The Dwarf
"You, Pete," said his master, approaching the pump where the boy was
performing his morning ablutions, "what was the noise I heard in Miss
Melody's room last night?"
"Dunno," sullenly.
"Well, you'd better know. I'll skin you alive if anything happens to
her."
"How--how could I help it if she jumps out the winder?"
Carder smiled. "You're thinkin' of somebody else. _She_ went to the
hospital. If Miss Melody hurts herself, we'll keep her here. She won't
do that, though, and I hold you accountable for anything else she does.
Night and day, remember. You've got to know where she is all the time.
You understand?"
The dwarf grunted and combed his thick, tousled hair with his fingers.
"Watch yourself now. You'll pay if anything goes wrong. What was that
noise I heard? Out with it!"
The dwarf grunted his reply. "She moved the furniture ag'in' the door, I
guess."
"Oh, that was it."
Rufus laughed and turned toward the house.
The hired men had had their breakfast and gone to the fields and the
drudge in the kitchen was prepared for the arrival of her son and his
guest.
Geraldine came downstairs fresh from sleep and such a cold bath as was
obtainable from the contents of a crockery pitcher. Rufus's eyes
glittered as he beheld her.
"Well, my little--I mean my lady, you look wonderful. I guess there was
some sleep in the little old bed after all; but you shall have down to
sleep on if you want it."
Geraldine regarded him.
"I don't see how you expected I could sleep when you let a dog lie
outside my door, a dog with the nightmare, I should judge, snoring and
snorting. Be sure he is not there to-night. He frightened me."
"Too bad, too bad," returned Rufus; "but you see you slept, or you
couldn't look like a fresh rosebud as you do this morning; and you'll
get used to good old Sport. He's a splendid watchdog."
Geraldine turned to her hostess.
"I don't know what your hours are, Mrs. Carder--whether five, or six, or
seven is over-sleeping, but I'm ashamed not to have been down here to
help you get breakfast. It shan't happen again."
"Don't fret about that," said Rufus, "Sleep as long as you want to,
little girl. It's good for your complexion."
Geraldine flatly refused to sit down to breakfast unless Mrs. Carder was
also at the table, so the old woman wiped her hands on her apron and
took her place between her son and the beautiful girl, and Geraldine
jumped up and fetched and carried when anything was needed.
Rufus watched this proceeding discontentedly. "We've got to start in
new, Ma," he said. "The Princess Geraldine and me are goin' to do this
house over, and we'll get some help, too--help that knows how; the
stylish kind, you know. Geraldine thinks the time has come for you to
hold your hands the rest o' your days."
"Just as you say, Rufus," returned his mother meekly, nibbling away at
the bacon on her plate and feeling vastly uncomfortable.
"What she says goes; eh, Ma?"
"Just as you say, Rufus," repeated the mother.
A light was glowing in Geraldine's eyes. It was day. She was young and
strong. The world was wide. She laughed at her fears of the night. The
right moment to escape would present itself. Rufus would have to go to
the city, and even if he refused to leave without her, once in town she
could easily give him the slip. Perhaps that was going to prove the best
solution after all.
"Your trunk came last night," he said, when at last the three rose from
the breakfast-table. "You can show Pete where you want it put."
Geraldine tried not to betray the eagerness with which she received this
permission.
The dwarf's strong arms carried her modest trunk up the stairs as easily
as if it had been a hatbox. She feared Carder might follow them, but he
did not.
"Pete," she said, low and excitedly, as soon as they reached her room
and he had deposited his burden, "you _will_ help me! I know you are
going to be the one to help me get away from here."
The dwarf shook his head. "Then I'd be killed," he answered, but he
gazed at her admiringly. "I've got the marks of his whip on me now."
"Why do you stay?" asked Geraldine indignantly.
"He says nobody else would give me work. I'm too ugly. He says I'd
starve."
"That isn't so!" exclaimed the girl. "I will help you." The
consciousness of the futility of the promise swept over her even as she
made it. Who was she to give help to another!
The dwarf, gazing fascinated at her glowing face, saw her eyes suddenly
fill. A heavy step sounded on the stair.
"Move it, move the trunk, Pete," she whispered, dragging at it herself.
Rufus Carder appeared at the door just as the dwarf was shoving the
trunk to another part of the room.
"What's the matter?" he asked. "Seems to me you take a long time about
it."
"I'm always so undecided," said Geraldine. "I believe I will have it
back under the window after all, Pete."
So back under the window the boy lifted the trunk, his master meanwhile
looking suspiciously from one to the other. It was quite in the
possibilities that his fair guest might try to corrupt that dog which at
night lay outside her door; but the dog well knew that no corner of the
earth could hide him from Rufus Carder if he played him false, and the
master felt tolerably safe on that score.
All that day Geraldine watched to observe the habits of those around
her. She found that the small yellow building near the drive which
Carder had pointed out to her was the place where he spent most of his
time: the cave of the ogre she named it. The driveway came in from a
road which passed the farm and no one entered it except persons who had
business with the owner.
Again the girl marveled at the character of the country surrounding the
farmhouse. Not a tree provided a hiding-place or shade for man or beast.
Stones had been removed and built into low walls that intersected the
fields. Even in the lovely late spring with verdant crops growing there
were no lines of beauty anywhere. The ugly yellow office building reared
itself from a strip of grass where dandelions fought for their rights,
but a wide cement walk led to its door.
"Come down and see my den," said Rufus late that afternoon. "The washing
dishes and feeding swine can come later if you are determined to do it.
It's a great little old office, that is. There's more business
transacted there than you might suppose." He met Geraldine's grave gaze,
and added: "Many a profitable half-hour your father has spent there.
Yes, indeed, Dick Melody knew which side his bread was buttered on, and
I'm in hopes of being as good a friend to his daughter as I was to him."
Geraldine yielded to the invitation in silence. She wished to discover
every possible detail which could make her understand how her father, as
popular with men as with women, and with every custom of good manners,
had often sought this brute. Doubtless it was to obtain money. Probably
her father had died in debt to the man. Probably it was that fact which
gave her jailer his evident certainty that he had her in his power. Her
father was dead. Was there anything in the law that could hold her, a
girl, responsible for his debts? It was surely only a matter of days
before she could make her escape and meanwhile she would try not to let
disgust overpower her reason. She was not sorry to be asked to see the
abode of the spider, in the center of which he sat and watched the
approach from any direction of those who dragged themselves of necessity
into his web. Let him tell what he would about her father. She wished to
know anything concerning him, of which Carder had proof. She would not
allow her poise to be shaken by lies.
It was bright day and the office was but a few hundred yards from the
house. All the same, as they walked along, she was glad to hear a sharp
metallic clicking a little distance behind them, and turning her head,
to see Pete ambling along with his clumsy, bow-legged gait, dragging a
lawn-mower. Little protection was this poor oaf with the scars of his
master's whip upon him, but Geraldine had seen a doglike devotion light
up the dull eyes in those few minutes up in her room, and in spite of
the dwarf's hopeless words she felt that she had one friend in this
place of desolation. She expected the master would drive the boy away
when the mower began to behead the dandelions, but Rufus appeared
unaware of the monotonous sound.
"Pretty ship-shape, eh?" he said when they were inside the office. He
indicated the open desk with its orderly files of papers and well-filled
pigeon-holes. Placing himself in the desk-chair he drew another close
for his visitor.
Geraldine moved the chair back a little and sat down, her eyes fixed on
the telephone at Carder's left. That instrument connecting with the
outside world, the world of freedom, fascinated her. If she could but
get ten minutes alone with it! She had some friends of her school days,
and the pride which had hitherto prevented her from communicating with
them was all gone, immersed in the flood of fear and repulsion which,
despite all her reasoning, swept over her periodically like a paralysis.
Rufus leaned back in his seat and surveyed his guest. She looked very
young in the soft, pale-green dress she wore.
"Here I am, you see, master of all I survey, and of a good deal that I
don't survey--except with my mind's eye." He shook his head
impressively. "I can do a lot for anybody I care for." He pulled his
check-book toward him. "I can draw my check for four figures, and I'll
do it for you any time you say the word. How would you like to have a
few thousands to play with?"
Geraldine removed her longing gaze from the telephone and looked at her
hands. She could not meet the insupportable expression of his greedy
eyes.
"Two figures would do," she said, "if you would allow me to go to town
and spend it as I please."
"Why, my beauty," he laughed, "you can spend any amount, any way you
please."
"Alone?" asked Geraldine, her suddenly eager eyes looking straight into
his, but instantly shrinking away.
"Of course not," he returned cheerfully. "I ought to get something for
my money, oughtn't I?"
She was silent, and he watched her as if making up his mind how to
proceed.
"Look here," he said at last in a changed tone, "I don't know what I've
got to gain by beating about the bush. I've shown you plain enough that
I'm crazy about you and I've told you that I always get what I go
after."
Geraldine's heart began to beat wildly. She kept her eyes on her folded
hands and the extremity of her terror made her calm.
"I'm goin' to treat you as white as ever a girl was treated; but I want
you, and I want you soon. I know we're more or less strangers, but you
can get acquainted with me as well after marriage as before. I know all
this ain't regulation. A girl expects to be courted, but I'll court you
all your life, little girl."
The lawn-mower clicked through the silence in which Geraldine summoned
the power to speak. Indignation helped to steady her voice. She looked
up at her companion, who was leaning forward in his chair waiting for
her first word.
"It is impossible for me to marry you, Mr. Carder," she said, trying to
hold her voice steady, "and since your feeling for me is so extreme, I
intend to leave here immediately. You speak as if you had bought me as
you might have bought one of your farm implements, but these are modern
days and I am a free agent."
Carder did not change his position, his elbows leaning on the arms of
his chair, his fingers touching.
"I have bought you, Geraldine," he answered quietly.
She started up from her chair, her indignation bursting forth. "I knew
it!" she exclaimed. "My father died owing you money and you have
determined that I shall pay his debts in another coin! He would turn in
his grave if he heard you make such a cruel demand."
The frank horror and repulsion in the girl's eyes made the blood rise to
her companion's temples.
He pointed to her chair. "Sit down," he said. "You don't understand
yet."
She obeyed trembling, for she could scarcely stand. His unmoved
certainty was terrifying. "Your father was a very popular man. His
vanity was his undoing. Juliet was too smart to let him throw away her
money, so rather than lose his reputation as a good sport, rather than
not keep up his end, he looked elsewhere for the needful, and he came to
me, not once, but many times. At last he wore out my patience and the
Carder spring ran dry, so far as he was concerned; then, Geraldine"--the
narrator paused, the girl's dilated eyes were fixed upon him--"then, my
proud little lady, handsome Dick Melody fell. He began helping himself."
"What do you mean--helping himself?" The girl leaned forward and her
hands tightened until the nails pressed into her flesh.
Rufus Carder slipped his fingers into an inside pocket and drew forth
two checks which he held in such a way that she could read them.
"You don't know my signature," he went on, "but that is it. Large as
life and twice as natural. Yes"--he regarded the checks--"twice as
natural. I couldn't have done them better myself."
Geraldine's hands flew to her heart, her eyes spoke an anguished
question.
"Yes," Rufus nodded, "Dick did those." The speaker paused and slipped
the checks back into his pocket. "I breathed fire when I discovered it,
and then very strangely something occurred which put the fire out."
Again he leaned his elbows on the chair-arms, and bent toward the wide
eyes and parted lips opposite. "I saw you sitting in the park one day,"
he went on slowly, "you got up and walked and laughed with a girl
companion. I found out who you were. I went to your father, who was
nearly crazy with apprehension at the time, and I told him there was no
girl on earth for me but you, and that if he would give you to me I
would forgive his crime. I didn't want a forger for a father-in-law. It
was arranged that this month he should bring you out here and make his
wishes known. His reputation was safe. Even Juliet suspected nothing. He
is still mourned at his clubs as the prince of good fellows; but his
sudden death prevented him from puttin' your hand in mine."
A silence followed, broken only by the rasping of the lawn-mower and
Rufus Carder watched the girl's heaving breast.
"So you see," he went on at last, "all you have to do to save your
father's name is to sit down in the lap of luxury; not a very hard
thing to do, I should think. You'll find that I'll take--" The speaker
paused, for another sound now broke in upon the click of the lawn-mower,
an increasingly sharp noise which brought him to his feet and to one of
the many windows which gave him a view in every direction.
A motor-cycle was speeding up the driveway.
"That's Sam Foster comin' to pay his rent," he said. "There'll be many a
one on that errand along about now," he declared with satisfaction.
"Cheer up," he added, turning back to the pale face and tremulous lips
of the young girl. "Your father wasn't the first fine man to go wrong;
but they don't all have somebody to stick by 'em and shield 'em as he
did. The more you think it over, the more--"
The motor-cycle had stopped during this declaration, and the rider now
stepped into the office-door. Geraldine, her hands still unconsciously
on her heart, gazed at the newcomer. Could it be that Rufus Carder had a
tenant like this youth? The well-born, the well-bred, showed in his
erect bearing and in his sunny brown eyes, and the smile that matched
them.
The owner started and scowled at sight of him.
"Mr. Carder, I believe," said the visitor.
Rufus's chair grated as he advanced to edge the stranger back through
the door.
"Your business, sir," he said roughly. "Can't you see I'm in the midst
of an interview?"
Ben's eyes never left those of the young girl, and hers clung to him
with a desperate appeal impossible to mistake. She rose from her chair
as if to go to him.
"Yes, Mr. Carder, and I won't interrupt you. I'll wait outside. I came
to see Miss Melody with a message from one of her friends and I'm sure
from the description that this is she." The young fellow bowed
courteously toward Geraldine, who stood mute drinking in the inflections
of his voice; the very pronunciation of his words were earmarks of the
world of refinement from which she was exiled. In her distraction she
was unconscious of the manner in which she was gazing at him above the
tumult of grief at her father's double treachery. Her father had sold
her, sold her in cold blood, and her life was ruined. Had the visitor in
his youth and strength and grace been Sir Galahad himself, she could not
have yearned more toward his protection.
To Ben she looked, as she stood there, like a lovely lily in a green
calyx, and her expression made his hands tingle to knock flat the
scowling, middle-aged man with the unkempt hair and the missing tooth
who was uneasily edging him farther and farther out the door.
"Miss Melody don't wish to receive calls at present and you can tell her
friend so," said Rufus in the same rough tone. "She don't wear black,
but she's in mournin' all the same. Her father died recently. Ain't you
in mournin', Geraldine?" He turned toward the girl.
She had dropped her hands and seized the back of her chair for support.
"Yes," she breathed despairingly.
"Can't I see you for a few minutes, Miss Melody?" said Ben over the
wrathful Carder's shoulder. "Miss Upton sent me to you. My name is
Barry."
"No, you can't, and that's the end of it!" shouted Rufus.
Ben's smile had vanished. His eyes had sparks in them as he looked down
at the shorter man.
"Not at all the end of it," he returned. "Miss Melody decides this. Can
you give me a few minutes?"
As he addressed her he again met the wonderful, dark-lashed eyes that
were beseeching him.
Rufus Carder looked around at the girl his thin lips twitching in ugly
fashion.
"_You_ can tell him, then, if he won't take it from me," he said, "and
mind you're quick about it. We ain't ready here for guests. Miss Melody
don't want to receive anybody. She's tired and she's recuperatin'. Tell
him so, Geraldine."
The girl's lips moved at first without a sound; then she spoke:
"I'm very tired, Mr. Barry," she said faintly. "Please excuse me."
Rufus turned back to the guest.
"Good-day, sir," he ejaculated savagely.
Ben stood for a silent space undecided. His fists were clenched.
Geraldine, meeting his glowing eyes, shook her head slowly. Her keen
distress made him fear to make another move.
"At some other time, then, perhaps," he said, tingling with the
increasing desire to knock down his host and catch this girl up in his
arms.
"Yes, at some other time," said Rufus, speaking with a sneer. "Tell Miss
Upton that Mrs. Carder may see her later."
A tide of crimson rushed over Ben's face. He saw that there must be a
pressure here that he could not understand, and again Geraldine's fair
head and wonderful eyes signaled him a warning. He could not risk
increasing her suffering.
"Good-day, sir," repeated Rufus; and the visitor stepped down from the
office-door in silence and out to his machine.
Carder turned back to Geraldine, who met his angry gaze with despairing
eyes.
"What have I to hope for from you when you treat a stranger so
inexcusably?" she said in a low, clear voice that had a sharp edge.
[Illustration: Tingling with the Increasing Desire to knock down his
Host and catch this Girl up in his Arms]
"Let me run this," said Rufus with bravado. "You'll find out later what
you'll get from me, and it will be nothin' to complain of when once
you're Mrs. Carder. You can have that fat porpoise or any other woman
come to see you, and when you're ridin' 'em around in the new car I'm
goin' to get you, they'll be green with envy. You'll see. Let me run
this."
His absorption in Geraldine had distracted Carder's attention from the
fact that he was not hearing the departure of that most satirically
named engine of misery, "The Silent Traveler."
He strode to a window and saw Ben Barry mounting his machine close to
where Pete was mowing the grass.
He hurried to the door. "Come here, you damned coot!" he yelled. And
Pete dropped the mower and ambled up to the office-door.
"What did that man want of you?" he asked furiously.
"Wanted to know the shortest road to Keefe," replied Pete in his usual
sullen tone.
"You lie!" exclaimed Rufus. If Ben Barry had looked like a dusty Sir
Galahad to Geraldine, he had looked dangerously attractive to Carder,
who cursed the luck that had made him invite the girl to his office on
this particular afternoon. "You lie!" he repeated, and stepping back to
his desk he seized a whip which lay along one side of it.
Geraldine cried out, and springing forward grasped his arm. He paused at
the first voluntary touch he had ever received from her.
"Don't you dare strike that boy!" she exclaimed breathlessly.
Carder looked down at the white horror in her face and in her shining
eyes.
"I'm goin' to get the truth out of him," he said, his mouth twitching.
"You go up to the house."
"I will not go up to the house! Put down that whip! If you strike Pete,
I'll kill myself." She finished speaking, more slowly, and Rufus,
looking down into her strangely changed look, became uneasy.
"I guess not," he said. "You go up to the house."
"I mean it," declared Geraldine in a low tone. "What have I to live for!
My own father, the only one on earth I had to love, has sold me to a man
who has shown himself a ruffian. One thing you have no power over is my
life, and what have I now to live for!"
Carder dropped the whip. There was no doubt of her sincerity.
"Now, Geraldine, calm down," he said, anxiety sounding through his
bravado. "I'm sorry I had to give you that shock about Dick; but it was
your own high-headed attitude that made it necessary. Calm down now. I
won't touch Pete. What was it, boy," he went on, addressing the dwarf in
his usual tone--"What did that man ask you?"
"The shortest way to Keefe," repeated the dwarf. His eyes were fixed
dully on Geraldine, but his heart was thumping. She had said she would
kill herself if his master struck him.
Rufus looked at him, unsatisfied.
"What did he give you?" he asked after a silence.
Pete put his hand in the pocket of his coarse blue shirt and drew out a
half-dollar.
"Humph!" grunted Rufus. "You can go."
He turned back to Geraldine.
"Is one allowed to write letters from here?" she asked.
"Of course, of course," replied Rufus genially. "What a foolish
question." His face had settled into its customary lines.
"Where do we take them? Out to the rural-delivery box? I should like to
write to Miss Upton. She was very kind to me."
"No, don't mail anything there. It isn't safe. Right here is the place."
He indicated a box on his desk. "Drop anything you want to have go right
in here. I'll take care of it."
"Yes," thought Geraldine bitterly. He will take care of it.
Another motor-cycle now sped into the driveway and approached. This time
it was the tenant Carder had expected, and Geraldine left the office and
went back to the house. At the moment when she stepped out of the yellow
building, Pete ceased mowing the grass. Looking back when she had
traversed half the distance, she saw that he was following her, the
mower clicking after him.
"Poor slaves," she thought heavily. "Poor slaves, he and I!"