WILLA SITS IN
"Well, what do you think of her?" Mason North's eyes twinkled as he
put the question to the Ripley Halsteads in solemn conference on the
following evening.
"A very interesting young woman," Halstead replied emphatically.
"She's refreshingly genuine and original, in this artificial,
cut-and-dried age."
Mrs. Halstead shuddered.
"Aboriginal, I should say," she murmured. "And quite astonishingly
impervious to the social amenities."
"I gathered that, myself," Mason North nodded. "I talked to her till I
was blue in the face, but unless she could see a direct reason for
doing a thing, or not doing it, she followed her own instinct."
"It wouldn't lead her far wrong," declared Halstead. "She may lack the
minor hypocrisies, but she'll wall herself in with them soon enough,
the Lord knows. She's willing to listen to reason, that's something.
"The life down there may have been rough, but it has not destroyed her
native fineness and high principle. I don't say that I should care to
have Angie go through such an experience, but it might have made a man
of Vernon to buck up against it. Look at young Thode!"
"Kearn Thode?" The attorney glanced up quickly. "I thought he was out
West?"
"No. Larkin tells me he sent him to Mexico a few months ago. I wonder
if Willa happened to run across him? He's a splendid fellow and Larkin
banks on his judgment and efficiency. That's the sort of life to bring
out the best in a man, or a woman either, to judge from our small
cousin. I like her independence, I don't mind telling you. It shows
self-reliance and strength."
"But Willa has not the slightest idea of obligation," his wife
remarked. "She seems rather to look on the situation as one for mutual
commiseration. Any other poor, neglected, friendless creature from the
backwoods would be transported into the seventh heaven at such great
good fortune, but she accepts it as a more or less onerous duty."
"You wouldn't call her exactly friendless if you had witnessed the
parting ovation she received; the whole town turned out. She's more
than a popular favorite down there, she's an idol. Everyone seems to
worship her, down to the lowest half-breed. If we handle her right, I
shouldn't wonder if she turns out to be a mighty-fine woman."
"If we do?" Mrs. Halstead raised her eyebrows. "Perhaps you have some
method to suggest. I admit that for the moment I am baffled. She
refused flatly last night to go out of mourning, and I was really
thankful for it after reflection; we can at least keep her in the
background now, until I have succeeded in eliminating some of those
frightful gambling expressions from her vocabulary. She seems to have
been passionately fond of the impossible person who brought her up. I
shudder to think of the impression she would make now on our circle of
friends. She doesn't seem in the least ashamed of her past
environment, or desirous of concealing her connection with such a
character."
The attorney chuckled.
"I wouldn't advise you to tackle that subject for awhile," he said.
"You ought to have heard the flaying she gave me when I suggested that
no one but the immediate family need know about her foster father. Her
opinion of her respected grandfather, in comparison with Gentleman
Geoff, was illuminating."
He gave them the gist of it, and Mrs. Halstead listened with tightened
lips.
"I shall tell Willa quite plainly that we and our friends are not
interested in her past but only in what she is and may become. She
appears to have at least a glimmering of sense and she must soon
perceive for herself how disgraceful the whole unfortunate affair would
seem to outsiders." She paused. "There is something that I do not
quite understand about Willa. You are sure, Mason, that she has no
vulgar, clandestine affair on her hands?"
"Good heavens, I should hope not! We've got enough to contend with as
things stand without that." The attorney bounced forward in his chair.
"What on earth put such an idea into your head, my dear Irene?"
"She was already in the breakfast-room when I came down this morning,
and I thought she looked remarkably fresh, but with these naturally
pale people you never can tell." Mrs. Halstead, too, leaned forward
impressively. "Willa said nothing about having been out, and naturally
such a possibility never occurred to me, but Welsh tells me she drove
up in a taxi-cab at half-past nine. She must have slipped out very
early, for he did not see her go."
"Surely you questioned her?" her husband asked. North was speechless.
"'She had been out to take a look about the city.'" Mrs. Halstead
shrugged. "She hadn't thought it worth while mentioning; she had
always gone and come as she pleased."
"Exactly the same stall she gave me!" the attorney exploded. "We'd
better look into this, for she gave me the slip half a dozen times on
the train and in stations and I never could get any satisfaction out of
her."
"I explained that young ladies did not go about alone in that fashion,
at least unless their families knew and sanctioned it, and I pointed
out the danger of losing her way. She promised to be more careful
another time, but her manner was ambiguous, to say the least. She may
have privately intended to be careful lest her future expeditions be
discovered, but I have arranged to circumvent that. Whatever we do, we
must have no breath of gossip until she is firmly established."
If Willa was aware of the respectful surveillance to which she was
subjected thereafter she made no sign, possibly because she eluded it
whenever she felt inclined with the utmost ease, and no tales were
carried back. The servants beneath Mrs. Halstead's iron rule were too
fearful of losing their positions to admit a failure of duty unless
they were cornered and secretly they sympathized with the strange young
lady. Thus Willa came and went as her pleasure dictated in the
early-morning hours.
Her first real clash came during a discussion of finances with the
attorney and Ripley Halstead. The latter had insisted on showing her
exactly how the fortune left her by her grandfather was being
manipulated for her interests, and she listened in grave attention.
When the matter was concluded, Mr. North cleared his throat with a
nervous but ingratiating smile.
"Now, my dear, I think we should come to an understanding about your
other inheritance; that left to you by--ah, Gentleman Geoff. Mr.
Baggott, the executor, informed me that the sale of your foster
father's establishment alone netted two hundred thousand dollars and
there are other securities and bank deposits, besides. He very
ill-advisedly turned them over to you, but you, of course, cannot think
of handling such a sum on your own initiative. It must be invested
under mature judgment, and you are still a minor. If you will place
the necessary deeds and memoranda in our hands----"
"I am not a minor under Mexican law." Willa bent a steady gaze upon
him. "Dad trusted me with absolute control and I'm going to play a
lone hand as far as that money is concerned, Mr. North. You can tie as
many strings as you please to the Murdaugh fortune, I'm not worrying
about that; I have enough without it, and what I've got I'm going to
keep."
"Little cousin, that would be impossible." Halstead shook his head.
"I would not interfere in any way with your personal liberty, but this
is a matter in which you must defer to your proper guardians. You are
incapable of managing it alone, and it is unthinkable that you should
try."
"I'm very sorry, Cousin Ripley; I seem to be saying that all the time,
don't I?" She smiled faintly, but her little chin was set in
determined lines. "You may not have known it, but I've banked and
invested Dad's money--and speculated with it, too--for the last three
years, and he always said he would trust my judgment before any hombre
in Mexico. I know you don't like me to speak of Dad, but I only wanted
you to know that I'm really quite capable."
"Willa, my dear--" began Halstead, but the lawyer stopped him with a
gesture.
"Do you realize that we can have the entire estate taken out of your
hands by process of law and turned over to us as your guardians? We
most certainly shall, if you persist, in order to protect you against
your own wilful recklessness. My dear, you will not force us to such a
disagreeable and expensive step? You are not going to disappoint us by
proving ungrateful for the interest we have taken in you?"
"I am not ungrateful!" she cried passionately. "I know you are all
trying to help me and look out for me, and I am thankful. I--I can't
give up the control of my own money, for I may have to use it. It's
really mine, Dad gave it to me, and I'm not going to have to ask for it
when I want it, or explain what I want it for. If you try to take it
from me, I'll have to fight for it. Everyone in Limasito will back me
up, and the law down there is on their side and mine, remember.
Everything else is in your hands and I am grateful to you for taking
care of it, but Dad's money isn't part of the Murdaugh outfit, and I
mean to keep it for myself."
No further argument could avail to move her an iota from her position
and the matter perforce rested, but when the two men were alone
together, Ripley Halstead looked at his attorney with a troubled
question in his eyes.
North nodded solemnly.
"It's blackmail!" he announced. "She's paying hush-money to someone
and planning flight if the truth, whatever it may be, is discovered.
Why else would she insist on retaining control of the money she
considers peculiarly her own? I thought I had learned every detail of
the past, and that her life was an open book, but you never can tell.
There may have been some foolish romance or entanglement--"
"No." Halsted shook his head. "You're on the wrong track there, I'm
sure of it. Willa is too high-minded to compromise herself, and
level-headed enough to be safe from sentimental folly under any
circumstances. If she had become involved in any difficulty, you can
bank on it that she would come out with the truth, straight from the
shoulder; she would be the last person in the world to allow herself to
be intimidated. She may be being bled through pity or a mistaken sense
of loyalty, but I don't see what we can do now to stop it."
"The first step will be to discover what her game is." The attorney
chuckled ruefully. "To use her own parlance, Ripley, that young woman
called my bluff, and her cards are high. Litigation would be a
wearisome business and we couldn't buck her crowd down there. She'd
have the executor, Baggott, appointed as trustee of the old gambler's
estate, and he would be wax in her hands. We can only watch her, and
try to prevent her doing anything foolishly quixotic."
The next day Willa paid her first visit to a famous modiste in Mrs.
Halstead's company, and returned exhausted but impressed. The latent
feminine instinct for adornment had taken possession of her and through
the long evening she dreamed in a hazy rapture. The motive which had
so far actuated her on her course was temporarily laid aside and in its
stead came vague scenes of the future, when she should have learned how
to carry those marvelous creations with the trained ease and elegance
of Angelica, and was wholly transformed from the plain, awkward
creature of the Limasito days. Perhaps, when Kearn Thode came to New
York--
A sudden sound, subdued but unmistakably familiar, roused her from her
reverie. What could it mean? She sprang from her chair and stood
listening intently. The family were supposed to have gone to a
dinner-party, yet from somewhere above had come a chorus of male
laughter, and down the stairs to her opened door echoed the rattle and
clink of poker chips.
Willa crept out to the hall wistfully, drawn by the well-remembered
sound as by a magnet, and step by step ascended the stairs. A door at
the left was ajar and through it came a warm ray of light and the odor
of cigarettes.
"If that wasn't a hunch, I'll eat my shirt!" A buoyant voice exulted.
"Stuck two raises before the draw and then filled an inside straight!
What do you call it?"
"Lunacy, even if it did break for you," Vernon drawled. "You ought to
be shot at sunrise. No more post-mortems. Ante up there, Cal."
Willa tiptoed to the door and peered within. Vernon and four strange
young men were seated about a table in the center of the room, which
was evidently a den or study.
Vernon was dealing, and his neighbor at the left sat with his back
squarely to the door. Over his shoulder, Willa could see his cards as
he picked them up; an ace, king, ten, jack, and another king. He
refused to open, but the downy-mustached boy on his left, whose voice
Willa had first heard, performed that service. The other two strangers
stayed out, Vernon trailed and Willa eyed the slim, dark youth whose
hand she could see in fascinated suspense.
"Mine are punk." He yawned indifferently, and threw his cards down
upon the table.
The eavesdropper gasped, but watched with narrowed eyes as his tapering
fingers lingered, gathering up and sorting the discards with studied
listlessness.
The opener checked, the boy next raised him two and Vernon dropped.
"Brace of manicurists!" The first boy showed his openers ruefully.
"Couldn't better 'em. It's all yours, Art."
The dark youth shuffled the cards twice dexterously and dealt. This
time he held four kings and a seven.
"Go to it, Winnie," he said lazily.
"No, thanks." Winnie shook his head. "The tall grass for mine."
His neighbor refused likewise, but the lad with the tortoise-rimmed
glasses next Vernon straightened involuntarily.
"I'll open it." His voice trembled.
"Good-night!" Vernon dropped his cards as if they burned him. "Sure
you're looking at 'em straight, Pete?"
"Come again." The dealer shoved two blues out on the board.
"Back to you." The opener's fingers twitched as he dropped four.
"Once more."
"And two."
"That's enough for me." The dealer shrugged, and pushed forward two
chips more.
The others sat in wordless enthralment as Pete stood pat and the
dealer, with a smile, laid down the pack untouched. The betting
proceeded cautiously at first, then by leaps and bounds as Pete lost
his head and plunged wildly.
A small mountain of blue chips lay in the center of the table, and the
dark, smiling youth seemed prepared to raise it indefinitely, when Pete
sighed and drew his hand before his blurred eye-glasses.
"Call you!" he squeaked. "What you got, Cal?"
The dealer spread his hand out upon the board and his opponent emitted
a moan of anguish as the four kings were exposed.
"And I opened--_opened_ mind you, with four messenger boys, pat!"
Willa did not wait for the buzz of excited comment. Instead she turned
and sped noiselessly down the stair to her room. When she reappeared a
few moments later she wore a corsage bunch of violets which stuck out
oddly from her black gown, and carried a jingling purse.
Ascending once more, she tapped at the door and then slipped shyly in.
"Excuse me!" she said to the open-mouthed group who rose as one man.
"I heard the game going on and I thought maybe you'd let me sit in for
a round or two. It isn't just regular, I know, but if you won't tell,
_I_ won't."
"Willa!" Vernon's face was crimson. "I--I'm quite sure mother
wouldn't approve of----"
"Of the game?" she smiled. "Who's going to carry tales, if I don't? I
reckon you've forgotten to introduce your friends."
"Forgive me." Vernon gathered his wits together with an obvious
effort, and complied. The loser of the last phenomenal hand, she
learned, was Peter Follinsbee, his right-hand neighbor Arthur Judson,
and "Winnie" proved to be the son whom Mason North had mentioned. His
was the voice she had first heard, and she shook hands cordially with
him, but merely bowed to the slim, dark youth, whose name was Calvert
Shirley.
"My--my cousin, Miss Murdaugh." Vernon finished, adding desperately:
"Really, Willa, I'm sorry, but it's out of the question----"
"Vernie, have a heart! We'd all be delighted if Miss Murdaugh will
join us!" Winnie's eyes twinkled with mischief. "We're only playing a
ten-cent limit. Miss Murdaugh, if you're familiar with the game----"
"I'm on speaking terms with it," Willa nodded. "Ten-_dollar_ limit you
mean, don't you, Mr. North? I'm right here with you."
"Oh, I say!" Follinsbee blinked deprecatingly. "We couldn't allow a
lady to play such a stiff game with all of us----"
"Son," Willa admonished him, "I've bucked a game that hit the skies
more than once, so don't you worry about me. Who's banking?"
"Oh, all right, if you really want to," Vernon capitulated, in deadly
fear of further revelations. "Only keep mum about it or there'll be
the very deuce to pay."
Willa seated herself between "Pete" Follinsbee and "Art" Judson,
directly across the table from "Cal" Shirley, and the game recommenced.
Winnie Mason looked upon her advent as a huge joke, but the others were
plainly ill at ease, until a hand or two showed them that they were in
the presence of a sure and expert player.
If she realized their stupefaction at the unexpected materialization in
their midst of the mysterious and much heralded Miss Murdaugh she gave
no sign, but played conservatively, her eyes always upon the slim,
agile fingers of her vis-à-vis.
His deal came and passed without incident, but when the round of the
table had been made once more, and Vernon dealt, Cal Shirley again
refused to open and dropped out.
Willa, with a pair of aces, did likewise, and watched him gather up her
hand with his own and the other discards.
Vernon crowed triumphantly as he raked in the pot, but Willa scarcely
heard. One hand had flown to the violets at her belt, and she waited,
tense and motionless, until Shirley had shuffled and lifted the top
card to deal.
Then there came a sinuous, silken rustle; fingers like steel wires tore
the pack from his grasp and he found himself looking into the mouth of
a small but eminently practical revolver.
"Hands up, you yellow son of a Greaser!" Willa's voice rang out above
the amazed gasp which ran around the table. "I saw you running up the
hands before when you cleaned Mr. Follinsbee on four planted jacks.
That's why I eased myself into the game."
Shirley obeyed, with a sickly smile.
"Really, this is most extraordinary!" he drawled. "Is your charming
cousin about to entertain us with a bit of wild-West melodrama, Vernie?"
"No," Willa interposed. "I'm going to show you what we do with a crook
below the border.--Mr. North, will you take this pack and deal face up
for Mr. Shirley? You'll find that somebody will have a hand to go the
limit on, but our friend over there will top him, pat."
Mechanically, Winnie North complied, and, in a silence broken only by
the whispering fall of the cards, he dropped before Willa herself a
king full, and at the erstwhile dealer's place, four damning eights.
"You infernal scoundrel!" They were all on their feet, but it was
Vernon's voice which rumbled in unexpected strength. "If my cousin
weren't here, I'd thrash you within an inch of your life!"
"Don't mind me!" The revolver wavered regretfully in Willa's fingers.
"I'd have winged him at the start, but I reckon shooting don't go in
New York. I'll take a chance, though, if he don't loosen up with every
peso he's stolen."
The threat was wholly unnecessary. With shaking hands the cheat made
restitution, his sallow face gray-green and distorted with silent rage.
"Now, vamoose!" Willa commanded. "If I don't hear the front door slam
in just thirty seconds, you'll be the deadest hombre this side of
Kingdom Come!"
There were a few seconds to spare from her ultimatum when the scurry of
feet ceased in a thud which echoed through the silent house.
Willa slipped the revolver back under her belt and turned with a little
rueful smile to her cousin.
"I--I suppose it wasn't just what a lady ought to have done----" she
began, apologetically.
"It was wonderful!" Winthrop North's eyes shone. "You saw him stack up
the cards on Pete Follinsbee, and then dug up that revolver and came in
here to expose him! It's the gamest thing I ever heard of a girl
doing! Congratulations, Miss Murdaugh!"
Vernon pulled himself together, and held out his hand. "I'm proud of
my cousin! Only--what in thunder will the mater say if this gets out?"
"I know what Dad would have said." Willa flushed. "But I suppose I've
made a regular hash of--of my début!"