Coming Through the Rye (8 page)

He took one determined step toward the door and then paused, hesitating and looking up the stairs.

“I see,” she said with a tired voice, “you have to remain on guard. Never mind. If you will just let me alone till you are allowed to go, and if you will try and manage it so that I will never have to see you again if possible, I shall be very much obliged. You are anxious to help me. Do that if you please.”

He stood looking straight at her sorrowfully for a moment. She had risen now and was looking straight and coldly at him. She seemed like a little sinking thing that was begging him to let her sink, and he stood trying to see a way out of it. Some strong emotion swept over his fine young face and passed.

“Very well,” he said quietly, and looked at her again, thinking rapidly. “Very well, I will—on one condition, that you will let me know if there is any way in which I could help you.”

“There would never be any way!” She held her hand sorrowfully high. “I have friends.”

He was still again for a moment and then said slowly, as if realizing a new phase of her situation, “Of course—yet—if there
should
come a time when there was no one else who could help—I will do anything in my power for you—or your father—or brother!”

“There is always God,” said Romayne briefly, and, turning, left him without a look, holding her head high and walking up the stairs with brave steps.

He watched her go, a gallant little figure with the look of wreck upon her, yet a spirit that would not surrender.

She took up her position outside her father's bedroom door as if she intended to stand right there for hours if it were necessary, standing by till time passed and she was needed. She did not glance downstairs where the tall young officer stood guard. If she must bear her anguish thus in the eyes of a stranger, she would at least ignore his presence. She wanted him to know that henceforth for her he no longer existed. It was the only possible way in which she could go on and live. And live she must for her father's sake. He might have done wrong, but he was her father still and needed her all the more if he had done wrong. She could not make it seem real that he had knowingly broken the law or put himself under its power. There must be some explanation by which others were to blame, and her father had been deceived about the business somehow, and thought he was carrying on a legitimate affair. That didn't seem reasonable, either, after all that she had seen. Her father was not one easily deceived. Well, this was not the time to reason terrible possibilities out to a logical end, not while her father lay between life and death, a world that must have misjudged him! Her work now was to watch by that door and pray.

As she stood there trembling through what seemed hours, although in reality it was but minutes, her mind was fixed on the memory of the white drawn face of her father. She seemed to see like a panorama the scene upon which he had entered, the chalky face of Lawrence appearing an instant and then gone!
Lawrence!
What part had he in it all? Had it anything to do with his staying out late nights, and his surly air at the table of late? And those lines that had been etching around her father's eyes and lips, that she suddenly realized now were deeper and more anxious than they had ever been? Had they been wholly on account of Lawrence?

But her shocked senses could not reason. She swept such thoughts away and stood there praying.

“Oh God! Oh—God!”

But she could think of no words further than merely to cry out that she was in dire need. As she had just told the young man, there was always God, and now all at once she knew there was
only
God. If all this was true that they were charging on her father and brother, there would not be other friends. Of course, there might be some who would be willing to share her disgrace but none that she would wish to drag down to so low a level. No, she would have to face this thing alone and bear what the world gave her. There would be God, and she must just keep on crying till she knew He heard, and let Him do His will. She had no power in her even to suggest what He should do. She did not know what to ask for. She dared not ask that it might all be a dream, and that morning would bring sweetness and sanity and a fair future once more. She had too much good common sense to deceive herself into any such hope or possibility. She must just cry till she felt God heard and then wait till He helped. If they might only all have died before this happened!

In the course of time the door opened silently, and a doctor came out, almost falling over her as she stood crouched close. Her eyes asked leave to go to her father, and he half waved assent, eyeing her curiously, sadly, as she slid like a wraith over to the bed and down upon her knees, taking the cold resistless hand in her warm one and laying her lips against it.

One look at his face told her he was no better. The features were even more drawn than she remembered them, yet she knew he was not dead. She could see by the faces of the nurse and the other doctor that they were still doing things for him, and when she lifted her eyes to the doctor who came near the bed and asked if she might speak to her father, he shook his head.

“He can't hear you,” he said. “He's unconscious. Later he may rally. They do sometimes.”

The tone was kind but merciless. Romayne sensed that everything after this was to be merciless. She must just understand that.

There was a long period when she knelt there trying to think, wondering if she had prayed as hard as she ought to have done, seeking vainly for a way out of this terrible situation, a friend upon whom she might really rely.

Downstairs the telephone rang several times, and a man's voice answered in low tones. Twice she heard the front door open and close and voices in the hall, but it seemed to be no concern of hers. Others were in charge. She must remain here until something came, though she knew not what.

Now and again the thought of her brother wrenched through the blank of her mind and gave her pain, her bright handsome brother of whom she and her father had been so proud! Surely, surely they must be mistaken about Lawrence. He was always so happy and so ready for a good time. Only that morning they had been talking about the car they were going to get and the long trip they were going to take when his vacation came. He had told her how he was staying out late to earn more money. She had pictured him working hard over the books of the tailor who pressed his suits for him, and spending hours at the invoices in a little grocery store where the proprietor didn't understand bookkeeping very well and had taken a fancy to Lawrence. Several times in the past months Lawrence had told about “helping out” these humble men and receiving a few extra dollars in return. Surely, surely they were mistaken about Lawrence's having anything to do with this terrible business. Surely, if it were true at all, it was only Father, and he had done it for love of them. Poor Father! He wanted to give them beautiful things!

She thought of her pretty suit, crushed now beneath her weight on the floor, rumpled beyond restoration to freshness perhaps! Poor, poor Father! How could he have fallen? No! She would not believe yet that he had! There would be some explanation when he came to himself!

Oh God, please let him come to himself and explain!
she cried in her anguished young soul. And then came another thought!
But if he were guilty! If he could not explain!

And then she went back to her first prayer, just “Oh God! Oh God, don't
You
know what to do?”

Presently the nurse stooped and lifted her away from the bed.

“It's no use your staying there,” she said in a low professional voice. “He'll be like this for hours—days perhaps—before there's any change. You better save your strength. You'll need it. Did you have your dinner? You better go down and get it. I'll sit right by him and call you the first sign of any change, but there won't be any. The doctor was sure.”

Romayne looked about and saw that they had all gone but the nurse and a man who seemed to be on guard outside the door. She shuddered as she realized that her father, in what might be his last illness, was having to be watched by an officer of the law.
Her father!

She was glad the officer was not any of those who had been in the house when she first entered. She slid past him as if he had been something to fear and sped down the stairs. It had been slowly coming to her that she ought to do something to set Lawrence free at once. They ought to be consulting together about their father. If that terrible young man with the iron hand and the square jaw were downstairs, would he let her telephone to Judge Freeman? For, of course, if Judge Freeman was her father's partner, he was responsible for things, and he ought to be able to do something about setting Lawrence free.

It was humiliating to her to think of opening a conversation once more with her obnoxious young jailer, but she would have to do something at once. Perhaps it was not true after all. Perhaps Lawrence was not arrested. Perhaps he had only gone for friends and would soon be back.

These thoughts all went through her mind as she glanced furtively in every corner for sight of the young man, Evan Sherwood.

But he was not there. Not anywhere apparently.

The little doors by the fireplace had been closed, and the chairs set straight, and everything looked normal again in her father's office. Not until she searched twice in the dim light of the single shaded lamp that was lit did she discover the square shoulders of the boy Chris, standing half within the amber-colored curtains as if he shrank from being found.

Very well. She would not find him. She would just go ahead and do her telephoning as if no one were there.

So she turned her back on the shrinking Chris and sat down at the desk, drawing the telephone toward her.

She called Judge Freeman's home but, after waiting some time, was told that he had suddenly been called out of town, and they did not know when he would return. It might be a week or more.

She hung up the receiver with a feeling that the props had been knocked from under her and she was slowly sinking.

She grasped for the receiver once more and called another number, the home of another of her father's friends, with the same result. A third time she tried for another friend of the family with a like failure, and it dawned upon her that this might not be a mere coincidence. Could it possibly be business had found it convenient to get away while her father bore the penalty of the law for them in their absence?

After sitting for some minutes, silently turning over in her mind her list of friends who would be helpful now, she called one of her brother's happy friends who had been much at the house during the past few weeks of their prosperity, and whose family were influential people.

Carefully she explained the situation as she saw it. Lawrence was gone. They had told her he was arrested! Of course it was some mistake. The whole thing was—but never mind! Her father was terribly ill, suddenly, a stroke of paralysis the doctor said. Would George kindly hunt up Lawrence and do whatever was necessary to get him out and get him home at once? He was needed—

But a lofty, ruthless voice at the other end of the wire answered her.

“Awfully sorry, Romayne, but I don't see how I can possibly do anything. I've got an awfully important engagement for this evening. I'm late now, and you know you can't stand up a lady. S'pose you call up Cholly. He's a good friend of Larry's. I guess he'll do something. He has more time than I. And I hope your father'll be better in the morning, kid. I really do!”

Romayne spent a precious ten minutes chasing over the wires from club to club after “Cholly” and finally found him. Cholly professed to have great concern for his old friend Larry but suggested that Albert Huston had more influence at court than he had and gave her Albert's phone number.

Romayne tried Albert and received a flat refusal.

“Can't do it, little girl. Sorry, but I'm in bad with the authorities now, ‘count of a little affair last week, and it simply wouldn't do for me to come out in the open yet. Hope you find somebody to help—I surely do! And say, girlie, when you see Larry give him my best and say if there's anything he wants brought to him, I'll see't he gets it. He'll understand. Good luck, girlie. He'll get out all right. Don't you worry. Larry's got lots of good friends.”

Romayne rattled the receiver tremblingly into place and let her head sink down on her arms on the desk, utterly forgetting the ambushed Chris.

“Oh!” she moaned softly in despair. “Oh–h–h! Is there no one to help?”

Chris wheeled from his window and marched over to her suddenly.

“I'll help, Romayne. I'll do anything you want. But you can't get your brother out now. I've been off trying for the last hour. They've refused him bail, and nothing anybody says will do any good. Evan Sherwood has gone off to try himself. He says he knows where he can find somebody that'll go bail if he says so, but they won't let him do it—I know. I heard 'em talk. They're mad, and they think he's the key to the whole situation. They say he's slippery. I came back and told Sherwood, and he's just gone. If anybody can do anything, that guy can, Romayne!”

Romayne's face was white and set.

“I wish you would telephone him and tell him to do nothing,” she said with a hard edge to her voice. “He is insufferable! I am sure my brother would rather remain where he is than have that man do anything about it. He is presuming. I told him I did not wish his help. A man who did what he has done is beyond the pale of helper.”

“You don't understand, Romayne; he didn't want to do all that, no more than I.”

“Then why did he do it? Why did you?” asked Romayne fiercely.

“Because we belong to the League, and we were following out our orders. We didn't know it was going to lead us in on friends or give trouble to women. Evan Sherwood is all for helping people. You don't know that guy. You'd like him—I know. When it's all over, I want you to meet him and be friends.”