DUSKIN (6 page)

Carol looked troubled. She was beginning to understand how hard all this was for young Fawcett without his uncle there to help, and she realized suddenly that she had come to take his place. Could it be possible that this was her duty, too? It seemed absurd.

“But really,” said she, looking at him earnestly, “you know my being present wouldn’t make the least difference. In fact, I should think it would detract from the dignity of the company to have it represented by a girl. Wouldn’t it be much better for you to make what speech has to be made? I had thought you might like to have a few notes of what I feel sure your uncle intended to say. It might give you a little different angle on things.”

“Now look here, Miss Berkley.” The young man was very much in earnest. “Please don’t let’s waste any further time in discussing this matter. You simply
must
stay. You don’t know what a fine introduction I have planned for you already. Secretary to the president and all that, the only one who was thoroughly cognizant with his affairs and able to take his place, etc. It won’t matter a cent after that what you say. A funny story or two and a word of greeting from my uncle and you can sit down, but we really must have someone there to represent the president who was to have been the guest of the evening, or it will be Hamlet with Hamlet left out. And I’m perfectly serious about that dress business. It’s a necessary expense and the company will be only too glad to stand for it, and you’ll be one dress to the good when it’s over. Now, please, may we get down to business?”

Carol had a felling memory of a rosy silk reposing in her trunk; of another little dress of delicate jade velvet, light as a moth’s wing, with just a sparkle of sequins like stardust here and there; of a filmy white garment garnished with a silver rose. Or would the little black satin with the strings of pearls be more dignified and appropriate to the occasion? And there they all were tucked away out of sight in the baggage car! “I don’t suppose it would be possible to get hold of my trunk in time?” she said suddenly, as if she were thinking aloud.

“Where is your trunk?” he asked eagerly. “I didn’t know you had brought it along.”

“Yes,” she said, “it was all packed to go on a vacation.”

“I see. Nice of you to give it up. Well, let’s see what we can do about that. I don’t know whether this train carries a baggage car or not. It may be on the next section. Even so, we might get hold of it. Have you your check?”

He stepped out and held a brief conference with the porter and returned quickly.

“He says there is a baggage car. He’s gone to find out if your trunk got on. If it did we may be in luck. And now, what were those points you were going to speak about tonight? Hadn’t we better talk them over? Just to see if we agree in our viewpoint?”

“But really—” began Carol again, feeling that she was committing herself to the evening in spite of her best resolves.

“No, please,” said the young man earnestly. “This is something you can’t help. It’s a part of the job. You have to represent Uncle Caleb. Now what are those notes you have there?”

Five minutes later the porter came back smiling to say that the trunk was on board and he had arranged with the baggage man to recheck it to the hotel without delay. He handed the new check to Fawcett who pocketed it and went on with the discussion.

“A great deal depends on that Duskin job,” he was saying. “If that should be delayed, it might make hash of our plans. You see it’s near enough to Chicago for them to keep an eye on it when they run away on business trips. If it gets done—”

“It
will
be done
on time
!” said Carol with firm lips. “That’s what I came down to pull off!”

She said it so firmly that she really believed herself when she heard it, and something thrilled in her heart and brain. She would get it done, too. Yes, if she had to get right out and help work at it herself, order the men around or anything! She believed she could do it if worse came to worst. It
would
get done, if human will could force it!

Young Fawcett studied her keenly. Not for nothing had his uncle put him at the head of the Chicago branch.

“You’re all right!” said the young man fervidly. “Now, if you’ll just say tonight what you’ve been saying the last three minutes—about doing things when they have to be done and doing them right, reputation of the firm and all that—why we’ll go over in great shape! I’m not quite sure yet, but I
think
—I’m
almost
sure—we’re going to have Havelock there. You know Havelock? He’s one of the greatest philanthropists in this part of the country. He’s going to build a model hospital, one of the largest in the world, up to date in every respect. It’s going to be one of the showplaces of the country, and
we want that job
! It’s up to you to make him think we’re the great and only construction company on this little globe. See?”

“But really—” began Carol, bewildered by all that was expected of her, “I’m not—I can’t—I didn’t come out here to—”

“I know,” laughed Fawcett with his easy air of sliding everything off lightly. “But you
must
, you
will
, you know. You’re
here
, you know, and Uncle Caleb isn’t, so that’s that. Here’s our station. Shall we go? Let me carry the briefcase. Yes, porter, the bag. How much time do you want to rest and dress, Miss Berkley? Would you rather talk before or after? I can arrange my time to suit yours. But we must go over those papers of my uncle’s or we might get all balled up tonight.”

Carol found herself being whirled through the strange city streets in a daze. She seemed no longer to have the power to protest. Some force stronger than herself had taken possession of her now. She had agreed to be its servant, and this was the result. She was being made to attend a banquet—the dinner had grown to the proportions of a banquet now, and relentlessly she was being drawn on to attend it and to make a speech before a lot of men! It choked her to think of it, and yet somehow she could do nothing about it. Her trunk, too, had joined the conspirators and was riding behind with an air of disloyalty that made her half afraid.

She looked in awe at the magnificent structure before which they presently stopped. The excellent hotel of the seashore resort receded into oblivion before the splendors of this stately portal. She stepped inside with Mr. Fawcett and suddenly felt very small and insignificant indeed. What would Mother and Betty say when they heard how she was housed in Chicago?

As she stood at the desk while her escort arranged for the room, which he had had reserved earlier in the day, she glimpsed a glorified elevator in luxurious upholstery and bronze, and watched two men; a long, lank one and a stout, short fellow in a checked suit; step inside. They turned around and she saw their two faces as the bronze door clanked its noisy lattice shut and they were lifted out of her sight. Her heart seemed to go dead within her. Who
were
those two men?

Up in her room Carol opened her bag. There on the top was her Bible, and she remembered that the day was well on and she had not yet kept her promise to her mother. It might be after midnight when she got back from the banquet; better get this over with.

A card dropped out as she picked up the book. On it was written in her mother’s careful script, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”

Poor Mother! She was always doing things like that hoping they would get across.

Impatiently Carol fluttered over the leaves of the Bible. Proverbs. That was a nice impersonal book; it would have short, crisp verses and not take much time. Time was going fast and she must keep at least the letter of her promise. At random she opened at the third chapter and caught at a verse: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

How strange! It was almost as if the verses were written for her. She put the book sharply down on the dressing table and went on with her dressing, yet all the time in her heart putting up some sort of a wild little longing that the promise might be made good in what she was about to do. Whether it was all prayer, or part superstition, or merely a reversion to a childish habit, she was not quite sure.

C
arol chose the jade velvet—partly because it was the first thing in sight when she opened her trunk and seemed to revive her drooping spirits with its delicate, elusive color, and partly because it was the grandest thing she owned, the only dress in her wardrobe that had not been made at home. It was a little bargain that a friend who was a buyer in a large department store had picked up abroad, worn once, then decided was unbecoming to her sallow complexion and sold to Carol at a ridiculously low price. Carol had never hoped to own a real imported dress until this dawned upon her excited vision. She knew in her heart when she bought it that she was scarcely justified in buying a dress like this for the few times it would be possible or appropriate in her busy life to wear it.

But now it flung its delicate beauty at her triumphant. Here, at last its justification, was an occasion fully equal to the gown, and of course it was what she would wear. For a few minutes she hugged the thought to her heart. The money had not been misspent after all, for she needed something like this to carry off her part in the evening. Utterly without experience either socially or commercially, she must have something to back her up. She had always scorned women who depended for their successes upon clothes, but now clothes suddenly took on a more important part in the matters of life. For if she had no speech to charm the guests with, whom she was expected to entertain as part of her job, no brilliant sayings to make them forget her lack of business experience, at least she could give them this luscious color to look at while she said a few simple words.

While she excitedly hunted for silver shoes and stockings, she almost forgot the two men whose sudden appearance in the hotel had so startled her before she came to her room. After all, they had journeyed to Chicago in the same train; what could be more natural than that they should happen on the same hotel? It was ridiculous to think they were following her. They were becoming an obsession. They very likely had no idea who she was. They were just a pair of rude men, somehow mixed up in the affairs of the Fawcett Construction Company, as hired henchmen likely, from somebody who had a grudge against the Fawcetts. Anyhow, what was the use of letting them worry her tonight? She certainly was safe enough for the present and so was her business. Tomorrow would be time enough to consider this case, and perhaps tonight she might find someone in whom she would care to confide, someone of whom to ask advice. But no, it would be better to keep things to herself until she could get a message through to Mr. Fawcett himself. Perhaps in a few days he would be better, might even be well enough to talk on the phone, or better still to come on by the end of the next week and shoulder the whole responsibility.

With this comforting reflection she went about the business of dressing with something like actual pleasure. Of course she was tired, but the excitement of the evening had made her forget.

She turned on the water in her wonderful white bathroom and thought how she would describe it all to Mother and Betty—this more than excellent hotel in which she was to be housed for the night. A telephone by her luxurious bed, lights in every conceivable corner where one could possibly desire to see, a dream of a desk with an assortment of important-looking stationery of various sizes and shapes! She certainly would write at least a note home that night before she slept no matter how sleepy she was when she returned to the hotel.

Refreshed by a luxurious bath and arrayed at last in the lovely dress, she stood before the mirror and looked at herself critically. She was startled to see how little she resembled the quiet, somberly dressed secretary from the inner office of the Fawcett Construction Company. In the first place, there was a radiance about her face that she could not in the least understand, like a child off on a picnic. Was it possible that after all she was
enjoying
this impossible job which she had undertaken? She looked herself straight in the eye and resolved to have it out with herself when she was rested from this evening. She must understand her own soul and its motives or she surely would never be able to go on with things.

But aside from the radiance of her face, she was thrilled to know that she looked like a lady, every inch of her, from the tip of her silver shoe to the crown of the red-gold waves of her shining hair. The lines of her gown were simple and perfect, and the light powdering of glittering specks was just enough to relieve the plainness of the dress. She looked like some lovely evening moth about to fly in the moonlight. The little string of inexpensive but nicely cut crystal beads around her throat seemed to be a part of the dress, and the lights and shades on the velvet reminded of nothing else but the bloom on a butterfly’s wing.

But Carol was not thinking of all this; she was examining herself critically from the standpoint of the world. Did she look like a representative of a great New York firm ought to look to undertake the business of the evening? In the words of her small brother at home, did she look “as if she knew her onions?”

While she was still critically, uncertainly, pondering the question, the telephone rang and a voice from the office made it known that Mr. Fawcett was awaiting her coming.

With a quick glance into the mirror and a catch of her breath at the thought that she was about to go out on the most tenuous undertaking she had ever yet attempted, she threw her white evening cloak around her shoulders and gave another glance into the mirror with a tender thought for the mother and sister whose secret purchase the wrap had been. She knew the many trips to the stores they had taken in search of just the right thing, their glee over having found one with some lovely white fur on the collar. She had thought to wear it to the beach for the first time tonight, but here she was in a far-off city about to go to a banquet, and thanks to her mother and sister there was nothing wanting from the conventional outfits that other people wore on such occasions. Feeling comfortable in this knowledge, she snapped out the light, locked her door, and went down to meet Mr. Frederick Fawcett.