodded.
“Sure thing. I’ll be thinking up some place extra interesting. Come in
the morning if you want, and we’ll take a lunch and go for the day.
Which do you like best, mountains or canyons or desert or sea?”
“I like it best wherever what you’re interested in takes you,” said
Donald simply.
“All right, then,” answered Linda, “we’ll combine business and
pleasure.”
So they parted with another meeting arranged.
When she reached home she found Katy tearfully rejoicing, plainly
revealing how intensely anxious she had been. But when Linda told
her that the old tires had held, that the car ran wonderfully, that
everything was perfectly safe, that she drove as unconsciously as she
breathed, and that to-morrow Katy was to go for a long ride, her joy
was incoherent.
Linda laughed. She patted Katy and started down the hallway, when she
called back: “What is this package?”
“A delivery boy left it special only a few minutes ago. Must be
something Miss Eileen bought and thought she would want to-morrow, and
then afterward she got this invitation and went on as she was.”
Linda stood gazing at the box. It did look so suspiciously like a dress
box.
“Katy,” she said, “I have just about got an irresistible impulse to
peep. I was telling Eileen last night of a dress I saw that I thought
perfect. It suited me better than any other dress I ever did see.
It was at ‘The Mode.’ This box is from ‘The Mode.’ Could there be a
possibility that she sent it up specially for me?”
“I think she would put your name on it if she meant it for ye,” said
Katy.
“One peep would show me whether it is my dress or not,” said Linda,
“and peep I’m going to.”
She began untying the string.
“There’s one thing,” said Katy, “Miss Eileen’s sizes would never fit
ye.”
“Might,” conceded Linda. “I am taller than she is, but I could wear
her waists if I wanted to, and she always alters her skirts herself
to save the fees. Glory be! This is my dress, and there’s a petticoat
and stockings to match it. Why, the nice old thing! I suggested hard
enough, but in my heart I hardly thought she would do it. Oh, dear, now
if I only had some shoes, and a hat.”
Linda was standing holding the jacket in one hand, the stockings in the
other, her face flaming. Katy drew herself to full height. She reached
over and picked the things from Linda’s fingers.
“If ye know that is your dress, lambie,” she said authoritatively, “ye
go right out and get into that car and run to town and buy ye a pair of
shoes.”
“But I have no credit anywhere and I have no money, yet,” said Linda.
“Well, I have,” said Katy, “and this time ye’re going to stop your
stubbornness and take enough to get ye what you need. Ye go to the best
store in Los Angeles and come back here with a pair of shoes that just
match those stockings, and ye go fast, before the stores close. If
ye’ve got to speed a little, do it in the country and do it judacious.”
“Katy, you’re arriving!” cried Linda. “‘Judicious speeding’ is one
thing I learned better than any other lesson about driving a motor
car. Three fourths of the driving Father and I did we were speeding
judiciously.”
Katy held the skirt to Linda’s waist.
“Well, maybe it’s a little shorter than any you have been wearing, but
it ain’t as short as Eileen and all the rest of the girls your age have
them, so that’s all right, honey. Slip on your coat.”
Katy’s fingers were shaking as she lifted the jacket and Linda slipped
into it.
“Oh, Lord,” she groaned, “ye can’t be wearing that! The sleeves don’t
come much below your elbows.”
“You will please to observe,” said Linda, “that they are flowing
sleeves and they are not intended to come below the elbows; but it’s a
piece of luck I tried it on, for it reminds me that it’s a jacket suit
and I must have a blouse. When you get the shoe money, make it enough
for a blouse—two blouses, Katy, one for school and one to fuss up in a
little.”
Without stopping to change her clothing, Linda ran to the garage and
hurried back to the city. It was less than an hour’s run, but she made
it in ample time to park her car and buy the shoes. She selected a pair
of low oxfords of beautiful colour, matching the stockings. Then she
hurried to one of the big dry-goods stores and bought the two waists
and an inexpensive straw hat that would harmonize with the suit; a hat
small enough to stick, in the wind, with brim enough to shade her eyes.
In about two hours she was back with Katy and they were in her room
trying on the new clothing.
“It dumbfounds me,” said Linda, “to have Eileen do this for me.”
She had put on the shoes and stockings, a plain georgette blouse of a
soft, brownish wood-gray, with a bit of heavy brown silk embroidery
decorating the front, and the jacket. The dress was of silky changeable
tricolette, the skirt plain. Where a fold lifted and was strongly
lighted, it was an exquisite silver-gray; where a shadow fell deeply
it was gray-brown. The coat reached half way to the knees. It had a
rippling skirt with a row of brown embroidery around it, a deep belt
with double buttoning at the waistline, and collar and sleeves in a
more elaborate pattern of the same embroidery as the skirt. Linda
perched the hat on her head, pulled it down securely, and faced Katy.
“Now then!” she challenged.
“And it’s a perfect dress!” said Katy proudly, “and you’re just the
colleen to wear it. My, but I wisht your father could be seeing ye the
now.”
With almost reverent hands Linda removed the clothing and laid it away.
Then she read a letter from Marian that was waiting for her, telling
Katy scraps of it in running comment as she scanned the sheets.
“She likes her boarding place. There are nice people in it. She has got
a wonderful view from the windows of her room. She is making friends.
She thinks one of the men at Nicholson and Snow’s is just fine; he is
helping her all he can, on the course she is taking. And she wants us
to look carefully everywhere for any scrap of paper along the hedge or
around the shrubbery on the north side of the house. One of her three
sheets of plans is missing. I don’t see where in the world it could
have gone, Katy.”
Katy spread out her hands in despair.
“There was not a scrap of a sheet of paper in the room when I cleaned
it,” she said, “not a scrap. And if I had seen a sheet flying around
the yard I would have picked it up. She just must be mistaken about
having lost it here. She must have opened her case on the train and
lost it there.”
Linda shook her head.
“I put that stuff in the case myself,” she said, “and the clothes on
top of it, and she wouldn’t have any reason for taking those things
out on the train. I can’t understand, but she did have three rough
sketches. She had her heart set on winning that prize and it would be
a great help to her, and certainly it was the most comprehensive and
convenient plan for a house of that class that I ever have seen. If I
ever have a house, she is going to plan it, even if she doesn’t get to
plan John Gilman’s as he always used to say that she should. And by the
way, Katy, isn’t it kind of funny for Eileen to go away over Sunday
when it’s his only holiday?”
“Oh, she’ll telephone him,” said Katy, “and very like, he’ll go down,
or maybe he is with her. Ye needn’t waste any sympathy on him. Eileen
will take care that she has him so long as she thinks she wants him.”
Later it developed that Eileen had secured the invitation because she
was able to produce three most eligible men. Not only was John Gilman
with the party, but Peter Morrison and Henry Anderson were there as
well. It was in the nature of a hastily arranged celebration, because
the deal for three acres of land that Peter Morrison most coveted on
the small plateau, mountain walled, in Lilac Valley, was in escrow.
He had made a payment on it. Anderson was working on his plans.
Contractors had been engaged, and on Monday work would begin. The house
was to be built as soon as possible, and Peter Morrison had arranged
that the garage was to be built first. This he meant to occupy as a
residence so that he could be on hand to superintend the construction
of the new home and to protect, as far as possible, the natural beauty
and the natural growth of the location.
Early Sunday morning Linda and Katy, with a full lunch box and a full
gasolene tank, slid from the driveway and rolled down the main street
of Lilac Valley toward the desert.
“We’ll switch over and strike San Fernando Road,” said Linda, “and I’ll
scout around Sunland a bit and see if I can find anything that will
furnish material for another new dish.”
That day was wonderful for Katy. She trotted after Linda over sandy
desert reaches, along the seashore, up mountain trails, and through
canyons connected by long stretches of motoring that was more like
flying than riding. She was tired but happy when she went to bed.
Monday morning she was an interested spectator as Linda dressed for
school.
“Sure, and hasn’t the old chrysalis opened up and let out the nicest
little lady-bird moth, Katy?” inquired Linda as she smoothed her
gray-gold skirts. “I think myself that this dress is a trifle too good
for school. When I get my allowance next week I think I’ll buy me a
cloth skirt and a couple of wash waists and save this for better; but
it really was good of Eileen to take so much pains and send it to me,
when she was busy planning a trip.”
Katy watched Linda go, and she noted the new light in her eyes, the new
lift of her head, and the proud sureness of her step, and she wondered
if a new dress could do all that for a girl; she scarcely believed that
it could. And, too, she had very serious doubts about the dress. She
kept thinking of it during the day, and when Eileen came, in the middle
of the afternoon, at the first words on her lips: “Has my dress come?”
Katy felt a wave of illness surge through her. She looked at Eileen
so helplessly that that astute reader of human nature immediately
Suspected something.
“I sent it special,” she said, “because I didn’t know at the time that
I was going to Riverside and I wanted to work on it. Isn’t it here yet?”
Then Katy prepared to do battle for the child of her heart.
“Was the dress ye ordered sent the one Miss Linda was telling ye
about?” she asked tersely.
“Yes, it was,” said Eileen. “Linda has got mighty good taste. Any dress
she admired was sure to be right. She said there was a beautiful dress
at ‘The Mode’. I went and looked, and sure enough there was, a perfect
beauty.”
“But she wanted the dress for herself,” said Katy.
“It was not a suitable dress for school,” said Eileen.
“Well, it strikes me,” said Katy, “that it was just the spittin’ image
of fifty dresses I’ve seen ye wear to school.
“What do you know about it?” demanded Eileen.
“I know just this,” said Katy with determination. “Ye’ve had one new
dress in the last few days and you’re not needin’ another. The blessed
Virgin only knows when Miss Linda’s had a dress. She thought ye’d done
yourself proud and sent it for her, and she put it on, and a becoming
and a proper thing it was too! I advanced her the money myself and sent
her to get some shoes to match it since she had her car fixed and could
go in a hurry. A beautiful dress it is, and on her back this minute it
is!”
Eileen was speechless with anger. Her face was a sickly white and the
rouge spots on her cheeks stood a glaring admission.
“Do you mean to tell me?——” she gasped.
“Not again,” said the daughter of Erin firmly, “because I have already
told ye wance. Linda’s gone like a rag bag since the Lord knows when.
She had a right to the dress, and she thought it was hers, and she took
it. And if ye ever want any more respect or obedience or love from the
kiddie, ye better never let her know that ye didn’t intend it for her,
for nothing was ever quite so fair and right as that she should have
it; and while you’re about it you’d better go straight to the store
and get her what she is needin’ to go with it, or better still, ye had
better give her a fair share of the money of which there used to be
such a plenty, and let her get her things herself, for she’s that tasty
nobody can beat her when she’s got anything to do with.”
Eileen turned on Katy in a gust of fury.
“Katherine O’Donovan,” she said shrilly, “pack your trunk and see how
quick you can get out of this house. I have stood your insolence for
years, and I won’t endure it a minute longer!”
Katy folded her red arms and lifted her red chin, and a steel-blue
light flashed from her steel-gray eyes.
“Humph!” she said, “I’ll do nothing of the sort. I ain’t working for
ye and I never have been no more than I ever worked for your mother.
Every lick I ever done in this house I done for Linda and Doctor Strong
and for nobody else. Half of this house and everything in it belongs
to Linda, and it’s a mortal short time till she’s of age to claim it.
Whichever is her half, that half I’ll be staying in, and if ye manage
so as she’s got nothing to pay me, I’ll take care of her without pay
till the day comes when she can take care of me. Go to wid ye, ye
triflin’, lazy, self-possessed creature. Ten years I have itched to
tell ye what I thought of ye, and now ye know it.”
As Katy’s rage increased, Eileen became intimidated. Like every
extremely selfish person she was a coward in her soul.
“If you refuse to go on my orders,” she said, “I’ll have John Gilman
issue his.”
Then Katy set her left hand on her left hip, her lower jaw shot past
the upper, her doubled right fist shook precious near the tip of
Eileen’s exquisite little nose.
“I’m darin’ ye,” she shouted. “I’m just darin’ ye to send John Gilman
in the sound of my voice. If ye do, I’ll tell him every mean and
selfish thing ye’ve done to me poor lambie since the day of the Black
Shadow. Send him to me? Holy Mither, I wish ye would! If ever I get
my chance at him, don’t ye think I won’t be tellin’ him what he has
lost, and what he has got? And as for taking orders from him, I am
taking my orders from the person I am working for, and as I told ye
before, that’s Miss Linda. Be off wid ye, and primp up while I get my
supper, and mind ye this, if ye tell Miss Linda ye didn’t mean that
gown for her and spoil the happy day she has had, I won’t wait for ye
to send John Gilman to me; I’ll march straight to him. Put that in your
cigarette and smoke it! Think I’ve lost me nose as well as me sense?”
Then Katy started a triumphal march to the kitchen and cooled down by
the well-known process of slamming pots and pans for half an hour. Soon
her Irish sense of humor came to her rescue.
“Now, don’t I hear myself telling Miss Linda a few days ago to kape her
temper, and to kape cool, and to go aisy. Look at the aise of me when I
got started. By gracious, wasn’t I just itching to wallop her?”
Then every art that Katy possessed was bent to the consummation of
preparing a particularly delicious dinner for the night.
Linda came in softly humming something to herself about the kind of
shoes that you might wear if you chose. She had entered the high school
that morning with an unusually brilliant colour. Two or three girls,
who never had noticed her before, had nodded to her that morning, and
one or two had said: “What a pretty dress you have!” She had caught the
flash of approval in the eyes of Donald Whiting, and she had noted the
flourish with which he raised his hat when he saw her at a distance,
and she knew what he meant when he held up a book, past the covers of
which she could see protruding a thick fold of white paper. He had
foresworn whatever pleasure he might have thought of for Sunday. He
had prepared notes on some subject that he thought would further him.
The lift of his head, the flourish of his hat, and the book all told
Linda that he had struggled, and that he felt the struggle had brought
an exhilarating degree of success. That had made the day particularly
bright for Linda. She had gone home with a feeling of uplift and
exultation in her heart. As she closed the front door she cried up the
stairway: “Eileen, are you there?”
“Yes,” answered a rather sulky voice from above.
Linda ascended, two steps at a bound.
“Thank you over and over, old thing!” she cried as she raced down the
hallway. “Behold me! I never did have a more becoming dress, and Katy
loaned me money, till my income begins, to get shoes and a little scuff
hat to go with it. Aren’t I spiffy?”
She pirouetted in the doorway. Eileen gripped the brush she was
wielding, tight.
“You have good taste,” she said. “It’s a pretty dress, but You’re
always howling about things being suitable. Do you call that suitable
for school?”
“It certainly is an innovation for me,” said Linda, “but there are
dozens of dresses of the same material, only different cut and colours
in the High School to-day. As soon as I get my money I’ll buy a skirt
and some blouses so I won’t have to wear this all the time; but I
surely do thank you very much, and I surely have had a lovely day. Did
you have a nice time at Riverside?”
Eileen slammed down the brush and turned almost a distorted face to
Linda. She had temper to vent. In the hour’s reflection previous to
Linda’s coming, she realized that she had reached the limit with Katy.
If she antagonized her by word or look, she would go to John Gilman,
and Eileen dared not risk what she would say.
“No, I did not have a lovely time,” she said. “I furnished the men for
the party and I expected to have a grand time, but the first thing
we did was to run into that inflated egotist calling herself Mary
Louise Whiting, and like a fool, Janie Brunson introduced her to Peter
Morrison. I had paired him with Janie on purpose to keep my eye on him.”
Linda tried hard but she could not suppress a chuckle: “Of course you
would!” she murmured softly.
Eileen turned her back. That had been her first confidence to
Linda. She was so aggrieved at that moment that she could have told
unanswering walls her tribulations. It would have been better if she
had done so. She might have been able to construe silence as sympathy.
Linda’s laughter she knew exactly how to interpret. “Served you right,”
was what it meant.
“I hadn’t the least notion you would take an interest in anything
concerning me,” she said. “People can talk all they please about Mary
Louise Whiting being a perfect lady but she is a perfect beast. I have
met her repeatedly and she has always ignored me, and yesterday she
singled out for her special attention the most desirable man in my
party——”
“‘Most desirable,’” breathed Linda. “Poor John! I see his second
fiasco. Lavender crystals, please!”
Eileen caught her lip in mortification. She had not intended to say
what she thought.
“Well, you can’t claim,” she hurried on to cover her confusion, “that
it was not an ill-bred, common trick for her to take possession of a
man of my party, and utterly ignore me. She has everything on earth
that I want; she treats me like a dog, and she could give me a glorious
time by merely nodding her head.”
“I am quite sure you are mistaken,” said Linda. “From what I’ve heard
of her, she wouldn’t mistreat anyone. Very probably what she does
is merely to feel that she is not acquainted with you. You have an
unfortunate way, Eileen, of defeating your own ends. If you wanted to
attract Mary Louise Whiting, you missed the best chance you ever could
have had, at three o’clock Saturday afternoon, when you maliciously
treated her only brother as you would a mechanic, ordered him to our
garage, and shut our door in his face.”
Eileen turned to Linda. Her mouth fell open. A ghastly greenish white
flooded her face.
“What do you mean?” she gasped.
“I mean,” said Linda, “that Donald Whiting was calling on me, and you
purposely sent him to the garage.”
Crash down among the vanities of Eileen’s dressing table went her
lovely head, and she broke into deep and violent sobs. Linda stood
looking at her a second, slowly shaking her head. Then she turned and
went to her room.
Later in the evening she remembered the Roman scarf and told Eileen of
what she had done, and she was unprepared for Eileen’s reply: “That
scarf always was too brilliant for me. You’re welcome to it if you want
it.”
“Thank you,” said Linda gravely, “I want it very much indeed.”