Part 19 (1/2)
Of course Laura understood that this was York's return for catching him at a disadvantage, but she meant to pursue the quest in spite of her brother's teasing, for she was really concerned.
Only a few days before, the New Eden leak had opened again and some really valuable things, far scattered and hardly enough to be considered separately, had disappeared. Laura by chance had heard that week of two instances on the town side of the river, and on the evening previous of one across the river.
Before she spoke again she saw that Jerry's eyes were fixed on the buffet, where two silver cups, exactly alike, sat side by side. There was a queer expression about the girl's mouth as she caught her hostess's eye.
”Is there any more silver of that pattern in this part of the country?”
she asked, with seeming carelessness, wrestling the while with a little problem of her own.
”Not a pennyweight this side of old 'Castle Cluny' in Scotland, so far as I know,” York replied. ”There's your other cup, after all, Laura. By the way, Miss Jerry, how would you like to take a horseback ride over 'Kingussie'? I must go to the far side of the ranch this morning, and I would like a companion--even yourself.”
”Do go, Jerry. I don't ride any more,” Laura urged, with that cheerful smile that told how heroically she bore her affliction. ”I used to ride miles with York back in the Winnowoc country.”
”And York always misses you whenever he rides,” her brother replied, beaming affectionately upon his brave, sweet sister. ”Maybe, though, Jerry doesn't ride on horseback,” he added.
At Laura's words Jerry's mind was flooded with memories of the Winnowoc country where from childhood she had taken long, exhilarating rides with her father and her cousin Gene Wellington.
”I've always ridden on horseback,” she said, dreamily, without looking up.
”She's going to ride with me, not with ghosts of Eastern lovers, if she rides to-day,” York resolved, a sudden tenseness catching at his throat.
”What kind of mounts are you afraid of? I can have Ponk send up something easy,” he said, in a quiet, fatherly way.
Jerry's eyes darkened. ”I can ride anything your Sage Brush grows that you call a saddle-horse,” she declared, with pretty daring. ”Why, 'I was the pride of the countryside' back in a country where fine horses grew.
Really and seriously, it was Cousin Gene who was afraid of spirited horses, and he looked so splendid on them, too. But he couldn't manage them any more than he could run an automobile over the bluff road above the big cut this side of the third crossing of the Winnowoc. He preferred to crawl through that cut in the slow old local train while I climbed over the bluffs in our big car. You hadn't figured on my boasting qualities, had you?” she added, with a smile at her own vaunting words.
”Oh, go on,” Laura urged. ”I heard your father telling us once that your cousin, on the Darby side, would ride out with you bravely enough, but that you traded horses when you got off the place and you always came back home on the one they were afraid for you to take out and your cousin was afraid to ride back.”
”She _climbed_ while Cousin Gene _crawled_. I believe she said something there, but she doesn't know it yet; and it's not my business to tell her till she asks me.” York shut his lips grimly at the unspoken words.
”We'll be back, appet.i.te and sundries, for the best meal the scullery-maid can loot from the village,” he said, as they rose from the table.
When Jerry came out of the side door, where York was waiting for her, she suggested at once a model for a cover ill.u.s.tration of an outing magazine, an artistic advertis.e.m.e.nt for well-tailored results, and a type of young American beauty. As they rode back toward the barns and cattle-sheds that belonged to the ranch edging the corporation limits of New Eden, neither one noticed the tall, angular form of Mrs. Stellar Bahrr as she came striding across lots toward the driveway.
Stellar lived in a side street. Her back yard bordered a vacant lot on the next side street above her. Crossing this, she could slip over the lawn of a vacant house and down the alley half a block, and on by the United Brethren minister's parsonage. That let her sidle between a little carpenter-shop and a shoe-shop to the rear gateway into an alley that led out to the open ground at the foot of the Macpherson knoll.
Stellar preferred this corkscrew route to the ”Castle.” It gave her several back and side views, with ”listening-posts” at certain points.
”Oh, good morning, Laury! I'm so glad to find you alone. I'm in a little trouble, an' mebby you can help me out. You are everybody's friend, just like your brother, exactly. Only his bein' that way's bound to get him into trouble sooner or before that. Eh! What's that you're lookin' at?”
Laura had gone to the buffet after the riders had started away. She had a singular feeling about that cup appearing so suddenly. She remembered now that Jerry had asked twice about those cups, and had looked at them with such a peculiar expression on each occasion. Laura had not remarked upon it to herself the first time, but the trifling incident at the table just now stayed in her mind. Yet why? The housekeeper often rearranged the dining-room features in her endeavor to keep things free from dust. That would not satisfy the query. That cup and Jerry Swaim were dodging about most singularly in Laura's consciousness, and she could not know that the reason for it lay in the projecting power of the mind of the woman coming across lots at that moment to call on her.
Yet when Mrs. Bahrr thrust herself into the dining-room unannounced, as was her habit, with her insistent greeting, and her query, ”What's that you're lookin' at?” the mistress of ”Castle Cluny” had a feeling of having been caught holding a guilty suspicion; and when Stellar Bahrr ran her through with steely eyes she felt herself blus.h.i.+ng with surprise and chagrin.
”How can I help you, Mrs. Bahrr?” she asked, recovering herself in a moment.
It was, however, the loss of the moment that always gave the woman before her the clue she wanted.
”I'm needin' just a little money--only a few dollars. I'm quittin'
hat-trimmin' since them smarties down-town got so busy makin' over, an'
trimmin' over, an' everything. I'm goin' to makin' bread. I've got six customers already, an' I'm needin' a gasoliner the worst way. I lack jist five--mebby I could squeeze out with four dollars if I had it right away. You never knowed what it means to be hard up, I reckon; never had no trouble at all; no husband to up an' leave you and not a soul to lean on. You've always had York to lean on. I 'ain't got n.o.body.”
The drooping figure and wrinkled face were pitiful enough to keep Laura Macpherson from reminding her that she was older than her brother and once the leaning had been the other way. Here was a needy, lonely, friendless woman. What matter that her greatest enemy was herself? All of us are in that boat.
”Of course I'll help you, Mrs. Bahrr. I'll get the money right away.”