The first thing she did about it was to stop at a pay station on her
way home and call up her mother to tell her she might be delayed a few
minutes with some extra work, and not to worry. Then with a heart that
beat twice as quickly as it usually did, she turned the pages of the
telephone book rapidly, and found the Van Rensselaer number.
Ordinarily she would have consulted her mother before taking as decided
a step as this, but something told her that her mother’s sense of
protection toward her would bias her judgment in this matter. She was
a girl who prayed a great deal, and had great faith in prayer. She
had been quietly praying all day long in her heart for guidance in
this matter, and she believed she was doing the right thing. No need
to trouble her mother with it yet. She would tell her by and by, of
course, but mother might take alarm, and think she was more troubled
than she really was, so she decided not to tell her yet. Besides, this
was something that must be done at once if it really was necessary to
do at all. She was going to find out.
The ring was answered promptly enough, evidently by a house servant.
No, Mr. Murray Van Rensselaer was not in. No, he was not _at home_. No,
they could not tell her just when he would be at home, nor where she
could reach him by phone.
There was a pause. She found her heart beating very wildly indeed. It
seemed as though it would choke her. Then it was true! They really did
not know where he was! But this was only a servant. Probably he would
not know. She ought to get one of the family. After all, what had she
to tell that would do them any good if they really were looking for
him? Only that he had had an automobile accident and had disappeared
from the hospital. Would that do them any good? Could they trace him
from there if he had been injured?
The thought of Murray alone, delirious, perhaps, in a hospital, and his
mother worrying, if such mothers ever worried, set her fluttering voice
to going again.
“May I speak to Mrs. Van Rensselaer?”
“Mrs. Van Rensselaer will be dressing now,” said the impersonal voice
of the butler. “We don’t disturb her when she’s dressing unless it’s
for something very important.”
“This is most important!” said Elizabeth firmly. She had started it,
now she would see it through.
“Wait a minute. I’ll put you on the other phone, and you can talk to
the maid.”
She heard a click, and a voice with a French accent answered her.
“Mrs. Van Rensselaer is having a shampoo and a wave now. Could you
leave a message?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Bessie, desperately. “Do you think she could see
me if I called there in about half an hour? Just for five minutes?”
“She might,” said the maid. “You’d have to be very brief, she’s giffing
a dinner tonight. She’ll not haf mooch time.”
“I’ll be brief,” said the girl, with relief in her voice.
“Who shall I say called?”
“Oh, Miss Chapparelle. But she won’t know me.”
Bessie was waiting in a small reception room to the right of the
front door when the maid came down and eyed her from head to foot,
appraisingly. She was sorry she had not waited to dress instead of
coming straight up from the office.
“Mrs. Van Rensselaer says she don’t know you. Who are you?”
Bessie’s cheeks were burning. Now that she was here she felt that she
had intruded, and yet her conscience would not let her run away with
her errand uncompleted. She stood her ground with her gravest little
manner of self-respecting confidence.
“She would not know me,” she smiled, “I’m only a neighbor who used to
know Murray when we were children. I had something to tell her I felt
she perhaps would be glad to know.”
“Are you an agent? Because she won’t see agents.”
“Mercy no!” said Bessie, smiling. “Tell her I won’t keep her a moment.
I would send a message if I could--but--I think I ought to speak with
her.”
The merciless eye of the maid gave her one more searching look and sped
away up the stairs again. A slight movement in a great room like a
library across the wide, beautiful hall drew the girl’s attention, as
if some one were over there listening. Perhaps it was Murray. Perhaps
she was making a fool of herself. But it was too late now. She must see
this thing through. It was always wrong to do a big thing like this on
impulse. She ought to have talked it over with mother first. But she
had prayed! And it had seemed so right, so impossible not to do it.
Well, the maid was coming back.
“Madame says she can’t see you. She says she has no time to listen
to complaints from the girls that hang on to her son. She says she
remembers you now. You’re the girl she sent him away from to boarding
school to get rid of years ago!”
“That will do, Marie!” said the stern voice of the master of the house.
“You may go back to Mrs. Van Rensselaer!”
The maid gave a frightened glance behind her and sped away up the
stairs in a hurry. The occasions were seldom when the master interfered
with his wife’s servants, but when he did he did it thoroughly. Marie
had no wish to incur his disfavor. Who could know the master was in
that room?
Mr. Van Rensselaer came out from the shadow of the dimly lighted
doorway and approached Bessie, eyeing her keenly.
“You had something to say about my son?” he asked in a courteous tone.
Bessie lifted eyes that were bright with unshed tears of wrath and
mortification, but she answered firmly, and with a tone of dignity:
“Yes, Mr. Van Rensselaer. Will you tell me, is it true that your son is
away and you do not know where he is?”
The father gave her a startled look.
“Why should you ask that?”
“Because I happened to read an item in the paper this morning that
implied that. If it is not true, just tell me, and I will go about my
own affairs. I did not _want_ to come here. I thought I ought to.”
“But if it were true, why should that interest you?”
“Because I was there at the time of the accident,” she spoke in a low
clear voice, very haughtily, her manner quite aloof. “I thought perhaps
you might not know.”
“Accident?” he said sharply. “Step into this room please, won’t you? We
shall not be disturbed in here.”
He drew a deep, luxurious chair for her before a softly flickering
fire, and turned on the electric light, looking keenly into her face.
“Now, will you first tell me who you are?”
Bessie was quite herself again. She was resolved to tell her story
clearly in every detail, as quickly as possible, and then leave this
dreadful house, forever she hoped. How awful that she should be mixed
up in a thing like this and be so misunderstood.
“I am Elizabeth Chapparelle, from the next street. Our house is just
back of you. I used sometimes to play with Murray when we were little
children. We were in the same classes in school for a while.”
“I see,” said the father, studying her speaking face. “Could that
possibly be your kitchen window that I can see from the back of the
house?”
“Probably.” Bessie was in no mood to discuss the relative position of
their houses. “I had not seen your son for several years, until the
day of the accident.”
The father started sharply now, and came to attention.
“Will you tell it to me in detail just as it happened, please?” he
asked. “Begin when you met him, and tell me everything.”
Bessie noticed that he had not said whether he knew of the accident or
not. He was wanting to get every detail from her without letting her
know anything. Well, that was all she wanted.
“I was standing on the corner of the avenue waiting for the trolley at
two o’clock, three weeks ago today. I noticed a car coming down the
avenue and was admiring it. I did not see who was driving it until
Murray stopped the car and spoke to me. I had not seen him before for
years.”
An alert movement of the father showed that he was giving all attention.
“The traffic was congested and the policeman wanted him to move on, so
he asked me to get in, and let him take me to wherever I was going.
There was no time to hesitate, so I got in, not intending to go but a
block or two till I could be polite and make him let me down. The car
seemed to go pretty fast--” She hesitated and looked troubled, as if
she thought she were at fault for being in the car at all.
“It does,” said Mr. Van Rensselaer dryly. “It has a habit of going
fast.”
Elizabeth lifted troubled eyes to find a shadow of a twinkle in the
eyes that met hers. She hurried on:
“I told him I was going to the library, but he asked me to take a spin
in the Park, just a few minutes, to talk over old schooldays. He did
not really wait for me to say whether I would. He just went--”
She was quite the most conscientious girl the father had met in
thirty-five years. He wondered where she was brought up. He wondered if
it could be genuine.
“Then when I said I must go back he asked me if I would just stop at a
shop and help him pick out a gift for a friend. Of course I consented.
It was on our way from Grevet’s to the Library that the truck ran into
us. We were upset.”
“Murray was _hurt_?” There was a sharp ring of pain in the father’s
tone, the first evidence of anxiety he had manifested.
“I don’t know,” said Elizabeth, “I didn’t think so at first, because
they said he took me to the hospital. But after I read _that_ in the
paper, I thought if he had really disappeared perhaps he was hurt, and
was somewhere in a hospital unconscious, and I ought to tell somebody.
They say he brought me to the hospital in a taxi, so his car must have
been injured.”
The father’s jaw took a hard line.
“What became of him after he brought you to the hospital? Were you
hurt?”
“Not much, only shaken up, I guess, but I was some time coming to
consciousness, and when they took me downstairs again they couldn’t
find him. They said he had been very anxious and impatient to know how
I was, so I supposed perhaps he had an engagement and had to go. I went
home. I thought probably he would call up to know how I was, but when
he didn’t I decided he must have found out at the hospital that I was
all right, and hadn’t thought anything more of it.”
“H’m! That would have been a very gentlemanly thing to do, of course,
get a girl smashed up and then go off without finding out whether she
was dead or alive! I’m sure I hope that’s not what my son did, but
there’s no telling!”
“Oh, we were not intimate at all, you know,” explained the girl,
“it was seven years since I had seen him. It was just the ordinary
acquaintance of schoolmates.”
“I can’t see that that alters the discourtesy. But go on.”
“Why, that’s all,” said the girl, suddenly feeling as if she had been
very foolish indeed to come. “I--just thought--if you didn’t know where
he was--that perhaps I was the last one who had seen him, and you would
want to make some inquiries if you knew there had been an accident.
But of course it was foolish. You probably know all about him, and I
beg you won’t say anything to him about me. I’m sorry I have troubled
you. I’m always doing something impulsive! I hope you will pardon my
intrusion--” She turned quickly toward the door with an odd little look
of sweet dignity. She felt she was almost on the verge of tears, and
must get away quickly, or she would break down right here before him.
“Wait a minute!” said the man sharply. “What did you say your name
was?”
“Oh, please, it doesn’t matter,” she said, with her hand on the
door-knob.
“Excuse me, it does matter. I might want to ask some more questions.
You’ve guessed right about Murray, I don’t know where he is. I am
taking it for granted that he will turn up all right, as he usually
does, but at the same time there may be something in what you have
suggested, and I’ll look around and make sure. In the meantime, may I
ask you to keep this just between ourselves?”
“Certainly,” said the girl.
“And--I wouldn’t try to see Mrs. Van Rensselaer again--she’s--rather
excitable--”
“I certainly shall not!” said Elizabeth, her cheeks growing very red at
the remembrance of the insult.
“And I’m sorry that you had to endure such impudence from that cat of a
maid. She’s insufferable!”
“That doesn’t--matter--,” she turned toward the door again, wishing she
were out on the sidewalk now in the cool air. Her heart was beating so
fast again, and she was sure she was going to cry!
Perhaps the dewy look about her eyes gave warning of this, for the man
suddenly changed his tone toward her:
“Look here, little girl, don’t take this thing too seriously. You’ve
done an awfully sporty thing, coming here to tell me this, after the
way that young rascal of a son of mine treated you. There’s just a
chance that you may be right, and he is unconscious in a hospital
somewhere. I shall leave no stone unturned, of course, to make sure.
But in the meanwhile we’ll keep this thing quiet. Now, please give me
your name. I’ll keep it to myself, understand, and I won’t let the kid
know you’ve been here either, if you don’t want me to. Chapparelle? you
say, Elizabeth Chapparelle? Your father living? I used to know a man in
business by that name, but that’s a good many years ago. Fine chap he
was too.”
“My father has been dead a good many years,” said Elizabeth, with a
delicate withdrawal in her voice.
“You live on Maplewood Avenue? What number? You won’t mind if I drop in
perhaps, to ask you a few more questions, in case anything turns up?”
“Of course,” said Elizabeth.
“By the way, what was the name of that hospital? And about what time
did the accident occur? You understand, you know, that we’re going to
keep this out of the papers. And by the way, who else knows all this?”
“Nobody but my mother.”
“Your mother?” There was speculation in the tone, a rising inflection.
“You needn’t be afraid of mother!” she said haughtily, “she was
quite annoyed with me for having got into the car at all, and she is
terrified at what might have happened.”
“Too bad!” said the father with sudden sympathy. “I’m sorry you’ve
had all this trouble. Wait! I’m going to ring for my car and send you
around.”
“Indeed, no!” said the girl firmly, “I should much prefer to walk. It’s
only a step anyway.”
He opened the door for her himself, and thanked her again most
cordially, and she gave him a faint fleeting smile in acknowledgment.
He stood for a moment watching her walk away in the darkness. There
was a sweet girl! Why couldn’t Murray get her for a friend, instead of
smashing her up! Just like Murray to lose his head over a Countess and
a dance-hall favorite and let a peach of a girl blossom at his feet and
never notice her! Oh, well, life was a disappointment anyway, whichever
way you turned. Now here was Murray! What a bitter disappointment he
was! Just when he might have been a comfort. Of course there was a
slight possibility of his being injured somehow, but if he had been
able to take a girl to the hospital he couldn’t have been very badly
off. No, he was probably off with the fellows somewhere having a good
time, or off with his Countess, or his latest fancy! What a son! But he
must do his duty as a father, anyhow. So Murray’s new car was smashed!
That was probably the reason Murray did not come home. He was waiting
till his father’s ire should blow over. Of course the car was covered
by insurance, but what kind of a way was that to do, smash a new car
all to bits the first week!
So he called up the Blakeley Hospital first, and it being about the
same hour as the accident he got the same stiff-starched nurse with
double lenses who had been on duty at the desk that day.
“Yes, sir, I was here when that party came in. Yes, I remember him.
Kind of a snob he was. Good-looking. They always are lookers when
they’re that way, but looks aren’t everything. He thought he owned the
earth. Said his name was Van something, as if that made any difference
here! What’s that? Yes, I guess it was Van Rensselaer. One of those
millionaire families that think they come of a different race from the
rest of us. Oh, yes, I remember him. He pranced around here and got up
in the air because we couldn’t stop the whole hospital for his benefit.
And then he got mad and left before his girl came down after all. Yes,
she was a pretty little thing. No, I don’t know what the doctor said
about her. I guess she was pretty bad at first. They mighta thought she
was going to die. I don’t know. But they took her home, and I guess
she’s all right. No, I didn’t see the young man go out. There was
another party come in to get a wound dressed, and about that time the
nurse come down to report on the case, but she had to get the police
station first about a drunk they had brought in, and when she went to
say the girl was coming round all right, the young fella was gone.”
The father thanked her and hung up. He sat thoughtfully for a few
minutes in his big chair, trying to work it all out. Then he took up
the telephone again and went the rounds of the hospitals, but found no
trace of any patient in any of them who answered to the description of
his son. After more thought he even called up the Countess, and a few
of the other various stars and favorites, without giving his name of
course, but each of them professed not to have seen Murray. So that was
that! Of course, if Murray was in hiding, he wouldn’t have let anybody
find him, and they would be in league with him. Well!
So he called up a very extra secret service man, a private one, who
frequented fashionable haunts, and was one of the company, knew
everybody, and was known, but not in his secret capacity except to a
few.
“That you, Eddie? Well, I want you to hunt up Murray. He’s off
somewhere. Just found out he had a smash-up with his new car. Guess
he’s keeping dark till it blows over. We had a few words about some
bills the other day, and he got up in the air. But something has come
up I want him to sign. You just look about and get hold of him. Tell
him I won’t say anything about the car or the bills. Tell him I’m in
need of him. Get me, Eddie? All right. Let me hear from you as early as
convenient, even if it’s in the night. The business is important and
immediate. All right, Eddie. You understand.”
He hung up with a tolerable feeling of ease. He had done his best, and
Murray would likely turn up tonight or in the morning. Of course his
mother would rave again if he didn’t come to her bore of a dinner. But
then she always raved about something. It might as well be one thing as
another.
He got up and went to the window looking out into the dark street, and
there came a vision to him of the girl as she had walked away, slim and
proud. He knew what she was thinking. She was being afraid that they
thought her one of the girls that ran after Murray. But strange to say,
did not. If he had he would not have taken the trouble to rebuke Marie
when she uttered her impudence. Girls who ran after boys were fools.
They deserved all they got. But this girl was different. One could see
that at a glance, one could tell it by the first word from her gentle
lips. She was the kind of a girl who grew up in the country and went
to church Sundays. She had eyes that saw birds and flowers in spring
and loved them. He had known such a girl once when he was a boy in the
country, and he had been the worst kind of a fool that he did not stay
on the farm and marry her, and have a big happy home full of loving
kindness and children’s voices, and a wide hearth with a big log fire,
and pancakes for supper. Buckwheat pancakes, and maple syrup.
Deliberately he turned away from the window and walked upstairs to his
own back room, where he switched off the light, drew up the shade and
looked out across the back alley to the bright little kitchen window
with the table with the snowy cloth. There was a pie on the table
tonight, and it looked like an apple pie, with the crust all dusted
over with powdered sugar, the kind his mother used to make. There would
be cottage cheese with the pie, perhaps. Oh! Some one had come to the
window and was closing the blinds. It was the girl! She had taken her
hat off and laid it on the corner of the table, and her bright hair
gleamed in the light from the street lamps as she bent her head to
release the fastening. Then she straightened up, pulled the shutters to
with a slam, and shot the bolt across with a click. As if she knew she
was shutting him out and she wanted to do it!