Kitabı oku: «Penny of Top Hill Trail», sayfa 8
CHAPTER XI
Outside her door Pen found Betty waiting expectantly.
“Bobbie gave us a nickel apiece not to disturb you,” she began glibly. “She said you had a headache last night. And father’s come home and brought a man with him. And mother’s coming soon.”
Pen found herself only languidly interested in these announcements. She listened distraitly to the prattle of the children who surrounded her while she was served with toast and coffee.
“Father and the man are motoring around the ranch,” said Francis, “but they will be back to lunch.”
This roused her to the extent of making a more elaborate toilet than usual. She came into the library shortly before the luncheon hour, clad in one of the gowns she had taken from the trunk Marta had brought, her hair done with exquisite care.
“Why, Aunty Pen!” cried Betty. “You look so different. You look grown up.”
“I am, Betty,” she said gravely.
“Miss Pen!” exclaimed Kingdon, coming forward. “Our hills have gotten in their curative powers speedily. I was afraid you were of the lily family, but I see you are a bud of the rose.”
While she was replying to his banter, Kurt came into the room. She felt a little feminine thrill of pleasure in his look of unspoken admiration.
“I left my guest, Mr. Hebler, down at the stables,” continued Kingdon. “Billy, run down and tell him it is nearly time for luncheon. I made a new acquaintance while I was away,” he explained to Pen. “Bruce Hebler. I persuaded him to stop off on his way out to California.”
Pen’s eyes dilated slightly, and the color left her face, as she made some excuse for leaving the room. Kurt followed, intercepting her in the hallway.
“This Hebler is some one you have met before?” he asked, looking at her keenly.
“Yes; did I show it so plainly? I don’t want to see him, or let him know I am here.”
“You are afraid of him?”
“Y-e-s.”
“He has some power over you – the power to take you away?”
“Yes; a power prior to yours.”
“A legal one?”
“Yes.”
“You can keep to your room,” he said reassuringly. “That is, for the afternoon. Westcott has invited Mr. Kingdon and this man to dinner and for cards afterward. You can easily stay away from the breakfast room in the morning. I think he is going to leave in a day or so. I’ll think up some excuse for your not appearing.”
“Oh!” she said whimsically. “You will – lie for me?”
He flushed.
“I want Mrs. Kingdon to be your custodian – not this man.”
“So do I,” she said. “But I forget I am in custody up here.”
“I am wondering,” he said in a troubled tone, “how we can prevent the children from speaking of you before this man? And Kingdon, too, is sure to mention your name.”
“Oh, that will do no harm. He won’t know whom they mean. He doesn’t know me by my own name. I told you I had a great many convenient aliases. Remember?”
“Yes,” he replied shortly. “I remember.”
She went to her room, and presently Marta came in with her luncheon, some books and a message of sympathy from Kingdon. In spite of these distractions, time dragged and it was with a sigh of relief that she saw Kingdon and his guest motoring toward Westcott’s.
“Poor old Hebby! Just as hawk-nosed and lynx-eyed as ever. The last place he’d think of looking for me would be behind these curtains. It’s worth being a prisoner for an afternoon to know I have eluded him once more.”
When she came down to dinner, Kurt was again visibly impressed by her appearance. She wore another of her recently acquired gowns, a black one of sheer filmy material. Her hair, rippling back from her brows, was coiled low. Her face was pale and yet young and flowerlike. There was a new touch of wistfulness about her – a charm of repose, almost of dignity.
Later, when the children had gone upstairs, she went into the dimly lighted sitting-room and sat down at the piano, touching softly and lightly the notes of a minor melody, an erratic little air rising and falling in a succession of harmonies.
“Pen!”
She turned exquisite eyes to Kurt’s ardent gaze.
“I like you in this dress. I didn’t know dress could so alter a person.” There was the tone of unrepressed admiration in his voice.
“Hebby is right,” she thought with a fleeting smile. “He said there was something very effective about black to men – especially to men who know nothing about clothes.”
“I must ask you something,” he continued, speaking in troubled tone. “This man Hebler – does he know – ”
She stopped playing.
“He knows me as you know me, as the thief, and he knows – something else about me.”
Her fingers again found their way to the keys.
Reluctantly he found himself succumbing to the witchery of her plaintive tone and her quivering lips. Then he rallied and said relentlessly.
“Something worse?”
“Is there anything worse than stealing?” she asked artlessly. “His acquaintance with me is not exactly of a personal nature. He admits but one of my shortcomings – that he never knows where to find me – literally. He’d think so more than ever if he could see me now.”
“Does he love you?”
She stopped playing, rose from the piano bench and with an odd little laugh, crossed the room to the window seat. He followed.
“Hebby love me? Well, no! There have been times when I think he positively hated me. But I wish he hadn’t come. He brings up – unpleasant memories.”
“Then let’s talk of something pleasant – very pleasant. About Marta, Jo’s Marta. I met them together yesterday. I had my answer to the question I asked you.”
“They are very happy,” she said wistfully. “I am so glad.”
“Pen, why did you make me think, that first day I met you, that it was you Jo met and loved in Chicago?”
“Did I make you think so? You assumed I was the one and I – well, I wouldn’t have presumed to dispute the assertion of anyone in a sheriff line. It’s safer not.”
“You asked me not to be hard on little Marta. Who could be? Not even the man you seem to think me to be. I’ll do all in my power to help them to build a little home in the hills. And she does love him.”
“Yes,” she said softly. “She does.”
He looked at her with a little ache in his throat. The moonlight was full on her partly averted face; her profile, clear-cut, delicate, was like a medallion.
“Pen – could you love me?”
The words seemed wrung from him in spite of an apparent determination not to utter them.
She turned and looked straight into his eyes.
“That isn’t what you should ask me, unless, you – ”
“I do,” he said passionately.
“You didn’t – want to.”
“No; frankly, I didn’t want to; but I did – I do.”
“Why?” she asked curiously, watching the fine little lines about his eyes deepen.
“I’ve been fighting it since I met you – because – ”
“Because I am a thief,” she finished unconcernedly. “Do you remember that night when we were here alone – you started to tell me you loved me, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he admitted slowly.
“Then you remembered what I was, and your love wasn’t big enough to let you finish.”
“That wasn’t the reason I hesitated,” he said quickly, “then or – other times. The reason I didn’t yield to my desire was because I knew it wouldn’t be fair to Jo. Remember, I thought until Marta came that you were his.”
She looked her discomfiture.
“I forgot that,” she said in a low sympathetic tone.
“No;” he resumed meditatively. “You don’t know what a man’s love is.”
“A man’s love,” she replied, a slight catch in her voice, “is infinitesimal compared to a woman’s.”
“Let me show you, Pen. You shall love me! We’ll go far away from here – ”
“You’re ashamed of me! Jo wouldn’t ask Marta to go far away. Your’s is a little love – a love that doesn’t dare venture on an uncharted sea.”
“Pen,” he said tensely, “I tell you that I love you! Don’t you understand?”
He put his arm about her – bent down.
There was a quiet reproach in her star-like eyes as she drew away.
“Pen, will you be my wife?”
She put her hand to her forehead with an odd little motion. Her paleness became a pallor.
“You ask me that – you would – ”
“Yes, I would. I did fight it. I didn’t really know you until to-night. You’ve been unreadable. Now I feel you are your real self. Not the daredevil who defied me and mocked me. Not the little meek mouse on the hearth. I love the woman you are to-night.”
“Am I like her – the best woman in the world?” she whispered.
“Yes,” he cried triumphantly. “And you will grow more and more like her – the type of woman I want you to be. Don’t you care for me – a little, Pen?”
Again his arm was about her. She turned to meet his eyes, deep-set – intense – burning.
“Kurt – I – ”
A little wave of doubt, of contrition, stole over her.
“I don’t love you,” she said uncomfortably.
“Don’t you want to love me, Pen?”
“No!”
She rose impulsively, and there were tears in her eyes, though there was a half wistful smile on her lips, as she passed him swiftly and fled toward the stairway.
He followed.
“You mustn’t leave me, this way. Pen – ”
For a shining second she leaned against him.
“I must. I can’t tell you now. I’ll think it over. You surely want me to be honest with you!”
In the upper hall she passed the open door of Hebler’s room. There were no inner lights, but the shafts of a moonbeam shone straight upon an article lying on a small table near the door, finding response in glimmering gleams.
She stopped, electrified.
“Oh!”
Fascinated by the sparkle, she lingered for a moment, and then went quickly to her room and straight to the window that looked on the moonlit hills. She stayed there awhile, her hands clenched, thinking intensely and rapidly – of Larry soaring like an eagle, proud and secure in his conquering of the air – of Marta’s sudden severance from the habit of a lifetime – of Jo’s faith in her – of Kurt wrestling with his conflict between love and conventions. “Does he care, really, as much as he thinks he does,” she wondered, “or is it just the lure of – propinquity? How shall I find out? Oh, there is too much on my mind! How careless and how like Hebby to leave his priceless ring about. What would he think if he knew the thief was next door to it?”
She left the window and went to the door.
The ring still sent forth shafts of sparkles.
A figure came stealthily out into the hall, paused near the open door. A hand reached quickly out and closed over the ring.
CHAPTER XII
“Have we a new maid, Kurt?” asked Kingdon at the breakfast table next morning. “I had a glimpse of a pretty little girl talking to Agatha.”
“Mrs. Kingdon sent her here to do the sewing and look after the children,” explained Kurt.
“And she’s got a funny name,” said Francis. “Her name is Bobbie Burr.”
Hebler’s fork fell with a clatter.
“Bobbie Burr!” he exclaimed in amazement.
“Bobbie Burr!” echoed Kingdon.
“Where is she? Let me see her at once. She’s the very person I am looking for!”
“I’ll go and get her,” offered Billy, running from the room.
He returned in a few moments followed by Marta.
“Oh, you aren’t Bobbie Burr!” said Hebler, visibly disappointed.
“No, sir,” said Marta. “I just took the name because I liked it. My name is really Marta Sills.”
“But it won’t be that long,” reminded Betty. “You’re going to have another name soon. Jo Gary told me so.”
“Oh, ho!” laughed Kingdon comprehendingly, while Marta fled in confusion.
“Jo’s going to take her with him to Westcott’s this morning,” said Francis. “They’re going to drive over in the buckboard. I think they are engaged.”
“He hasn’t given her a diamond ring,” said Betty. “Every girl who is engaged wears a diamond ring. Doris told me so.”
“Speaking of diamond rings,” said Hebler, as they all rose from the table, “reminds me that I very carelessly left mine on a table yesterday and I forgot to put it away, or to even see if it were there this morning.”
“It will be all right,” assured Kingdon. “Every one in the hill country is honest.”
“Still you’d better put it away,” cautioned Kurt anxiously.
“All right,” said Hebler, leaving the room.
“Don’t forget we want an early start for town,” Kingdon called after him. “I’ll go out and look over my car.”
Kurt followed him, but lingered on the veranda to light his pipe. While he stood there, Jo and Marta drove past at a smart pace. A few moments later Hebler came to him in great consternation.
“Walters, that ring I was speaking of is gone! I’ve made a thorough search for it.”
When he had assured Kurt that there could be no mistake as to having left it on his table before he started for Westcott’s, the foreman said earnestly:
“I am quite sure that I can secure your ring for you, Mr. Hebler. I should like to settle this matter quietly, though; so please say nothing about it to anyone until I have investigated.”
“Certainly,” agreed Hebler. “I’ll go on to town with Kingdon now, and you can be looking about for it.”
Kurt hastened upstairs and knocked at Pen’s door.
“Hebler has missed his ring – a very valuable diamond, he tells me,” he said abruptly, as she came out.
“Oh!” she gasped, turning pale and trembling slightly.
“He left it on his table near the door and just thought of looking for it. I told him not to mention it for the present and I’d deliver the goods. Marta has gone away with Jo; evidently she intends to skip. She’ll not get away with this. I am going after them in the car. I shall turn her over to the authorities. You can pack her things and send them after her.”
“Oh, wait!” she cried, as he started to go down stairs. “It wasn’t Marta. It was I.”
“What!” he cried incredulously. “You!”
“Yes.”
“When did you take it?”
“On my way to bed last night after I left you. His door was open – the ring on a table near by – in easy reach. He shouldn’t have left anything like that around loose.”
“I never dreamed of your taking it,” he said bitterly. “I thought you had reformed.”
She laughed, a little reckless laugh that had a sound like silver bells.
“I don’t like that ring either. It’s gaudy.”
He looked at her with a new thought and hope.
“Are you a kleptomaniac?”
“I should think not! I never take anything unless it is of some value or use.”
“Didn’t it occur to you that you might be suspected and caught with the goods?”
“No; I thought I knew Hebby and that he was too much of a good fellow to report a loss at first blink. Sort of banal, you know. You don’t know much of human nature to suppose a thief could undergo such a sudden reformation. There are no modern miracles like that. Marta is the only one I knew who could change. But she isn’t a born thief. I really was trying to be good; but I suppose I will slip and fall countless times – like a drunkard.”
“This is the first time since you came here?”
“Absolutely; but to be honest, thieves don’t always lie – I’ve not been so strongly tempted before.”
“And you could do it then – right after – ”
“After you had done me the great and regretted honor? Well, I didn’t yield all at once. I walked right past it with the ‘Get thee behind me’ pose and closed my door and went to the window and – looked up at the hills and then – something stronger than all my resolutions carried me back to look at it once more. It was all off.”
Anger and something else battled in his face.
“Why,” she asked curiously, “did you suspect Marta instead of me?”
“I don’t know,” he said spiritlessly.
“You see Marta has an incentive to keep her straight – an incentive that I lack.”
He winced.
“Have you,” she asked cynically, “always been so straight that you don’t know what temptation means? Have you never wanted anything so much that you – ”
“That I wanted to steal? No; not even to steal your affections when I thought they belonged to Jo. I will spare you exposure. When I return the ring to Hebler I will tell him it was found on the floor by a servant.”
“Thank you,” she said meekly. “If he knew I were here, he’d know who the ‘servant’ was. What do you propose to do with me now? Return the goods to Bender, or squeal on me to Hebby?”
“I don’t know until I have talked it over with Mrs. Kingdon.”
“That is very considerate and fair in you,” she commended. “Some way I feel confident she will think I should have another chance. You owe me something. ‘Kind Kurt,’” she continued lightly, with a return of the flippancy that had so jarred him on their first meeting, “suppose I had been weak enough to accept your proposal last night? I knew my lapses too well and was too considerate of your happiness to say ‘yes.’ Suppose I had. Would your sense of honor have been equal to the sacrifice of keeping faith with me? No; I see by your face it would not have been. So you see your love – your man’s love, isn’t great enough for even a thief to consider.”
“Give me the ring,” he said coldly.
“No; I prefer to return it myself. I’ll take my chances with Hebby. Even he isn’t as merciless as you. And as I said, his claim is prior to yours. I never expected to take refuge with Hebby! Where is he now?”
“He has gone to the garage. Wait! You shall not go.”
He put out a detaining arm, under which she ducked and fled nimbly down the stairs and out to the door. She heard him pursuing, but she jumped on Francis’ wheel which stood near and was soon coasting down the driveway to the garage.
“Hebby! Oh – oh, Hebby!” she called to the man sauntering at some distance ahead of her.
“The thief!” he exclaimed as she came up to him and dismounted. “So, at last I’ve found you!”
“Found me! Well, I like that! Here I come chasing after you and doing the finding myself. Really lost your ring this time, Hebby? Didn’t seem like your ‘code’ to mention your loss to so new an acquaintance. Sort of a breach, wasn’t it?”
He flushed shamefacedly, but his discomfiture, short-lived, was succeeded by a broad grin.
“Then it was you who took it! That tall, solemn guy seemed to think he could recover it, but I am more delighted at recovering you than a hundred rings.”
“May I keep it, Hebby?”
“You always said you detested that ring – that it was very parvenu and so forth. But what are you doing up here, and how did you get in with these folks?”
“Can’t a thief break in anywhere? It’s far more surprising how you got in.”
“You’ll not escape me again. You’ll go with me when I leave.”
“Thank you, Hebby. I’m through here. Will you do me a favor?”
“You don’t deserve favors.”
“You never did favor the deserving, you know. Will you tell the ‘tall, solemn guy’ that you have your ring all right? I’ll see you get it. I haven’t it on me. But this is the real favor. No one here, except Mrs. Kingdon and one of the men on the place, knows very much about my chequered career and they only know me by my baptismal name.”
“Which I’m not sure that I know, Meg. You have so many names.”
“I took my own as a perfect disguise. It’s Penelope Lamont.”
“Fine name. I’ll make a note of it for future use. I’ll keep your secret if you’ll not try to run away again. You haven’t told me how you came here.”
“I was – apprehended. But I am not on a thief’s errand. It’s for a reason apart from my other life. You know, Hebby, thieves do have a code of honor.”
“You are the one and only thief! I take off my hat to you. Say, how did that tall guy know you had it?”
“He didn’t. He suspected someone else. You can have it back, Hebby. It’s so garish it puts my eyes out. I didn’t want it. I just wanted to steal it.”
“Ruling passion, Meg.”
“No; you’re way off. Here comes the ‘solemn guy.’ Tell him I found it and returned it to you.”
Just then Kingdon drove around the curve.
“Glad to see you again, Miss Pen. I thought you had forsaken us. I see you’ve made Mr. Hebler’s acquaintance. But I must take him away from you for a while.”
As Hebler got into the car, Kurt came up.
“Oh, Mr. Walters, I’m happy to say I have my ring. Meg – Miss Lamont saw it and took it for a joke on me. Sorry I mentioned it.”
A little wave of remorse swept over Pen for a second as she turned to Kurt and saw the look in his eyes when the two men had driven off.
“He seemed to have an air of proprietorship,” he said jealously. “Has he really a legal right to take you away?”
“Looks that way. Mrs. Kingdon thought so. I never could get legal stuff through my head. It was for an offense committed long ago, but not outlawed. There is something I want to say to you. Last night you asked me to marry you. Don’t look so afraid of the cars! I am not going to sue you for breach of promise. I wouldn’t marry the grandest man living unless he loved me supremely – enough, at least, to overlook the stealing of a ring. Kurt,” she added after a pause, “did it occur to you I might have had a reason for stealing that ring? To put you to the test – your love, I mean – before answering you?”
“Pen – ”
“Never mind, now. Jo wouldn’t have gone back on me if he had been my lover. There’s the ideal lover for you. There’s one thing I didn’t try to steal up here – Jo from Marta. Well, it’s all over now, and I am going back – back with Hebby.”
“You are not going away with that man,” he said hotly. “Mrs. Kingdon arrives to-day. She will find a way out.”
“I think not. You don’t know Hebby. I think I want to go with him.”
“You see,” he said looking at her wistfully, “you didn’t love me – ”
“Then we’re quits,” she laughed, jumping quickly on the wheel and speeding toward the house.
“The beans are sure spilled now,” she thought, when she had gained her room. “I’ve outwitted Kurt, and I must give Hebby the same treatment, but how can I make my getaway? Hebby in town – and such a small town. They took the racer. The big car is out of commission. Sandy rode to the corral in Kurt’s shebang. No horse leaves the stables without Kurt’s O. K. Oh, for the wings of a dove! There’s my inspiration! I know some better wings than a dove’s. I’ll telephone Larry and literally fly from here.”
She went into Mrs. Kingdon’s room where there was an extension telephone and called up Larry at the hotel. Fortunately he was within call.
“Want to do something for me Larry, dear? Hebby is here! I’m in a mix-up as I generally am. No way out unless you’ll fly to me up here. I mean it. Inquire the way to Westcott’s ranch – the next beyond Top Hill where I am. Land by a big red-roofed barn – only red roof in vicinity. I’ll be there at three this afternoon, and be yours forever after if you’ll have me. I knew I could count on you. This is really serious, Larry. If you love me, don’t fail me.”
She hung up the receiver with a sigh of relief.
“To think of falling back on Larry whom I used to consider a lightweight. He is my last ditch, and then I’m off by the overhill and skyville route. In the meantime I’ll make some manuscript memoirs to leave behind.”
A note to Marta and a shorter one to Jo occupied but a few moments time, but she wrote swiftly and steadily for an hour on a longer one. When she had a bulky package she sealed it and addressed it to Kurt. An explanatory letter to Mrs. Kingdon then followed.
“I’ll have to travel light – a beach comber’s outfit,” she thought as she prepared for departure.
She gave the notes for Jo and Marta to Agatha to be delivered on their return. She had a few moments confidential conversation with Francis, bade the others good-bye and then sped down the road to Westcott’s.
