STEPPY AND THE CLUE
Jane came! Smartly she stepped down from the car steps only smiling
at the conductors proffered hand. Then, she had Gloria in her arms in
spite of the baggage man’s push cart heading straight for her, and
although Gloria couldn’t see past Jane’s bonnet she could hear very
distinctly. Mr. Thorpe, who had pushed that cart to and from trains for
years and years, was an intolerant, irascible old man. But this time
he was forced to turn out. The embracing pair cared nothing for his
unreasonable orders.
“Jane! Janey! Janikins!” breathed Gloria into the bonnet strings. “How
crazy I am to see you! You look--wonderful!”
“My Glory girl!” replied the woman uncertainly. “I felt as if you
had gone to foreign fields with your father. It has been the longest
time----”
“Come over here a moment,” Gloria interrupted. “I have to
look--for--someone else.” She was inspecting the few arrivals as she
said this, but no potential Mrs. Corday loomed up.
A great gulp of relief almost choked the girl. She looked again, more
critically.
“I guess she--didn’t come!”
“Some friend?” asked Jane, with a polite interest.
“No. That is she is the mother or stepmother of a friend. One of the
girls is sick and I was commissioned to meet the mother.” Each word
was clipped off and stood up straight as a spike, without so much as
leaning one tone upon another.
“Very sick?” Jane mistook distaste for anxiety.
“I had better make sure she didn’t come,” continued Gloria. “There’s a
Pullman. She might have been on that.”
“Run right along, child, and attend to your errand,” said Jane. “I’ll
go in the waiting room and straighten my bonnet--if there’s a glass.”
The porter was just picking up the stepping down bench when Gloria
turned toward the parlor car. Between her and that point Mr. Thorpe
now trundled the big baggage cart, but still, a person could be seen
coming toward the station if one such there might have been.
That she had not come seemed almost too good to be true. It was, for
just at the side of the station, where Dave’s taxi stood, Gloria beheld
a strange woman.
She was talking excitedly to Dave. The next moment she would be in his
car!
“That’s she!” said Gloria aloud, turning instantly toward the street
side of the station.
Dave opened the taxi door, the woman put up one foot----
“Dave!” called Gloria shrilly. “Wait a minute!”
“All full up!” he flung back. The woman was now spreading herself on
the spacious back seat.
“Wait!” shouted Gloria. “I--want--you!”
Her anxiety to stop him shaded her first fears. She rushed up to the
car, prepared even to jump on the running board did he attempt to start
before she could speak.
But the veteran driver, rival of Sam, and open enemy of George Thorpe,
recognized excitement when he saw it, and he stopped with his hand on
the wheel and his foot over the “gas.”
Gloria was abreast of the car. She could see the passenger, and noticed
her impatience to start.
“Well?” asked Dave. “What kin I do fer you?”
“I came to meet Mrs. Corday,” replied Gloria. “I thought perhaps this
may be she.”
Dave turned and bestowed a questioning look at the woman within the
limousine. Evidently the lady had heard Gloria’s statement for she
smiled and looked out quite sociably. Quickly Gloria followed up the
opportunity through the open door.
“Why, yes. I’m Mrs. Corday,” repeated the woman pleasantly.
Her first impression was favorable, and in acknowledgement of it Gloria
smiled her bravest.
“Oh, I’ve been sent to meet you,” she said. “Would you mind stepping
out again? I have another friend, just arrived.”
The gorgeous beaded bag was picked up from the seat, and the woman
in the Burgundy tailor-made suit, squirrel collared, and with the
elaborate hat all plumes and flotsam, easily stepped over a small
leather bag and descended to the tar walk.
Dave “looked daggers” at Gloria, but she wasn’t looking his way. She
was, instead, thanking her lucky stars that the much dreaded Steppy,
was, after all, no worse than an unnatural blonde, over dressed and
over affable.
“My dear! You came to meet me?” she gushed. “Wasn’t that sweet of you?
You’re a friend of little Jacquinot’s, of course?”
The unexpected, but welcome, amiability almost overwhelmed Gloria, but
she remembered her lines.
“Let’s go into the waiting room,” she suggested. “My friend is in
there. Dave, wait, if you wish. I suppose we will be going up presently
three of us.” This prospect conciliated Dave, for he wagged his head
pleasantly.
“Oh, he must not go,” declared the stranger. “There is not another taxi
around, and I know what it is to be stranded in a place like this. Tell
me, dear, how is my little Jackie?”
“Better,” said Gloria. “She only seems to need quiet and rest.” They
were entering the station and Jane stood waiting, beside the big round
stove. “There is my friend,” said Gloria, leading up to Jane. “Jane,
this is Mrs. Corday, the mother of one of my chums. Mrs. Corday, this
is my near-mother, Miss Morgan.”
“Near-mother? How quaint! I’m a near-mother myself----”
“Jane has been my friend-nurse since I was a tiny tot,” Gloria hastened
to interject, lest some real, personal complication might arise. “My
mother died when I was a baby. I’m Gloria Doane.”
“Gloria! _The_ Gloria! About whom Jack continually raves,” replied
Mrs. Corday. “Do let us sit down a moment and get acquainted. No chance
for anything so human up at that horrid school.”
This exactly suited Gloria. She would be able to detain Mrs. Corday
without using any of the strategy she had been so feverishly concocting.
They arranged themselves on the bench under the high window. Jane
appeared perfectly content, (Jane would,) and the strange woman, who
looked startlingly out of place in the humble station, had the grace to
affect ease, whether or not she felt it. Gloria focussed a smile and
held it.
“Now, dear,” began Mrs. Corday, “don’t mind if I’m impatient, but I
must hear all about darling Jack. You are the very girl who was with
her on the lake when she fell ill, are you not? I couldn’t mistake the
name----”
“Yes, I was with her,” interrupted Gloria, “but she just had a little
spell; the doctor said she must have over exerted herself. You know how
fond of athletics Jack is.”
“Do I not?” A full breath volleyed forth each word, but the strident
voice, the girls had complained of, was not noticeable. “Since she
was a tiny tot no one could hold Jack down. You see, I have been with
the Corday family for years,” the statement was prideful, “and I knew
the little girl’s mother very well. I travelled with them always.
Whenever there was some new feature to be tried out I was one of those
selected to express an opinion upon it.” Gloria wondered, but continued
to listen. “Yes,” sighed the very modern, very middle aged and very
stylish woman. “Yes, there were few on the road who could surpass
Philip Corday in special attractions. But go ahead, dear, what about
our little girl?”
Jane was interested to the point of abstraction. She didn’t even re-tie
her bonnet strings, and she sat back, listening comfortably.
“A plunge and it’s over with,” thought Gloria. Further delay might only
irritate.
“You see, Mrs. Corday,” she began bravely, “Jack asked me to phone you
last night, as she hated the idea of having you come up when she would
not be allowed to talk freely to you----”
“She would. The dear. She and I understand each other perfectly.” This
was addressed to Jane. “But I had to come. Her father left her in my
keeping, and a lot of silly young lawyers have been trying to get her
away from me--Go ahead dear. I ramble like the butcher in the old song.
Or was it the butcher who cut him down?” A quizzical smile spread over
the water colored features.
“Personally I believe Miss Alton is the best intentioned woman
possible,” Gloria said next, without having the slightest idea why she
said it. “But the doctor’s orders have to be followed, and you know how
responsible boarding school directors feel themselves to be,” she urged.
“I do, indeed. That’s why I have a scrap every earthly time I go there.
They boss me around as if I hadn’t been a boss myself, all my life.”
Her look of seething indignation included a “go ahead” for Gloria.
“Then, Jack thought if I could meet you and explain all this----”
“And mighty kind it was of you, you having company yourself----” Mrs.
Corday arose, premonitorily.
“I’d do anything I could for Jack----”
“You risked your life for her, they told me.” One tailor-fitted arm
went around Gloria’s shoulder, “and we’re not forgetting it. Is that
hackman out there yet?”
Every one turned and looked out.
“Oh, yes. Dave will wait,” promised Gloria, feeling for the moment
a sense of helplessness. She had made no progress in diverting
Mrs. Corday. She was determined to go to the Hall. And she was as
sure as ever “to scrap” with those who might interfere. That would
mean failure, for Gloria to really help Jack or Miss Alton. Her
resourcefulness was fading. Her head was almost achy, and her temper
not slumbering. She wanted to be off with Jane. Why not let Miss
Alton use her own talent in smoothing over the emergency? In fact,
Gloria began to reason, why shouldn’t this woman have a talk with her
stepdaughter? She was, by no means, the disturber she had been blamed
for being, if appearances could be trusted.
Then came the memory of Jack’s plea. There must be a good reason and
this need not be apparent to strangers. Mrs. Corday was showing her own
impatience.
“Don’t mind if I run along, dear,” she said. “I must get back to the
city by noon. I have very large interests to manage, very large.” She
swept humble Jane with a look of business magnitude.
Gloria’s hopes were oozing out at her finger tips. She must make one
final effort.
“I wondered if you wouldn’t just visit with me, this time,” she
suggested sweetly. “Then if Jack can see you----”
“If she _can_ see me! Of course she can see me! Nothing serious
has happened!” A new alarm spring went off with a snap. Gloria laid a
trembling hand upon the pearl kid glove.
“But you really wouldn’t go against the doctor’s orders? You know what
a simple headache can do if one gets excited; and Jack would have so
many things to tell you.” Gloria’s wistfulness was very becoming.
Mrs. Corday turned back from the door. Jane took a hand in the plot,
innocently.
“Indeed,” she said, “this girl herself can work up quite a tempest when
anything crosses her, and I’ve had some little experience with tantrum
headaches----”
“Jane!”
“Oh, I mean it, Gloria. You were no lamb to bring up.”
“Same way with our Jack. She was as headstrong as a little mule. And
she always could, as you say, Miss Morgan, work up a tantrum headache.”
A heavy sigh betrayed troubled memories. “Suppose we just go along up
and feel out which way the land lies?”
“Yes, of course, that’s what I meant,” floundered Gloria. The small
room was excessively warm, and the round pot stove like a red flannel
petticoat blown out by the explosive heat. Gloria’s coat had been
hanging loosely from her shoulders and she now shifted it to place.
As she did so the little, strange dark necklace caught fast in the
hanger ribbon at the back, and she tugged at it a moment, trying to
release it.
“Can I help you?” asked Jane putting her hand up to the offending
trinket.
“Oh, no, thanks,” replied Gloria. “The catch of this
necklace--sticks.” She gave it a vigorous tug and with a clattering
rattle the beads fell at her feet.
“Oh, I hope I didn’t break it,” she exclaimed. “It’s something new.”
Mrs. Corday was looking inquiringly, so Gloria held it towards her!
“Let--me--see!” almost gasped the woman, bending over to scrutinize the
necklace. “Where ever did you get that?”
“It was given me,” replied Gloria. She could not say by whom.
“When? Where, child, did you get that necklace?”
Jane drew up beside Gloria protectingly.
Gloria was visibly embarrassed. She looked from the mysterious beads
into the woman’s flushed face.
“We had a--sort of game,” she stammered, “and this was the forfeit. I
do not know who gave it to me.”
Speechless with excitement Mrs. Corday assumed her lorgnette. She was
actually breathing aloud in gasps.
“It--can’t be, and yet it may be!” she exclaimed finally. “The lost
clue to little Jack’s treasures----”
“A lost clue!” Jane repeated. It was her turn to inspect the beads.
“Such a long and strange story!” panted Mrs. Corday. “But if this
should be _it_!”
“What?” asked Gloria, in her direct way.
“The clue to the hiding place. It was a stone, set in a necklace! My
dear husband told me almost with his last breath!”
“Did Jack have it?” Gloria asked, deeply perplexed.
“Jack? Why no. It was Jack’s loss. She had no reason to hide the
clue, but every reason under the sun and earth to hunt for it.” The
tailor-made suit seemed to strain at the seams. Mrs. Corday sat down,
exhausted.
“Where can we go for a few minutes? I must tell you a part of the story
privately.”
“Come over to the Rookery Tea Room,” suggested Gloria, with a drowning
girl’s clutch at rescue. “There will be no one there at this hour and
we can talk comfortably.”
As they allowed the station door to shut with a bang, and Gloria
beckoned to the patient hack driver, she remembered the distant essay
as one remembers the last thought before sleep.
Jane stepped in the car first. Gloria followed, and Mrs. Corday, still
holding the suspected necklace in a firm hand, gave Dave her orders.
Compared with lost treasures and erratic women, what, after all, was a
mere prize essay? But Gloria could not crush back her fluttering hopes.
Her dad represented her world, his happiness her one desire, and to do
something worth while in her first term was her determination. All this
was involved in the prize essay, for in other studies than English, she
had found herself unequal to most of her companions. But she loved this
subject and it was almost finished, that essay. Still!
Jack lay helpless. She could not do for herself what was asked of
Gloria. And she was so keenly sensitive among the over critical girls.
Mrs. Corday was even now betraying signs of some of the peculiarities
attributed to her. She was strangely excited over that little string
of beads. Perhaps this was the hallucination Jack had spoken of so
guardedly?
With a sigh of resignation, Gloria pointed out the Rookery Tea Room.
Mrs. Corday’s eyes appeared to have taken root in the sight of the
necklace.
[Illustration: GLORIA WAS VISIBLY EMBARRASSED.
_Gloria at Boarding School._ _Page 182_
]
Spellbound was the only word that seemed to describe her condition.
Was it real or imagined?
In either case it provided a respite.