BEGINNING
Coming back into the lobby of the Beacon Head, Cis darted ahead of
Rodney Moore and up to the clerk’s desk. Here in her particular
pigeonhole, held down by the key of her room with its broad, portable
mooring displaying the same number as the pigeonhole, lay a letter,
fallen almost flat. Cis saw at once that the upper left corner bore the
name she sought: “Lucas and Henderson,” in exceedingly clear-cut small
Roman letters, the firm address engraved below them.
“My key and mail, please,” said Cis, trying to appear casual, in
reality stirred by hope and fear. Somehow she did not want to leave
Beaconhite; suddenly she found it desirable to stay on here, and this
letter might compel her to travel on, unless she were able to stumble
upon employment by strangers, to whom she had no introduction.
Cis walked back to where Rodney Moore awaited her beside a small
leather-covered sofa, turning the letter in her hands.
“My verdict has come in; my lawyers have notified me,” she said,
dropping on the brown seat, tipping her head back against the
sofa-back, unconscious that the dark brown leather made a perfect
background for her copper-red hair. “Wonder if it is that I’m to go
farther?”
“No, sir! Too certain that you’d fare worse!” declared Rodney promptly.
“You’re not going an inch out of Beaconhite, that’s flat! I can put you
into something; poor enough, but enough to hold on by till you find
what you want. Open up, Cicely; read your offer of $10,000 a year!”
Cis “opened up,” slitting the end of the envelope with the point of her
bar pin, prolonging the operation in a way unlike herself.
The communication which she unfolded was brief, compactly typed in the
middle of a large page. It read:
Miss Cicely Adair,
The Beacon Head, Beaconhite.
Dear Miss Adair:--
I am prepared to offer you a position in my personal service, as my
secretary. Your duties I vaguely outlined to you when you called upon
me. Your salary would be, to begin, $42.00 per week, or $7.00 per
day. If you prove competent, still more, if you prove satisfactory
in the ways more important than mere skill, of which I spoke to you,
your salary will soon exceed this sum. If this offer is acceptable
to you, kindly report for duty on Monday next, at my office, at
nine-thirty in the morning.
Yours truly,
WILMER LUCAS.
“Great little old snarled up signature!” commented Rodney, whom Cicely
had permitted to read the letter with her. “Wouldn’t be easy to forge!
Not a bad salary, my Holly friend, and the increase will be swift, or
else you won’t stay. Not bad. We’ll have a supper after the private
theatricals, to celebrate; just we two!”
“Let me off from the theatricals, please, will you, Rodney?” asked
Cis. “I’ve been sorry I said I’d go, anyway; it’ll be kind of a cross
between a place where you’ve a right to go, and a place where you’re
intruding. I know ’em; they’re always like that! All the friends and
relations of the performers are there--like a funeral!--and they talk
across to one another, and look at a person as if they wondered how on
earth you broke in--selling tickets for a charity doesn’t calm ’em. But
what’s more, I ought not to go anywhere to-night, except to boarding
houses. I’ve got to find a place to live, if I’m going to stay in
Beaconhite; can’t stand $5.00 a day at this hotel, wouldn’t leave much
for--well, for having my shoes polished, for instance!” She stopped to
enjoy her own allusion with the liquid gurgle of laughter that did not
pass her throat, for which Rodney Moore had already learned to wait
with anticipation.
“But it is a nice salary to begin on, isn’t it? I knew Friday was my
lucky day! Found a jolly pal who suits me fine, and got my job! Wonder
if Christmas fell on Friday the year I was born?” Cis ended with
another little suppressed laugh.
“What a girl! You don’t mind letting a chap know that you think he’s
all right, and are glad that you found him, do you?” cried Rodney,
puzzled but admiring, somewhat piqued, nevertheless; such frankness was
prohibitive as well as welcoming.
“Don’t mind anything that’s honest! Besides, pals don’t flirt. You
didn’t say whether you’d let me off from the movies--I mean the
theatricals?” Cis said.
“What else can I do?” retorted Rodney. “If you don’t want to go, I’m
not going to force it. But as to boarding places, what’s the matter
with coming where I am? Funny old girl keeps it, but her heart’s so
big she has to cover it up. She sets a great table, and neat’s no word
for her! You could be as happy with one of her old-fashioned dinners
served on the floor as on the table, and her kitchen’s shining clean!
You’ll never find another place as good. I’ll speak to Miss Gallatin,
and engage the place for you; I know there’s a room empty now, though
it doesn’t often happen.”
“Good boy, Rodney Moore!” Cis approved him. “Then I won’t go hunting
board, but I don’t want to go to the theatricals. I’ll write Nan and
Miss Lucas.”
“You’re not bidding me run away and play by myself this first evening,
are you?” Rodney made a great show of consternation, but watched Cis.
“Not if you want to play with me,” Cis told him. “But how about those
theatricals? Thought you were booked for them.”
“Oh, bother the theatricals! I’ve bought two tickets and that’s all I’m
obliged to do about them,” declared Rodney. “I’d rather play with you;
you’re a discovery, Miss Cicely Adair.”
Then he remembered the handsome girl who was playing the leading part
in the theatricals that night, the girl who had social position,
wealth and glorious beauty, though not charm, nor more than a somewhat
minus allowance of brains, but in regard to whom G. Rodney Moore had
definite plans. He was surprised to find that he had forgotten Gertrude
Davenport till Cis indirectly reminded him of her; remembering her now,
her beauty did not seem so glorious as usual as his eyes rested on the
varied expression of Cis’s face. There was no denying that this new
girl had charm and to spare.
“A discovery? Well, if it comes to that, I’m not as sure as I’d like
to be that I’m the discovery; I suspect that I discovered you. Come
around, if you want to, and tell me what your Miss Gallagher says about
taking me to board; get her terms, and the whole thing. But if you
change your mind about the theatricals, it’s perfectly all right. Call
me up, though, please, because if I’m not going to your boarding house
I’ve got to hunt up another, start out early in the morning. I’ll look
for you at half past eight or so, but I’ll not mind a speck if you go
to your private theatricals. So don’t feel tied up.” Cis spoke with
crisp cheerfulness, having risen and begun moving toward the stairs,
her eyes on the clock behind the desk.
“H’m! Pleasant to be told you’re as welcome to be absent as to be
present, that you don’t matter a whoop!” grumbled Rodney, and meant it.
“I’ll be around, Miss Cicely, and don’t you forget it! I’d come, if it
was only to begin your lessons in finding me necessary! Congratulations
are in order, by the way; I forgot to offer them. You landed a big
fish when you landed the private secretaryship to Wilmer Lucas! We’ll
celebrate--when? To-morrow? Sunday?”
“Not to-morrow; I’ve got to get settled living somewhere, permanently,”
said Cis.
“Sunday, then? Do you lie late Sunday? Any objections to a pleasant
time on that day? I don’t suspect you of Puritanism! I myself get up
about noon on Sunday, but I’m ready to forego my needed rest and trot
you out in the forenoon. If not, we’ll lunch somewhere, and go for a
jolly time afterward,” suggested Rodney.
“Time enough to talk about Sunday,” returned Cis. “I usually get up
fairly early; Sunday, too, but I don’t spend the day psalm reading.
Run along; I’m busy. Let me know about Miss Gallagher by telephone, or
otherwise.”
“Otherwise; at eight-thirty sharp. By the way, it’s Gallatin, not
Gallagher. Good-bye, Holly. You’re a peach, and I’m glad we had our
shoes polished!” cried Rodney.
Cis laughed, and ran up the stairs, scorning the elevator. At the
landing she caught a glimpse of Rodney standing where she had left him,
watching her. She started to turn back to wave him a supplementary
farewell, but checked herself, and went on without betraying that
she knew he was still there. She finished her journey up the second
section of the stairway, wondering at herself. Never before in all her
life had she refused herself the expression of a friendly impulse. Was
it shyness? Could it be coquetry that had held her hand from that
last salute? She had never been shy; she scorned coquetry. “Air of
Beaconhite doesn’t agree with you, Cis, my dear old chap!” she warned
herself.
Miss Hannah Gallatin was a character, as Rodney had implied. She was
tall and gaunt, almost stern in manner, curt of word, severe, but there
was no kinder creature in the world than this lonely maiden woman who
had no one of kith nor kin on whom to lavish love, who therefore,
perhaps, had taught herself not to express it except by ceaseless deeds
of kindness, done as if they were penal.
She was a convert to the Catholic Church, one that would not have been
predicted, but Father Morley, of St. Francis’ church, himself the
son of a convert to the Old Faith, had many converts to his credit;
among them Hannah Gallatin, who, if she did not grace it in one sense,
certainly was an honor to it in all essential senses.
To this fine, though eccentric person G. Rodney Moore repaired upon
his return from the Beacon Head. In the course of his walk, meditating
upon Cicely Adair, he had warmed into a great admiration for her wit,
her charm, her kindliness, her unmistakable purity of thought and deed
below her boyish daring, which might easily be misunderstood. Therefore
the enthusiasm he felt for Cis escaped into his eyes and voice as he
laid before Miss Gallatin the need that “a friend of his” had of a good
home, a comfortable room, nice surroundings, “not the ordinary boarding
house,” he added, feeling himself diplomatically clever. “This Miss
Adair,” he went on to say, “is precisely the kind of girl whom Miss
Gallatin would like about; he felt proud to be the one to offer such a
perfect fit, from both points of view, for Miss Gallatin’s cozy room,
now vacant.”
“Oh!” said Miss Gallatin, regarding Rodney attentively. She did not
wholly like this one of her boarders, though she knew no justification
of her distrust. He had come to her, a stranger in the city; had been
regular in his goings and comings; orderly in the house; agreeable to
his fellow-guests; he never went to church, but Miss Gallatin knew that
in the present generation of Protestants this proved nothing worse
than that they had let go of the illogical anchorage of their fathers;
she did not know that G. Rodney’s last name had been drawn from that
green sod wherein church-going was a totally different matter. If
she had known that this Moore had been an Irish name in the time of
its present possessor’s great-grandfather, she would have exclaimed:
“There!” triumphantly, but she had no suspicion that Rodney Moore had
been brought up to go to Mass. “He did not show it,” as she might have
said. “Oh!” Miss Gallatin now exclaimed, adding at once: “Ah! Friend
of yours, you say? Schoolmate? How long’ve you known her? Live in
Beaconhite?”
“She is going to live here,” said Rodney, flushing, annoyed, trying
to hide it in order not to frustrate his own ends. “She has just come
here, five days ago. She is to be Wilmer Lucas’ secretary; his brother
sent her to him, and she’s not the sort of girl to chum in with all
sorts. She’s an awfully nice girl, Miss Gallatin; just your kind!”
“Like me?” hinted Miss Gallatin. “Character or looks? About my
complexion and figure, I’ll bet a dollar! Can’t be quite my age. How
long did you say you’d known her?”
“Not long,” said Rodney. “But I know her well; she’s that frank sort
that hasn’t a thing to hide; fearless, straight, boyish, but not
tom-boyish--get the idea? I’m perfectly sure you’ll like her beyond
anything. I’ll bring her around this evening; she’s at the Head. You
can let her see the room, arrange terms, give her a look over with your
eagle eye--and the thing’s done! I’d like her in the house, of course;
she’s the kind of girl that is like a nice sister, chummy, helpful, if
you get me? But for her own sake I want her here, where you’ll give her
just what she needs in every way. I’ll bring her around; I told her I’d
see her after dinner to-night.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” declared Miss Gallatin. “You told me
you had tickets for the theatricals. Isn’t Gertrude Davenport in ’em?
Forgotten all about it? Met this new girl for the first time to-day,
I’ll wager! She must be something of a cyclone! You needn’t bring her
around, Mr. G. Rodney Moore; I’m not going to let my vacant room to
her, whether all you say of her is true, or whether it isn’t!”
“You’re not willing so much as to show it to her? To meet her? Strange
way to act, Miss Gallatin! I am justified in resenting it,” said
Rodney with dignity.
“Nothing of the sort!” cried Miss Gallatin briskly. “Don’t have
theatricals here; better go to them. She may be a nice girl, but the
nicer she is the more reason for keeping her out of the same house
where the young man boards whom she got acquainted with, dear knows
how! I wouldn’t consider taking her, not if every room but yours was
vacant! So that’s settled.”
“She is a fine girl, I tell you! She’s not exactly pretty, but she has
the sort of face you like to watch, and her hair is a wonder; loads
of bright coppery red hair, and she is full of jolly, kiddish fun,
straight and good. I respect her like everything. Good gracious, Miss
Gallatin, I’m over thirty; do you suppose I don’t know a nice girl when
I see one and talk to her unreservedly? I respect Miss Adair as much
as I admire her!” cried Rodney, surprised later on to find how much he
cared about the defence of Cicely.
“Right! Keep on respecting her,” said Miss Gallatin. “Send her to Mrs.
Wallace’s; she keeps a good house, sets a good table, good’s mine. I
won’t have her here. Hold on a minute, Mr. Moore! Send her around to
talk with me to-morrow, sometime. I won’t let her board here, but I’ll
take her to see Mrs. Wallace. If she can’t come to-morrow, send her
Sunday. Don’t you take her to Mrs. Wallace’s; I will. She’s a stranger
here, going to work for Mr. Lucas where she’ll be noticed. Don’t start
her wrong by escorting her to look up her boarding place. People are
queer things; they’re more than likely to hope for the worst. Send
the girl to me. I won’t take her in here, but I’ll do by her as I’d
want done by me, if I was a young Hannah Gallatin, setting out to
earn my living in a strange place. From what you say of her, she’s a
conspicuous sort of girl that people with keen palates for gossip will
be likely to lick to get a flavor of delicious suspicion! That’s the
best I can do and say, so take yourself off, Mr. Moore, if you please;
I’ve got my weekly accounts to make up, and it’s always a trial to my
eyes, and my nerves, also my temper--of course, after the other two!”
There was nothing for Rodney to do but to accept defeat with as much
grace as he could summon. There was consolation in the thought that
Miss Gallatin was willing to see Cicely, though only to conduct her to
a rival house. He hoped that seeing her, Miss Gallatin might yield her
position; he felt entire confidence in Cicely’s ability to win anyone’s
complete trust and liking. There was no denying that Miss Gallatin was
a wise and kind dragon in her guardianship of this girl whom she had
never seen.
Sunday morning Cicely betook herself to Mass at eight o’clock, keeping
up her old hour, reflecting with a sense of bewilderment that only the
previous Sunday she had heard Mass in the only church which, up to this
time, she had ever known, and that Nan was with her, and that she had
returned with her into the familiar Dowling household, where young
Tom gloomed over their near parting and Mrs. Dowling lectured her on
probable dangers which clearly implied her own deficiencies. And now
she was beginning life in Beaconhite, uprooted, yet already replanted,
on a larger salary, in promising conditions. She had a new friend with
whom she was to do something new and pleasant that afternoon. She was a
lucky Cis, she thought, kneeling, without much concentration upon it,
before the altar, well in the front of the church of St. Francis Xavier
at the eight o’clock Mass.
The priest who said this Mass was not young; he was remarkably tall,
his shoulders contracted from the reading habit; his hair grey; his
eyes deep-set and glowing with singular light; his nose large and
handsome; his mouth finely cut, somewhat sad, yet ready to smile, as
Cis found out when he turned to his people and began to speak after
the reading of the Gospel. A remarkable man, whom Cis began to watch
intently, feeling at once attracted and repulsed by him, as if she
sensed in him the implanted power of the Holy Ghost which all who
knew Father Morley said was his gift, the power that reads souls and
irresistibly draws them.
Once Cis was sure that the priest’s eyes met her own, full and
steadily; that he knew her for a stranger, and measured her. She liked
him, yet she feared him; coming out of the church slowly, borne by the
pressure of the immense throng into the outer air, she was conscious of
relief, and was glad that it “was not her way to know the priest; that
one was----”
Someone touched her arm, a tall, thin, stern looking woman, with
clear, kindly eyes, at whom Cis looked questioningly, her formulation
of Father Morley suspended. “Are you Miss Adair, I wonder?” asked the
woman.
“Yes; Cicely Adair,” replied Cis.
“I saw you were a stranger. Taking your hair, and all together, I
thought you must be the girl Mr. Moore talked to me about taking. I’m
Miss Gallatin, Hannah Gallatin. Come home with me; I’m going to get
you a good boarding place, but not in my house. Fasting?” said Miss
Gallatin, speaking with a sort of crisp rapidity.
“No; I had breakfast at the hotel as soon as the doors were opened,”
said Cis. “Mr. Moore said you didn’t want me, because he knew me, or
words to that effect.”
“Neither do I, though I see he judged you right; G. Rodney always
struck me as a man who could judge a woman accurately,” said Miss
Gallatin. “Didn’t suppose you’d turn out to be a Catholic. Convert,
like myself?”
“No,” said Cis. “I was born one; I’m several kinds of races, all
Catholic, except my mother, and she had English blood; half of her
blood was English Protestant. But none of my people came from their old
countries lately; they were all great or still greater grandparents
who came over here, so I’m quite thoroughly American, as things go.
Goodness, I don’t care a rap about such things! I’m here, Cis Adair,
and what do I care!”
“Verse?” asked Miss Gallatin.
“No; worse! Just a fluke; it does rhyme, doesn’t it?” laughed Cis.
“Rod said you wanted to steer me to a house you knew about, though you
wouldn’t have me in yours. Kind of you, Miss Gallatin--at least half of
it is!”
“It surely is, and it’s the half you don’t mean!” agreed Miss Gallatin.
“I’ve had no breakfast. Come with me, and after I’ve seen to my
household, and eaten, I’ll take you to Mrs. Wallace. Mr. Moore never
gets up till noon, Sundays; you won’t see him. You call him Rod; known
him long?”
“Mercy yes! Forty-eight hours!” Cis’s laugh rang out. “You see, Miss
Gallatin, I’ve been out in the world, earning my living since I was
old enough to earn it, and that was early, because I was always quick
to learn, and I was about twenty when I was fourteen. I’ve always had
boy friends, and I’m not a bit afraid to chum with them. I’ve some
good girl friends, chiefly one, but it’s the nice boy who always takes
you as you want to be taken. So when I met Rod Moore we fell right
together; I was getting green-lonely, and I’m pleased as pleasure to
have him like me and see me on my way.”
“I see!” Miss Gallatin evidently did see, yet Cis felt that her
agreement was noncommittal, involving something that she did not
understand. “I like you, too, Cis--did you say Cis?--Adair, and I hope
you’ll let me help you out, if ever Beaconhite gets too tight for you;
presses on any sore spot.”
“Haven’t one!” cried Cis. “Thanks, Miss Gallatin; I like you, and I
didn’t like you one bit till I saw you! I suppose it’s all right of you
to shove me off, but it isn’t sensible, either; I could board in the
house with all my boy chums, be the only girl in the offing, and it
would go as smooth as silk.”
“You may have knocked about the world, as you say you have, Cis Adair,
and you may have been twenty at fourteen, but at twenty-two--I’d
guess?--you are four in some ways, and your experience is by no means
rounded out,” said Miss Gallatin oracularly. “Prudence is one of the
gifts of the Holy Ghost, my dear, as your catechism taught you, and
it’s one of His most valuable gifts to attractive young women, left
alone in the world.”
“I don’t remember much catechism, Miss Gallatin,” said honest Cis, with
her happy laugh. “I learned some of it when I was confirmed, but I’m
not much of a Catholic. Of course I’d never be a Protestant,” she added
hastily, “but my religion doesn’t bother me much.”
“No; it wasn’t founded for that purpose,” returned Miss Gallatin. “I
wonder how you will be taught to value it? You’ve got to learn, of
course you know that.”
Cis looked at her startled, and she was silent for a moment in which
her mind went out toward an invisible, infinite track, down which
sorrow and suffering, vague, threatening, nameless, molding events,
were advancing upon her. Cicely Adair, fearless, free, strong,
independent, would be tamed, bound, caught, crushed, perhaps; signed by
the cross, and thus learn its meaning.
Cicely shook off the fear that gripped her, the first fear that in all
her life had ever assaulted her deep in her heart. Why had it thus
assailed her? What had made her vulnerable to a shaft from the hand of
this gaunt woman, past middle age, whose effects were almost grotesque?
Cis threw back her radiant head with a short, unmirthful laugh.
“Did they name you Hannah because you were going to be a prophetess,
Miss Gallatin?” she asked.