The Clouds Disperse
And so with the entrance into that automobile began still another
chapter in Geraldine Melody's life. While they drove through the
attractive avenues of the resort and Mrs. Barry pointed out the cottages
belonging to well-known people, the young girl was making an effort for
her own self-possession. To be alone with the mother of her knight was
exciting, and her determination was not to allow any emotion to be
observable in her manner. She did not yet know whether she was present
as a seamstress or as a guest. She felt that in either case she had been
summoned for inspection, for of course Ben had left his mother in no
doubt as to his sentiments. Mrs. Barry evinced no embarrassment. Her
smooth monologue flowed on without a question. Perhaps she suspected the
tumult in the fluttering heart beside her, and was giving the young girl
time. At all events, nothing that she said required an answer, and
Geraldine obediently looked, unseeing, at every object she pointed out.
The motor rolled across a bridge. "Here you see Keefeport even boasts a
little river," said Mrs. Barry. "The young people can enjoy a mild canoe
trip as well as their exciting yachting. I am going to stop at my
cottage and give a few orders, so long as I am here."
Another five minutes of swift riding brought them to the driveway
leading to a cottage placed on a rocky height close to the sea. "We have
a rather wonderful view, you see," Mrs. Barry's calm voice went on.
"Perhaps you would like to get out and walk about the piazza while I
speak with the caretaker."
Geraldine followed her out of the luxurious car, feeling very small and
insignificant and resenting the sensation made upon her by the imposing
surroundings. She wished herself back with Miss Upton and the cat; but
she mounted the steps and stood on the wide porch looking on the jagged
rocks beneath. The sea came hissing in among them, flinging up spray and
dragging back noisily in the strong wind to make ready for another
onslaught. The vast view was superb and suggested all the poems she had
ever read about the sea. Mrs. Barry had gone into the house and now came
out with the caretakers, a man and wife, with whom she examined the
progress of flowers and vines growing in sheltered nooks. Geraldine
resolutely shut out memories of her knight. The girls whose summers were
spent among these scenes were his friends, and among them his mother had
doubtless selected some fastidious maiden who had never encountered
disgraceful moments.
"I belong to myself," thought Geraldine proudly, forcing back some
stinging drops, salt as the vast waters before her. "I don't need
anybody, I don't." She fought down again the memory of her lover's
embraces. Ever afterward she remembered those few minutes alone on the
piazza at Rockcrest, overwhelmed by the sensation of contrast between
herself on sufferance in her cheap raiment, and the indications all
about her of the opposite extreme of luxury--remembered those moments as
affording her a poignant unhappiness.
"I won't ask you to come into the cottage," said Mrs. Barry, approaching
at the close of her interview. "The rugs haven't been unrolled yet, and
it is all in disorder. Isn't that a superb show of sky and sea, and
never twice alike?"
"Superb," echoed Geraldine.
"You are shivering," said her hostess. "It is many degrees colder here
than over in the sheltered place where Miss Upton has her shop. I have
quite finished. Let us go back."
They went down to the car and were soon speeding toward Keefe. Beside
Lamson sat the imposing hatbox. Somehow it added to Geraldine's
unhappiness, as if jeering at her for an effort to appear what she was
not.
She must talk. Her regal companion would suspect her wretchedness.
"What are you going to make your curtains of, Mrs. Barry?" she asked.
The commonplace proved a most felicitous question. The lady described
material, took her measurements out of her purse, and discussed ruffles
and tucks and described location and size of windows, during which talk
the young girl was able to throw off the spell that had held her mute.
She did not suspect how her companion was listening with discriminating
ears to her speech, and the very tones of her voice, and watching with
discriminating eyes her manner and expression. Ben had told his mother
to take her magnifying glass and she had begun to use it.
When the motor entered the home grounds at Keefe, Geraldine resisted the
associations of her last arrival there. A faint mist of apple blossoms
still clung in spots to the orchard.
Lamson carried her poor little effects and the hateful, grandiose hatbox
into the living-room where one day she had regained her scattered
senses.
"You may take these things up to the blue room," Mrs. Barry said to the
maid who appeared, "and you will give Miss Melody any assistance she
requires."
Geraldine followed the girl upstairs to the charming room assigned to
her. Every dainty convenience was within its walls. The pleasant maid's
manner was all alacrity. It was safe to believe that she knew more than
her mistress about Geraldine, and the attitude toward her of the young
master of the house. The guest looked about her and recalled her room at
the Carder farm, the patchwork quilt at the Upton Emporium, and her last
shakedown under the eaves of the Keefeport shell house.
Between the filmy white curtains at these windows she could see the rosy
vestiges of the orchard bloom. The furniture of the room was apparently
ivory, the bathroom silver and porcelain. Azure and white coloring were
in all the decorations. The maid was unpacking her boxes. Geraldine was
ashamed of her own mortification in allowing her to see the contents.
"I think I'd rather do that myself," she said hastily.
"Some ladies do," returned the girl.
"Especially," rejoined Geraldine, "when they are not used to being
waited upon!"
She accompanied this with a look of such frank sweetness that she
counted one more victim to her charms.
"She isn't one bit stuck-up," the maid reported downstairs, "and I
never saw such hair and eyes in all my life."
"They've done for Mr. Ben all right," remarked the chauffeur. "I guess
Madam thought it was about time to get acquainted."
When Geraldine came downstairs an hour later, she was arrayed in the
cheap little green-and-white house dress which had been one of her
purchases with Miss Upton, and was intended for summer use in the shop.
As she wandered into the living-room, Mrs. Barry walking on the piazza
perceived her through the long, open windows and came to join her.
"Did you find everything quite comfortable?" she asked solicitously.
"Perfectly," replied Geraldine. "It is quite wonderful after one has
been leading a camping-out life."
Mrs. Barry continued to approve her intonation and manner.
"You certainly have passed through strange vicissitudes," she replied.
"Sometime you must tell me your story-book adventures."
"They are not very pleasant reminiscences," said Geraldine.
"Very well, then, you shall not be made to rehearse them."
A maid appeared and announced dinner.
Geraldine's repressed excitement took away her appetite for the
perfectly served repast. Mrs. Barry's regal personality seemed to
pervade the whole establishment. One could not imagine any detail
venturing to go wrong; any food to be underdone or overdone; any servant
to venture to make trouble. The machinery of the household moved on
oiled wheels. A delicate cleanliness, quietness, order, pervaded the
home and all its surroundings.
Mrs. Barry made no comment on her guest's lack of appetite. When they
had finished, she led her out to the porch where their coffee was
served.
"Now, isn't this an improvement on Rockcrest?" she asked as they sat
listening to the sleepy, closing evening songs of the thrushes. "Imagine
trying to drink our coffee on that piazza where we were this afternoon.
There is a more sheltered portion, a part that I have enclosed in glass;
but my son likes the front to be all open to the elements."
"It is very beautiful here," said Geraldine. "It must be hard for you to
tear yourself away even later in the season."
"That is what does it," returned Mrs. Barry, waving her hand toward a
large thermometer affixed to one of the columns. "When you come down
some morning and find the mercury trying to go over the top, you are
ready to flit where there are no great trees to seem to hold in the
air." The speaker paused, regarding the young girl for a moment in
silence. An appreciation of her had been growing ever since they left
Keefeport, and now for the first time she allowed herself a pleasure in
Geraldine's beauty. It was wonderful camouflage if it was nothing more.
"Do you enjoy music, Miss Melody?" she asked suddenly.
The girl gave her a faint smile.
"Foolish question, isn't it?" she added. "I usually play awhile in the
evening." She set down her cup and rose.
Geraldine rose also, looked pleased and eager.
"I'm so glad," she replied. "I have no accomplishments myself."
A vague memory of having heard something about a cruel stepmother
assailed the hostess. She smiled kindly at the girl. "Some people have
gifts instead," she said. "Stay here. I will go in and try to give you
some happy thoughts."
Geraldine sank back in her chair, her eyes fixed on the graceful elms
and the vivid streaks across a sunset sky.
As the strains of Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms came through the open
window it necessitated some, effort not to have too happy thoughts. The
skillful musician modulated from one number to another, and Geraldine,
all ignorant in her art-starved life, of what she was hearing, gave
herself up to the loveliness of sight and sound.
When Mrs. Barry reappeared, the girl's eyelids were red, and as she
started up to meet her she put out her hands impulsively, and the
musician laughed a little as she accepted their grasp, well pleased with
the eloquent speechlessness.
When Geraldine waked the next morning her first vague thought was that
she must shake off sleep and help Mrs. Carder. That troubling sense
faded into another, also troubling. She was to spend a whole day,
perhaps several whole days, with the rather fearful splendor of the
mother of her knight. That in itself would not be so bad, Mrs. Barry had
shown a kind intention, but the knight himself might return at any hour.
Why had she come? Yet how refuse when her previous hostess had so
energetically thrown her out of the nest?
The sun had gone behind clouds. She rose, closed her windows, and made
her toilet, then descended to the hall where Mrs. Barry met her with a
pleasant greeting and they went in to breakfast.
"We're going to catch some rain, it seems," she said. "It is nice Miss
Upton is moved and settled."
"Yes," rejoined Geraldine, "and curtain-making can go on just as well in
the rain."
"You had a good sleep, I'm sure," said the hostess, regarding her
freshness.
"Yes, I am ready and full of energy to begin," said the girl. "I feel
that I am going to do the work quickly and go back sooner than Miss
Upton expects. It is nice for them to have some young hands and feet to
call upon."
"I hope you don't feel in haste," returned Mrs. Barry politely. She was
so courteous, so gracious, so powerful, and such leagues away from her,
Geraldine longed to get at the work, and know what to do with her hands
and her eyes.
Very soon the curtain material was produced. Mrs. Barry had the sewing
machine moved into the living-room where there was plenty of space for
the billowy white stuff, and they began their measuring.
The air was sultry preceding the storm, and a distant rumbling of
thunder was heard. The house door was left open as well as the long
French windows which gave upon the piazza.
The guest had slept late, delaying the breakfast hour, and the two had
been working at the curtains only a short time when a man, strange to
Mrs. Barry, walked into the living-room. Approaching on the footpath to
the house, Geraldine only had been visible to him through the window. He
believed her to be alone in the room, and the house door standing open
he had dispensed with the formality of ringing and walked in.
Something in the wildness of the intruder's look startled the hostess
and she pressed a button in the wall.
She saw Geraldine's face blanch and her eyes dilate with terror as the
man approached her, but no sound escaped her lips. The stranger put out
his hand. The girl shrank back. The queen of Keefe stepped forward.
"What do you mean by this?" she exclaimed sternly. "What do you wish?"
The man turned and faced her. "I've come on important business with this
girl. My name is Rufus Carder--you may have heard of it. Geraldine
Melody belongs to me. Her father gave her to me." He turned back quickly
to the girl, for Mrs. Barry's face warned him that his time was short.
"You may have gone away against your will, Gerrie," he said. "It ain't
too late to save your father. Come back with me now and there won't be a
word said. Refuse to come, and to-morrow all his pals shall know what he
was."
[Illustration: "Geraldine Melody belongs to me. Her Father gave her to
me"]
Geraldine straightened her slight body. Terror was in every line of her
delicate face, but Mrs. Barry saw her control it. The details of the
stories she had heard came back to her vividly. She realized the
suffering and the fate from which her boy had delivered the captive.
Geraldine was exquisite to look at now as she faced her jailer. That
ethereal quality which was hers gave her spirituelle face a wonderful
appeal.
"Ben was right," thought Mrs. Barry with a thrill of pride. "She is a
thoroughbred."
"Mr. Carder," she said, approaching still nearer, her peremptory tone
forcing him to turn his long, twitching face toward her, "Miss Melody is
about to marry my son. He will attend to any business you may have with
her."
"Huh! That's it, is it? You don't look like the kind of woman who will
enjoy having a forger in the family."
The girl's eyes closed under the stab.
"Geraldine, I should like you to go upstairs, dear," said Mrs. Barry
gently. The girl moved slowly toward the door, Carder's eyes following
her full of a fierce, baffled hunger.
He turned on Mrs. Barry with the ugliest look she had ever beheld in a
human countenance.
"Your son has stolen my boy, too, my servant, and I've come after him,"
he said. "The law'll teach that fellow whether he can take other
people's property. That boy was bound to me out o' the asylum and I
won't stand such impudence, I warn you. Where is he? Where is Pete? I've
got a few things to teach him." The furious man was breathing heavily.
"I understand that you have taught him a few things already," replied
Mrs. Barry, her eyes as steady as her voice. "I think, as you say, the
law may take a hand in your affairs. My son and Pete have gone to the
city now, and I fancy it is on your business."
"What business?" ejaculated Carder, fumbling his hat, his rage appearing
to feel a check.
"That I don't know, really. I was not interested; but I seem to remember
hearing my son use your name.--Lamson, is that you?" she added in the
same tone.
The chauffeur was standing at the door. "Yes, Mrs. Barry, you rang."
"Show this man the way to the station, Lamson."
Rufus Carder gave her one parting, vindictive look, and strode to the
door.
"Out of my way!" he said savagely, as he pushed by the chauffeur and
proceeded out of doors and down the path like one in haste. Mrs. Barry
believed he was, indeed, in haste and driven by fear.
She proceeded upstairs to Geraldine's room and found the girl pacing the
floor. She paused and gazed at her hostess, her eyes dry and bright.
Mrs. Barry approached and took her in her arms. At the affectionate
embrace a sob rose in the girl's throat.
"When he says it, it seems true again," she said brokenly. "Ben says it
is probably a lie, but I don't know, I don't know."
"That wretch declaring it makes it likely to be untrue. Ben tells me you
have lost your father, and if no proceedings were taken against him in
his lifetime, I should not fear now. My son hints at disreputable things
committed by this man, and if he can prove them, which he has gone to
do, and Pete promises that they can do, then the culprit will not want
to draw attention to himself by starting any scandal, not even for the
joy of revenge on you. Forget it all, Geraldine." The addition was made
so tenderly that the girl's desperate composure gave way and she
trembled in the enfolding arms.
Mrs. Barry loved her for struggling not to weep. She kissed her cheek as
she gently released her. "You are safe, and beloved, and entering a new
world. You are young to have endured so many sorrows, but youth is
elastic and the future is bright."
Geraldine's breast heaved, she bit her lip, and no eyes ever expressed
more than the speaking orbs into which the queen of Keefe was looking.
"I know all that you are thinking," said Mrs. Barry. "I know all that
you would like to say. Don't try now. You have had enough excitement. I
have always wanted a daughter. I hope you will love me, too."
She kissed the girl again, on the lips this time, and there was fervor
in the return.
The next day Mrs. Barry telephoned to half a dozen of her son's girl
friends and invited them to come to a sewing-bee and help with the
curtains for her cottage. She said that Miss Melody was visiting her and
that she would like them to know her. So they all came, wild with
curiosity to see the girl that their own Ben had kidnapped and who was
going to make him forget them; and Geraldine won them all by her modesty
and naturalness. The fact that Ben's mother had accepted her gave her
courage in the face of this bevy who had grown up with her lover from
childhood. They were too uncertain of the exact status of affairs
between the beautiful stranger and their old friend to speak openly of
him to her, but almost every reminiscence or subject of which they
talked led up to Ben. Of course, some among the six pairs of eyes
leveled at Geraldine had a green tinge, and there were some girlish
heartaches; and when the chattering flock had had their tea and cakes
and left for home, there were certain ones who discussed the
impossibility of there being anything serious in the wind.
Ben was not even at home. Would he have gone away for an indefinite time
as his mother said he had done, if he was as engrossed in the girl as
gossip had said? Had not that very gossip proceeded from the humble
walls of Miss Upton's shop where the stranger had apparently found her
level? The Barrys had always held such a fine position, etc., etc., etc.
"Oh, but," said Adele Hastings, "that girl is a lady. Every movement and
word proves it."
"Besides," added another maiden, "her being humble wouldn't have
anything to do with it. It never has, from the time of King Cophetua
on."
"Well," put in the poor little girl with the greenest eyes of all, "I
think it is very significant that Ben has gone away. You notice Mrs.
Barry didn't invite her to come until he had gone, and that common Mrs.
Whipp called her by her first name. I heard her myself."
On the whole, Geraldine had scored, and really, although she was at
peace with the whole world, the fact of Mrs. Barry's approval dwarfed
every other opinion and event; for it meant that no longer need she set
up a mental warning and barrier against thoughts of her lover.
A few days afterward Ben telephoned to have Lamson at the station at a
certain hour, and he and Pete returned from their strange quest. Little
he dreamed of the stir that telephone message caused in his home.
All the way out to Keefe on the train he was planning interviews with
his mother and wondering whether the seed he had dropped into her mind
before leaving had borne fruit. He had promised Geraldine not to coerce
her, and the girl's pride he knew would not submit to opposing his
mother's wish. Therefore, when Mrs. Barry walked out on the piazza to
meet him, it was a very serious son that she encountered.
"What is the matter, Benny?" she asked as she kissed him. "Have you
failed?"
"No, indeed. I have succeeded triumphantly. I've got Carder in a box,
and, believe me, he won't try to lift up the lid and let anybody see
him."
"He was here soon after you left," said Mrs. Barry calmly.
Ben looked surprised and alert.
"What did he want?"
"Pete; and he was going to have him or put you in the lock-up. Also he
wanted Miss Melody. He's a wretch, Ben. I'm glad you went after him."
"He'll not trouble her any more," said the young fellow, walking into
the house with his mother clinging to his arm. "Carder is going to have
ample leisure to think over the game he has played. Isn't it a strange
satire of fate that should make insignificant little Pete the boomerang
to turn back and floor him? Pete's an ideal witness. He sees what he
sees and he knows what he knows, and nothing can shake him because he
doesn't know anything else. Great Scott! when I located the facts at
that hospital and linked them together and brought an accusation against
Carder, it was like opening a door to a swarm of hornets. He has made so
many people hate him that when the timid ones found it would be safe to
loosen up, they were ready to fall upon him and sting him to death. He's
safe to get a long sentence, and it will be time enough when he comes
out to talk to him about Mr. Melody's debts--if Geraldine wishes it."
Ben looked around suddenly at his mother.
"Have you been to Keefeport to see Geraldine?"
She returned his gaze smiling, and feigned to tremble. "I'm so glad I
have, Ben. You look so severe."
"And did you take that magnifying glass?"
"Yes."
"Wasn't I right?" asked Ben with some relief.
"You were. I like the girl. I feel we are going to be friends."
"Well, then, how about her being a clerk for Miss Upton?"
Ben asked the question frowning, and flung himself down beside his
mother where she had seated herself on a divan. Why couldn't her blood
run as fast as his? Why must she be so cold and deliberate at a crucial
time? "Going to be friends!" What an utterly inadequate speech!
"I want to talk to you about that," rejoined his mother. "Will you
please go into my study and bring me a letter you'll find on the table?"
Without a word, and still with the dissatisfied line in his forehead,
the young man rose and moved away toward the closed door of the
sanctum.
He opened it and there was a moment of dead silence. Mrs. Barry could
visualize Geraldine as she looked standing there, radiantly expectant,
mischievously blissful. The door slammed, and all was silence.
The mother laughed softly over the bit of sewing she had picked up. For
a minute she could not see very plainly, but she wiped her eyes and it
passed.