WHO WAS MISS FINEFEATHER
Roberta stepped into a drug store to inquire the way to the address that
she had upon a slip of brown paper. The clerk happened to know the
locality without referring to the directory, and Bobs was thanking him
when one of the customers exclaimed in a voice that plainly expressed the
speaker's great joy: "Bobsy Vandergrift, of all people! Where in the
world are you girls living? Dick wrote me that you had left Long Island,
but he failed to tell me where you had located?"
It was Kathryn De Laney who, as she talked, drew Bobs into a quiet booth.
The girls seated themselves and clasped hands across the table.
"Oh, Kathy," Bobs said, her eyes glowing with the real pleasure that she
felt, "I've been meaning to look you up, for Gloria's sake, if for no
other reason. I heard Glow say only the other day that she wanted to see
you. I believe you'd do her worlds of good. You're so breezy and
cheerful."
Kathryn looked troubled. "Why, is anything especially wrong with Glow?"
"She's brooding because Gwen doesn't write," Bobs said. Then she told
briefly all that had happened: how Gwen had refused to come with the
others to try to earn her living, and how instead she had departed
without saying good-bye to them to visit her school friend, Eloise
Rochester, and how letters, sent there by Gloria, had been returned
marked "Whereabouts unknown."
"I honestly believe that Gloria thinks of nothing else. I've watched her
when she was pretending to read, and she doesn't turn a page by the hour.
I had just about made up my mind to put an advertisement of some kind in
the paper. Not that I'm crazy about Gwen myself. There's no excuse for
one sister being so superlatively selfish and disagreeable as she is, but
Gloria believes, she honestly does, that if we are patient and loving,
Gwen will change in time, because after all she is our mother's
daughter."
"Gloria is right," was the quiet answer. "I am sure of that. You all
helped to spoil Gwen when she was a child because she was frail. Then
later you let her have her own way because you dreaded her temper spells,
but I honestly believe that a few hard knocks will do much toward
readjusting Gwendolyn's outlook upon life."
"But, Kathryn!" Bobs exclaimed. "Don't you know that Gwen couldn't stand
hard knocks? If it were a case of sink or swim, Gwen would just give up
and sink."
"I'm not so sure," the girl who had been next door neighbor to the
Vandergrifts all her life replied. "It's an instinct with all of us to at
least try to keep our heads above water." Then she added: "But didn't I
hear you asking the clerk about an address? That was what first attracted
my attention to you, because it is the same locality as my destination.
I'm visiting nurse now on the lower West Side."
Then, after glancing at the slip of paper Bobs held up, Kathryn
continued: "I'll call a taxi, and while we are riding down there you can
tell me all about yourself."
When they were settled for the long ride, Bobs blurted out: "Say, Kathy,
before I begin, please tell me why you've taken up nursing? A girl with a
thousand dollars a month income hardly needs the salary derived from such
service, and, of course, I know that you take none. Phyl said she thought
you ought to be examined by a lunacy board."
Kathryn laughed good-naturedly as she replied: "Oh, Phyl means all right.
She does think I'm crazy, but honestly, Bobsy, anyone who lives the idle,
selfish butterfly life that Phyllis does is worse than not sane, I think:
but she will wake up as Gwen will, some day, and see the worthlessness of
it all. Now tell me about yourself. Why are you bound for the lower West
Side?"
Bobs told her story. How Kathryn laughed. "A Vandergrift a detective!"
she exclaimed. "What would that stately old grandfather of yours have to
say if he knew it?"
Roberta's eyes twinkled. "Just about the same thing that he would say
about aircraft or radio. Impossible!"
The recounting of their recent experiences had occupied so much time
that, as its conclusion was reached, so too was Bobs' destination.
"I'll get out with you, if you don't mind," Kathryn said, "for, since
Miss Finefeather is ill, I may at least be able to give her some advice
that will help her."
Roberta glanced gratefully at her friend. "I had hoped that you would
want to come with me," she said, "but I did not like to ask, knowing that
your own mission might be imperative."
"No, it is not." Then, having dismissed the taxi driver. Kathryn said: "I
know this building. It is where a large number of poor struggling artists
have rooms. On each floor there is one community kitchen."
A janitor appeared from the basement at their ring. She said that Miss
Finefeather lived on the very top floor and that the young ladies might
go right up, and she did hope that they would be on time.
"On time for what?" Kathryn paused to inquire. The woman gave an
indifferent shrug.
"Oh," she informed them, "ever so often one of the artists gets
discouraged, and then she happens to remember that the river isn't so
very far away. Also they just go to sleep sometimes." Another shrug, and,
with the added remark that she didn't blame them much, the woman returned
to her dreary home.
Bobs shuddered. What if they were too late? Poor Miss Finefeather, if she
were really Winnie Waring-Winston, as Roberta so hoped, would not need be
discouraged when she had a fine home and a mother whose only interest in
life was to find her.
They were half-way up the long, steep flight of stairs leading to the top
floor when Bobs paused and looked back at her friend, as she said: "I'm
almost afraid that this girl cannot be the one I am seeking. Winnie could
not be discouraged in only three days."
"I thought that at once," Kathryn replied, "but she is someone in
trouble, and so I must go to her and see if I can help."
In silence they continued to climb to the top floor, which was divided
into four small rooms. Three of the doors were locked, but the fourth
opened at their touch, revealing a room so dark that, at first, they
could only see the form of the bed, and were relieved to note that
someone was lying upon it. But at their entrance there was no movement
from the silent figure.
"Maybe--after all--we came too late," Bobs said softly, and how her heart
ached for the poor girl lying there, and she wondered who it might be.