THE PARTY
Helen chanced that evening to be entering the area door just as Mr.
Starkweather himself was mounting the steps of the mansion. Her uncle
recognized the girl and scowled over the balustrade at her.
"Come to the den at once; I wish to speak to you Helen--Ahem!" he said in
his most severe tones.
"Yes, sir," responded the girl respectfully, and she passed up the back
stairway while Mr. Starkweather went directly to his library. Therefore he
did not chance to meet either of his daughters and so was not warned of
what had occurred in the house that afternoon.
"Helen," said Uncle Starkweather, viewing her with the same stern look
when she approached his desk. "I must know how you have been using your
time while outside of my house? Something has reached my ear which
greatly--ahem!--displeases me."
"Why--I--I----" The girl was really at a loss what to say. She did not
know what he was driving at and she doubted the advisability of telling
Uncle Starkweather everything that she had done while here in the city as
his guest.
"I was told this afternoon--not an hour ago--that you have been seen
lurking about the most disreputable parts of the city. That you are a
frequenter of low tenement houses; that you associate with foreigners and
the most disgusting of beggars----"
"I wish you would stop, Uncle," said Helen, quickly, her face flushing now
and her eyes sparkling. "Sadie Goronsky is a nice girl, and her family is
respectable. And poor old Mr. Lurcher is only unfortunate and half-blind.
He will not harm me."
"Beggars! Yiddish shoestring pedlars! A girl like you!
Where--ahem!--_where_ did you ever get such low tastes, girl?"
"Don't blame yourself, Uncle," said Helen, with some bitterness. "I
certainly did not learn to be kind to poor people from _your_ example. And
I am sure I have gained no harm from being with them once in a while--only
good. To help them a little has helped me--I assure you!"
But Mr. Starkweather listened not at all to this. "Where did you find
these low companions?" he demanded.
"I met Sadie the night I arrived here in the city. The taxicab driver
carried me to Madison Street instead of Madison Avenue. Sadie was kind to
me. As for old Mr. Lurcher, I saw him first in Mr. Grimes's office."
Uncle Starkweather suddenly lost his color and fell back in his chair. For
a moment or two he seemed unable to speak at all. Then he stammered:
"In Fenwick Grimes's office?"
"Yes, sir."
"What--what was this--ahem!--this beggar doing there?"
"If he is a beggar, perhaps he was begging. At least, Mr. Grimes seemed
very anxious to get rid of him, and gave him a dollar to go away."
"And you followed him?" gasped Mr. Starkweather.
"No. I went to see Sadie, and it seems Mr. Lurcher lives right in that
neighborhood. I found he needed spectacles and was half-blind and I----"
"Tell me nothing more about it! Nothing more about it!" commanded her
uncle, holding up a warning hand. "I will not--ahem!--listen. This has
gone too far. I gave you shelter--an act of charity, girl! And you have
abused my confidence by consorting with low company, and spending your
time in a mean part of the town."
"You are wrong, sir. I have done nothing of the kind," said Helen, firmly,
but growing angry herself, now. "My friends are decent people, and a poor
part of the city does not necessarily mean a criminal part."
"Hush! How dare you contradict me?" demanded her uncle. "You shall go
home. You shall go back to the West at once! Ahem! At once. I could not
assume the responsibility of your presence here in my house any longer."
"Then I will find a position and support myself, Uncle Starkweather. I
have told you I could do that before."
"No, indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Starkweather, at once. "I will not allow it.
You are not to be trusted in this city. I shall send you back to that
place you came from--ahem!--Sunset Ranch, is it? That is the place for a
girl like you."
"But, Uncle----"
"No more! I will listen to nothing else from you," he declared, harshly.
"I shall purchase your ticket through to-morrow, and the next day you must
go. Ahem! Remember that I _will_ be obeyed."
Helen looked at him with tear-dimmed eyes for fully a minute. But he said
no more and his stern countenance, as well as his unkind words and tone,
repelled her. She put out her hand once, as though to speak, but he turned
away, scornfully.
It was her last attempt to soften him toward her. He might then, had he
not been so selfish and haughty, have made his peace with the girl and
saved himself much trouble and misery in the end. But he ignored her, and
Helen, crying softly, left the room and stole up to her own place in the
attic.
She could not see anybody that evening, and so did not go down to dinner.
Later, to her amazement, Maggie came to her door with a tray piled high
with good things--a very elaborate repast, indeed. But Helen was too
heartsick to eat much, although she did not refuse the attention--which
she laid to the kindness of Lawdor, the butler.
But for once she was mistaken. The tray of food did not come from Lawdor.
Nor was it the outward semblance of anybody's kindness. The tray delivered
at Helen's door was the first result of a great fright!
At dinner the girls could not wait for their father to be seated before
they began to tell him of the amazing thing that had been revealed to them
that afternoon by Jessie Stone.
"Where's Cousin Helen, Gregson?" asked Belle, before seating herself. "See
that she is called. She may not have heard the gong."
If Gregson's face could display surprise, it displayed it then.
"Of course, dear Helen has returned; hasn't she?" added Hortense.
"I'll go up myself and see if she's here," Flossie suggested.
"Ahem!" said the surprised Mr. Starkweather.
"I listened sharply for her, but I did not hear her pass my door," said
Hortense.
"I must ask her to come back to that spare room on the lower floor,"
sighed Belle. "She is too far away from the rest of the family."
"Girls!" gasped Mr. Starkweather, at length finding speech.
"Oh, you needn't explode, Pa!" ejaculated Belle. "We are aware of
something about Helen that changes the complexion of affairs entirely."
"What does this mean?" demanded Mr. Starkweather, blankly. "Something
about Helen?"
"Yes, indeed, Pa," said Flossie, spiritedly. "Who do you suppose owns that
Sunset Ranch she talks about?"
"And who do you suppose is worth a quarter of a million dollars--more than
_you_ are worth, Pa, I declare?" cried Hortense.
"Girls!" exclaimed Belle. "That is very low. If we have made a mistake
regarding Cousin Helen, of course it can be adjusted. But we need not be
vulgar enough to say _why_ we change toward her."
Mr. Starkweather thumped upon the table with the handle of his knife.
"Girls!" he commanded. "I will have this explained. What do you mean?"
Out it came then--in a torrent. Three girls can do a great deal of talking
in a few minutes--especially if they all talk at once.
But Mr. Starkweather got the gist of it. He understood what it all meant,
and he realized what it meant to _him_, as well, better than his daughters
could.
Prince Morrell, whom he had always considered a bit of a fool, and
therefore had not even inquired about after he left for the West, had died
a rich man. He had left this only daughter, who was an heiress to great
wealth. And he, Willets Starkweather, had allowed the chance of a lifetime
to slip through his fingers!
If he had only made inquiries about the girl and her circumstances! He
might have done that when he learned that Mr. Morrell was dead. When Helen
had told him her father wished her to be in the care of her mother's
relatives, Mr. Starkweather could have then taken warning and learned the
girl's true circumstances. He had not even accepted her confidences. Why,
he might have been made the guardian of the girl, and handled all her
fortune!
These thoughts and a thousand others raced through the scheming brain of
the man. Could he correct his fault at this late date? If he had only
known of this that his daughters had learned from Jess Stone, before he
had taken Helen to task as he had that very evening!
Fenwick Grimes had telephoned to him at his office. Something Mr. Grimes
had said--and he had not seen Mr. Grimes nor talked personally with him
for years--had put Mr. Starkweather into a great fright. He had decided
that the only safe place for Helen Morrell was back in the West--he
supposed with the poor and ignorant people on the ranch where her father
had worked.
Where Prince Morrell had _worked_! Why, if Morrell had owned Sunset Ranch,
Helen was one of the wealthiest heiresses in the whole Western country.
Mr. Starkweather had asked a few questions about Sunset Ranch of men who
knew. But, as the owner had never given himself any publicity, the name of
Morrell was never connected with it.
While the three girls chattered over the details of the story Mr.
Starkweather merely played with his food, and sat staring into a corner of
the room. He was trying to scheme his way out of the difficulty--the
dangerous difficulty, indeed--in which he found himself.
So, his first move was characteristic. He sent the tray upstairs to Helen.
But none of the family saw Helen again that night.
However, there was another caller. This was May Van Ramsden. She did not
ask for Helen, however, but for Mr. Starkweather himself, and that
gentleman came graciously into the room where May was sitting with the
three much excited sisters.
Belle and Hortense and Flossie were bubbling over with the desire to ask
Miss Van Ramsden if _she_ knew that Helen was a rich girl and not a poor
one. But there was no opportunity. The caller broached the reason for her
visit at once, when she saw Mr. Starkweather.
"We are going to ask a great favor of you, sir," she said, shaking hands.
"And it does seem like a very great impudence on our part. But please
remember that, as children, we were all very much attached to her. You
see," pursued Miss Van Ramsden, "there are the De Vorne girls, and Jo and
Nat Paisley, and Adeline Schenk, and some of the Blutcher boys and
girls--although the younger ones were born in Europe--and Sue Livingstone,
and Crayton Ballou. Oh! there really is a score or more."
"Ahem!" said Mr. Starkweather, not only solemnly, but reverently. These
were names he worshipped. He could have refused such young people
nothing--nothing!--and would have told Miss Van Ramsden so had what she
said next not stricken him dumb for the time.
"You see, some of us have called on Nurse Boyle, and found her so bright
and so delighted with our coming, that we want to give her a little
tea-party to-morrow afternoon. It would be so delightful to have her greet
the girls and boys who used to be such friends of hers in the time of Mr.
Cornelius, right up there in those cunning rooms of hers.
"We always used to see her in the nursery suite, and there are the same
furniture, and hangings, and pictures, and all. And Nurse Boyle herself is
just the same--only a bit older--Ah! girls!" she added, turning suddenly
to the three sisters, "you don't know what it means to have been cared
for, and rocked, and sung to, when you were ill, perhaps, by Mary Boyle!
You missed a great deal in not having a Mary Boyle in your family."
"_Mary Boyle!_" gasped Mr. Starkweather.
"Yes. Can we all come to see her to-morrow afternoon? I am sure if you
tell Mrs. Olstrom, your housekeeper will attend to all the arrangements.
Helen knows about it, and she'll help pour the tea. Mary thinks there is
nobody quite like Helen."
These shocks were coming too fast for Mr. Starkweather. Had anything
further occurred that evening to torment him it is doubtful if he would
have got through it as gracefully as he did through this call. May Van
Ramsden went away assured that no obstacle would be placed in the way of
Mary Boyle's party in the attic. But neither Mr. Starkweather, nor his
three daughters, could really look straight into each other's faces for
the remainder of that evening. And they were all four remarkably silent,
despite the exciting things that had so recently occurred to disturb
them.
In the morning Helen got an invitation from Jess Stone to dinner that
evening. She said "come just as you are"; but she did not tell Helen that
she had innocently betrayed her true condition to the Starkweathers. Helen
wrote a long reply and sent it by special messenger through old Lawdor,
the butler. Then she prepared for the tea in Mary Boyle's rooms.
At breakfast time Helen met the family for the first time since the
explosion. Self-consciousness troubled the countenances and likewise the
manner of Mr. Starkweather and his three daughters.
"Ahem! A very fine morning, Helen. Have you been out for your usual
ramble, my dear?"
"How-do, Helen? Hope you're feeling quite fit."
"Dear me, Helen! How pretty your hair is, child. You must show me how you
do it in that simple way."
But Flossie was more honest. She only nodded to Helen at first. Then, when
Gregson was out of the room, she jumped up, went around the table swiftly,
and caught the Western girl about the neck.
"Helen! I'm just as ashamed of myself as I can be!" she cried, her tears
flowing copiously. "I treated you so mean all the time, and you have been
so very, very decent about helping me in my lessons. Forgive me; will you?
Oh, please say you will!"
Helen kissed her warmly. "Nothing to forgive, Floss," she said, a little
bruskly, perhaps. "Don't let's speak about it."
She merely bowed and said a word in reply to the others. Nor could Mr.
Starkweather's unctuous conversation arouse her interest.
"You have a part in the very worthy effort to liven up old Nurse Boyle, I
understand?" said Mr. Starkweather, graciously. "Is there anything needed
that I can have sent in, Helen?"
"Oh, no, sir. I am only helping Miss Van Ramsden," Helen replied,
timidly.
"I think May Van Ramsden should have told _me_ of her plans," said Belle,
tossing her head.
"Or, _me_," rejoined Hortense.
"Pah!" snapped Flossie. "None of us ever cared a straw for the old woman.
Queer old thing. I thought she was more than a little cracked."
"Flossie!" ejaculated Mr. Starkweather, angrily, "unless you can speak
with more respect for--ahem!--for a faithful old servitor of the
Starkweather family, I shall have to--ahem!--ask you to leave the table."
"You won't have to ask me--I'm going!" exclaimed Flossie, flirting out of
her chair and picking up her books. "But I want to say one thing while I'm
on my way," observed the slangy youngster: "You're all just as tiresome as
you can be! Why don't you own up that you'd never have given the old woman
a thought if it wasn't for May Van Ramsden and her friends--and Helen?"
and she beat a retreat in quick order.
It was an unpleasant breakfast for Helen, and she retired from the table
as soon as she could. She felt that this attitude of the Starkweathers
toward her was really more unhappy than their former treatment. For she
somehow suspected that this overpowering kindness was founded upon a
sudden discovery that she was a rich girl instead of an object of charity.
How well-founded this suspicion was she learned when she and Jess met.
Hortense brought her up two very elaborate frocks that forenoon, one for
her to wear when she poured tea in Mary Boyle's rooms, and the other for
her to put on for the Stones' dinner party.
"They will just about fit you. I'm a mite taller, but that won't matter,"
said the languid Hortense. "And really, Helen, I am just as sorry as I can
be for the mean way you have been treated while you have been here. You
have been so good-natured, too, in helping a chap. Hope you won't hold it
against me--and _do_ wear the dresses, dear."
"I will put on this one for the afternoon," said Helen, smiling. "But I do
not need the evening dress. I never wore one quite--quite like that, you
see," as she noted the straps over the shoulders and the low corsage. "But
I thank you just the same."
Later Belle said to her airily: "Dear Cousin Helen! I have spoken to
Gustaf about taking you to the Stones' in the limousine to-night. And he
will call for you at any hour you say."
"I cannot avail myself of that privilege, Belle," responded Helen,
quietly. "Jess will send for me at half-past six. She has already arranged
to do so. Thank you."
There was so much going on above stairs that day that Helen was able to
escape most of the oppressive attentions of her cousins. Great baskets of
flowers were sent in by some of the young people who remembered and loved
Mary Boyle, and Helen helped to arrange them in the little old lady's
rooms.
Tea things for a score of people came in, too. And cookies and cakes from
the caterer's. At three o'clock, or a little after, the callers began to
arrive. Belle, and Hortense, and Flossie received them in the reception
hall, had them remove their cloaks below stairs, and otherwise tried to
make it appear that the function was really of their own planning.
But nobody invited either of the Starkweather girls upstairs to Mary
Boyle's rooms. Perhaps it was an oversight. But it certainly _did_ look as
though they had been forgotten.
But the party on the attic floor was certainly a success. How pretty the
little old lady looked, sitting in state with all the young and blooming
faces about her! Here were growing up into womanhood and manhood (for some
of the boys had not been ashamed to come) the children whom she had tended
and played with and sung to.
And she sung to them again--verses of forgotten songs, lullabies she had
crooned over some of their cradles when they were ill, little broken
chants that had sent many of them, many times, to sleep.
Altogether it was a most enjoyable afternoon, and Nurse Boyle was promised
that it should not be the last tea-party she would have. "If you are 'way
up here in the top of the house, you shall no more be forgotten," they
told her.
Helen was the object next in interest to Nurse Boyle. May Van Ramsden had
told about the Starkweathers' little "Cinderella Cousin"; and although
none of these girls and boys who had gathered knew the truth about Helen's
wealth and her position in life, they all treated her cordially.
When they trooped away and left the little old lady to lie down to
recuperate after the excitement, Helen went to her own room, and remained
closely shut up for the rest of the day.
At half-past six she came downstairs, bag in hand. She descended the
servants' staircase, told Mr. Lawdor that her trunk, packed and locked,
was ready for the expressman when he came, and so stole out of the area
door. She escaped any interview with her uncle, or with the girls. She
could not bid them good-by, yet she was determined not to go back to
Sunset Ranch on the morrow, nor would she remain another night under her
uncle's roof.