ALIEN KIN
Mr. Mason North's elation at the culmination of his protracted search
gave way to vague but undeniable misgiving before the end of the return
journey. Miss Murdaugh was utterly unlike anything he could have
preconceived. His trained legal mind, unburdened with imagination, had
nevertheless presented possibilities, during the two years of his
previous investigation, from which his fastidious soul shrank. What
could a creature brought up by a wandering card-sharp in mining-camps
and frontier towns offer for rescue and redemption?
His fears had vanished at first sight of her, however, Here was a girl,
untutored and unconventional, to be sure, but singularly free from any
corruption and with distinct social possibilities.
He patronized her in bland condescension at their journey's start and
found her gratifyingly amenable, but they had scarcely crossed the
border, before he found to his stupefaction that he was confronted by a
will as serenely implacable as his own.
Willa listened to his didactic suggestions with an open mind and a
direct unwavering gaze which he found mildly disconcerting, but she
acted upon them only after due and independent consideration and those
that did not meet with her approval she rejected in a quiet finality of
manner which, while it left their surface cordiality undisturbed,
nevertheless brooked no further argument.
His idea of engaging a maid or chaperon for the trip she had vetoed
promptly.
"I've always looked out for myself, and I reckon I can now, so long as
you're around to see that the train don't get uncoupled while you're in
the smoker or I'm in the observation car," she informed him. "I have
to kind of get on to myself, after all that's been happening to me, and
I couldn't with some nosey Jane at my heels every minute. I suppose
there will have to be someone to shine up my nails and fix my hair and
cinch my clothes on me, but that can wait till Mrs. Halstead picks one
out."
Mr. North shrank from such unfeminine candor, but he made no further
reference to a duenna, although as the journey progressed he regretted
his weakness. Willa had an inexplicable penchant for disappearing at
intervals, suddenly and without warning. Where she could get to on a
train or station platform, from under his very eyes, and what errand
prompted her were beyond his comprehension; but she eluded him with the
utmost ease and sang-froid whenever the spirit moved her, and her
matter-of-fact explanations when she returned were obviously and
designedly open to question.
He could feel himself aging beneath the strain and he heartily wished
his charge in Mrs. Halstead's capable hands. His wife had been dead so
long that the paths of feminine idiosyncrasies were an untrodden maze
to him, and his condescension turned to consternation and an awed
respect.
In spite of his anxiety, the girl proved a fascinating study. She
showed no interest in the outside world and rarely glanced from the car
window, but her naïve curiosity concerning their fellow passengers and
friendly familiarity toward them kept him constantly on the qui vive.
It was only when at last their journey drew to a close that she evinced
the slightest desire for information concerning the family of which she
was to be a member.
"Mrs. Halstead is my father's cousin, isn't she?" she asked. "Has she
any children?"
"A son and daughter." Mr. North laid aside the newspaper from behind
which he had been furtively watching her. "Vernon is twenty-three, and
a friend of my boy, Winthrop. Angelica is two years his junior, a most
accomplished young woman and quite a leader in the more youthful set.
You will be able to learn a great deal from her."
Willa pondered this in silence for a minute or two.
"What does she do?" she queried, finally.
"Why--ah, she drives her own car, and goes in for all the latest fads
and diversions. I am not familiar with them myself. She sings and
dances----"
"My mother did that," Willa remarked, with a quizzical glance at him.
Mr. North reddened.
"Oh, not----not in that fashion! I mean for charity; war relief and
that sort of thing. Quite respectable and praiseworthy."
"I see," said Willa slowly. "It's only proper when you do it for
nothing, just because you like it. If it's work, it isn't nice."
Her interlocutor writhed, but cannily forbore argument. He had learned
more valuable pointers in the past few days on the matter of rebuttal
than Blackstone ever revealed to him.
"And the boy, Vernon. What does he do?" Willa resumed.
"He motors and plays golf and tennis." Mr. North cast wildly about in
his mind for an inspiration. What did the young beggar do, anyway,
that would meet with the approval of this socialistic Amazon? "Cards,
too. He's an inveterate--I mean, enthusiastic, card-player."
Willa rewarded his efforts with a wriggle of interest.
"Monte, stud or blackjack?" she demanded. "What's his limit? Good
loser?"
"Very!" The family lawyer was on solid ground here. "In fact I may
say the best and most consistent loser I have knowledge of. It has not
been decided yet what--ah, field of industry he will enter. He is just
out of the university."
"There's a Mr. Halstead, I suppose?"
"Yes, of course. He is the first vice-president of the Vitality and
Casualty Insurance Company, and director in several banks and
corporations. A very busy man and an important, influential one."
"What does he do that he likes?" Willa persisted, unimpressed.
"Bless me, I haven't an idea! I've known him for a quarter of a
century, but I've never heard him discuss anything except finance."
"And Mrs. Halstead?"
"Ah, my dear, there is a character for you!" Mr. North beamed. "She's
chairman of a dozen charity organizations, leader in every new movement
that appears, and manages to find ample time for her social duties,
besides. A wonderful woman! You are fortunate in having her for your
sponsor and mentor, and I--ah, I trust that you will follow her
directions in all things. You must show your appreciation of her
kindness in taking you into her home and making you one of themselves
by obeying her without question. Her experience and knowledge of the
world will be invaluable to you."
The swift roar of the train into the tunnel precluded comment from his
charge, and in the vast station she vanished once more. This time she
remained absent for so long that the distracted attorney was on the
point of despatching a battalion of porters to search for her when she
reappeared, slightly flushed but serene.
"In heaven's name, where have you been?" Mr. North demanded testily.
"How many times have I instructed you to remain close at my side when
we alight!"
"I knew where you were, you see," she exclaimed calmly. "There was
something I had to attend to."
"Telegrams to your friends? Surely they might have waited until a more
suitable time! You have caused me great anxiety----"
"I'm sorry if I worried you, Mr. North." Her tone was chastened, but
there was an undernote of warning. "I've been free so long that I kind
of forget I'm under extradition."
A wave of contrition swept over his ill-humor as her slim-clad figure
preceded him out to the waiting motor. She had been coolly
insubordinate, of course, but she was young and very much alone in a
strange environment. She could be led, perhaps, but she would never be
driven.
Cesare, the Halsteads' chauffeur, touched the brim of his cap smartly,
and Willa bestowed upon him a dazzling smile. Only the snap of the
limousine door prevented her shaking hands.
"He looks like a right-nice boy," she remarked naïvely. "Do you
suppose he'll teach me how to drive a car of my own?"
"If he is told to do so," Mr. North replied with dignity, "and it is
decided that you are to have a car."
She darted an appraising glance at him, but he vaguely felt a certain
ambiguous quality in the silence which followed, and congratulated
himself that they had reached their journey's end.
Mrs. Ripley Halstead awaited them in the drawing-room. She was a tall,
commanding woman in the indefinite forties, with a high, thin nose and
cold, slightly protruding eyes. Her dark hair, still untouched by
gray, was arranged in a modishly severe fashion and her smile extended
no farther than her straight lips.
"So this is our little cousin?" She brushed the girl's cheek with a
light kiss. "My dear Willa, words cannot express our pleasure that you
have been found at last, we have doubted and feared for so long. I
hope that you will be very happy here with us, and I am sure that we
shall all manage famously."
"Thank you," Willa murmured, through stiffened lips. "This situation
has been kind of thrust on both of us, but I reckon we can make the
best of it."
The lady gasped and turned to the attorney, who was watching with a
gleam of speculation in his eye.
"Mason, we have much to thank you for in restoring our young relative
to us, but I must defer that now. You will dine with us?"
"Thank you, no." He bowed over her hand. "To tell you the truth, I am
rather fagged out from my trip, and I am anxious to get on up-town.
Please, tell Ripley that I will see him to-morrow, and transfer the
necessary papers to him.--Au revoir, my dear. Try to remember what I
have told you."
Willa stared with dazed eyes about the pretty room to which she was
ushered. The furniture was of ivory and dull gold, the walls,
draperies and floor a soft French blue, and delicate rose-shaded lights
glowed delicately in many brackets.
The drawing-room she had taken as a matter of course; it impressed her
as being not unlike that of the big hotel at Tampico, but to be
expected to live and move around and sleep in this fragile, stifling,
cluttered doll's house of a room was unthinkable. It was hers, the
maid had said so; therefore, she would make the best of it, in her own
fashion.
A half-hour later the house-maid presented herself at Mrs. Halstead's
door in a state bordering on hysteria.
"If you please, Madame, the young lady, Miss Murdaugh, has taken her
room all to pieces. The draperies' are down from the windows and piled
in a corner with the cushions from the chaise longue, and the bed is
moved over to the windows and stripped down to the blanket. All the
rose shades are off the lights and the furniture is pushed back against
the wall. Miss Murdaugh rang for me just now to take all the drapery
and things out of the room, and I thought I had better come to you."
Mrs. Halstead stepped forward, but stopped with a slight compression of
her lips.
"Very well, Katie. You may remove them, for the time being. I will
see Miss Murdaugh about it later."
When the housemaid had withdrawn, her mistress dropped rather than
seated herself in the nearest chair. The mechanical smile had vanished
and her eyes narrowed. She foresaw friction ahead.
Willa, serenely unconscious that she had offended, slipped into the one
thin black gown which she possessed, a mail-order purchase which had
given her immense satisfaction, but when dinner was announced and she
descended the stairs, she paused aghast at the splendor before her.
A girl stood in the drawing-room door in a marvelous creation which
seemed made of diamond-tipped, rainbow-tinted mist. From it her
youthful shoulders and slim neck rose creamily, surmounted by a small
head banded boyishly with golden hair. Her wide eyes were china blue,
her nose piquantly retroussé and she was as vacuously pretty as a wax
doll.
"How do you do?" She came forward with a graceful fluttering movement.
"You are Willa, aren't you? I hope we are going to be terribly good
friends. I'm your cousin, Angelica."
"Named after a dessert." A languid, teasing voice came from behind
her. "Welcome to our city, my dear cousin! Hope you won't find us too
peaceable after Mexico."
"No fear!" The doll-like eyes snapped dangerously. "This is my
brother Vernon, Willa. Mother will be down in a moment."
Willa had suffered herself to be pecked at by the other girl's perfumed
lips, and now she took the hand of the dapper youth who confronted her.
He was fair like his sister, but the resemblance ended there. His nose
was long and sharp, his forehead slanting, his close-set eyes a
greenish-gray. She wondered how anything human could look so like a
fox, as she returned his quizzical stare with a direct, level one, and
relinquished his hand.
"I'm pleased to meet you," she remarked simply, and noted the quick
flash of amusement which passed from brother to sister. "I reckon I
can stand a little peace and quiet, after what I've been through
lately. I don't hardly know where I'm at, yet."
Vernon's mouth twisted suddenly as he turned away, and Angelica
responded in obvious haste.
"Yes, I imagine you do feel rather upset. Mr. North must have seemed
like a fairy godfather when he appeared with his astounding news for
you."
"A fairy godfather? He's kind of a hefty one, isn't he?" Willa
smiled, adding quickly: "He was real kind on the trip coming up; didn't
seem like he could do enough for me, but I reckon he was glad to get me
here at last."
"As we are to have you, my dear." A mild, genial voice sounded from
the stairs' foot, and the three young people turned. "Let me welcome
you to your home. We hope to make up to you for being exiled for so
long from it."
A tall, iron-gray head bent, and Willa found herself gazing into keen,
kindly eyes. Her own blurred as her hand rested between those of
Ripley Halstead and something seemed to grip her by the throat.
Gentleman Geoff's face swam for a moment before her in a mist of tears.
She essayed an unintelligible phrase, and perceiving her emotion, he
tactfully covered it.
"You must be starved; I know we are. Children, where's your mother?
After dinner we must have a little talk, eh? There will be so much for
you to do and see that we shall have to plan out a sort of
campaign.--Oh, there you are, Irene!"
Willa's secret anxiety as to forks being allayed by the discovery that
service was laid for but one course at a time, she was able to give
herself up during the meal to a frank study of her new-found relatives.
She was going to like Ripley Halstead; already liked him, and each
passing moment confirmed her first opinion. Concerning the others, she
was not so sure. There was a mental reservation behind Mrs. Halstead's
surface cordiality, and the bewitching Angelica seemed too seraphically
sweet and gentle to ring quite true. Vernon was a type with which in a
more crude stratum of humanity she had become familiar in the
gaming-rooms of the Blue Chip. Weak without being absolutely vicious,
crafty without initiative, he would be a mere tool in dominant
unscrupulous hands or an average, decent fellow if his better instincts
were aroused.
Dinner over, they repaired to the drawing-room, but the little family
gathering soon disintegrated, to Willa's profound relief.
Angelica flitted away to a dance, Vernon betook himself to his club and
Mr. Halstead, forgetting his expressed intention of a talk with her,
shut himself in his study. When she found herself alone with her
hostess, Willa mentally braced her nerves for a cross-examination, but
the ordeal was deferred.
"My dear, you must be quite worn out. We have much to talk over, for
we must all readjust ourselves, and become really acquainted, but you
must rest first, and accustom yourself to your new surroundings." Mrs.
Halstead smiled. "I am sorry you did not like your room! I had
planned it very carefully for you."
"Oh!" Willa cried, in quick dismay. "I didn't know! It was awfully
pretty, but I'm used to air and space and I didn't feel like I could
breathe in it. I'll put them back to-morrow, and try it, all those
hangings and things, if you say so."
"No, you shall have your own room arranged as you please. You will
soon grow accustomed to pretty things. We must get rid of that somber
mourning at once, and plan a suitable wardrobe."
"But----" Willa paused in dismay. "Maybe Mr. North didn't tell you.
I--I have lost someone who was all the world to me! I feel somehow
that I couldn't give up the black, not yet anyway. It would look as if
I wanted folks to think I'd forgotten----"
"I understand. You refer to your former guardian? But, my dear, that
life is behind you now, and you must put everything from your thoughts
but the future and what we are all going to help you make of it."
Willa rose.
"You are all very kind," she said in a stifled voice. "I'm bound to be
a heap of nuisance to you, I'm afraid, though I made up my mind not to
buck the game strong till I'd learned the rules. But don't ask me to
be a piker and forget Dad! You don't know what he was to me! I
appreciate what you-all are trying to do, Mrs. Halstead, and I
sympathize with you, for it's going to be a tough job all around, no
matter how I try to follow your lead, but don't stack the cards on the
first deal, please. All I've got in the world now is my memory of the
best friend that ever lived!"
"Your loyalty is very touching, dear child, and I would be the last to
impugn it." Mrs. Halstead put two rigid dutiful arms about her. "Your
clothes are a mere detail which we will take up later. You must go to
bed now, and sleep."
Willa stumbled from the room with a sense of baffled defeat as if she
had incontinently butted against a wall of granite. Her aching heart
cried out for familiar things and faces, but she steeled herself
valiantly. She must play the game!