Part 3 (1/2)
”Ticket!”
”Ticket? What for?”
”What for? Do you think this is a joy ride?” The conductor radiated sarcasm.
Patsy crimsoned. ”I haven't mine. I--I was to--meet my--aunt--who had the ticket--and--she must have missed the train.”
”Where are you going?”
”I--I--Why, I was telling--My aunt had the tickets. How would I know where I was going without the tickets?”
The conductor snorted.
Patsy looked hard at him and knew the time had come for wits--good, sharp O'Connell wits. She smiled coaxingly. ”It sounds so stupid, but, you see, I haven't an idea where I am going. I was to meet my aunt and go down with her to her summer place. I--I can't remember the name.” Her mouth drooped for the fraction of a second, then she brightened all over. ”I know what I can do--very probably she missed the train because she expects to be at the station to meet me--I can look out each time the train stops, and when I see her I can get off.
That makes it all right, doesn't it?” And she smiled in open confidence as a sacrificial maiden might have propitiated the dragon.
But it was not reciprocated. He eyed her scornfully. ”And who pays for the ticket?”
”Oh!” Patsy caught her breath; then she sent it bubbling forth in a contagious laugh. ”I do--of course. I'll take a ticket to--just name over the stations, please?”
The conductor growled them forth: ”Hampden, Forestview, Hainsville, Dartmouth, Hudson, Arden, Brambleside, Mayberry, Greyfriars--”
”What's that last--Greyfriars? I'll take a ticket to Greyfriars.” She said it after the same fas.h.i.+on she might have used in ordering a mutton chop at a restaurant, and handed the conductor a bill.
When he had given her the change and pa.s.sed on, still disgruntled, Patsy allowed herself what she called a ”temporary attack of private prostration.”
”Idiot!” she groaned in self-address. ”Ye are the biggest fool in two continents; and the Lord knows what Dan would be thinking of ye if he were topside o' green earth to hear.” Whereupon she gripped one vagabond glove with the other--in fellow misery; and for the second time that afternoon her eyes closed with sheer exhaustion.
The train rumbled on. Each time it stopped Patsy watched the doorway and the window beside her for sight of her quarry; each time it started again she sighed inwardly with relief, glad of another furlough from a mission which was fast growing appalling. She had long since ceased to be interested in Billy Burgeman as an individual. He had shrunk into an abstract sense of duty, and as such failed to appeal or convince. But as her interest waned, her determination waxed; she would get him and tell him what she had come for, if it took a year and a day and shocked him into complete oblivion.
She was saying this to herself for the hundredth time, adding for spice--and artistic finish--”After that--the devil take him!” when the train pulled away from another station. She had already satisfied herself that he was not among the leaving pa.s.sengers. But suddenly something familiar in a solitary figure standing at the far end of the gravel embankment caught her eye; it was back toward her, and in the quick pa.s.sing and the gathering dusk she could make out dim outlines only. But those outlines were unmistakable, unforgetable.
”A million curses on the house of Burgeman!” quoth Patsy. ”Well, there's naught for it but to get off at the next station and go back.”
The conductor watched her get off with a distinct feeling of relief.
He had very much feared she was not a responsible person and in no mental position to be traveling alone. Her departure cleared him of all uneasiness and obligation and he settled down to his business with an unburdened mind. Not so Patsy. She blinked at the vanis.h.i.+ng train and then at her empty hands, with the nearest she had ever come in her life to utter, abject despair. She had left her bag in the car!
When articulate thinking was possible she remarked, acridly, ”Ye need a baby nurse to mind ye, Patricia O'Connell; and I'm not sure but ye need a perambulator as well.” She gave a tired little stretch to her body and rubbed her eyes. ”I feel as if this was all a silly play and I was cast for the part of an Irish simpleton; a low-comedy burlesque--that ye'd swear never happened in real life outside of the county asylums.”
A headlight raced down the track toward her and the city, and she gathered up what was left of her scattered wits. As the train slowed up she stepped into the shadows, and her eye fell on the open baggage-car. She smiled grimly. ”Faith! I have a notion I like brakemen and baggagemen better than conductors.”
And so it came to pa.s.s as the train started that the baggageman, who happened to be standing in the doorway, was somewhat startled to see a small figure come racing toward it out of the dusk and land sprawling on the floor beside him.
”A girl tramp!” he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in amazement and disgust, and then, as he helped her to her feet, ”Don't you know you're breaking the law?”
She laughed. ”From the feelings, I thought it was something else.”
She sobered and turned on him fiercely. ”I want ye to understand I've paid my fare on the train out, which ent.i.tled me to one continuous pa.s.sage--_with my trunk_. Well, I'm returning--_as my trunk_, I'll take up no more room and I'll ask no more privileges.”