Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: Blotted Out by Holding Elisabeth Sanxay
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page
Ebook has 658 lines and 21509 words, and 14 pages
n't you wait there?"
"Look here!" said Ross. "I don't like this sort of thing."
Before his tone her wrath vanished at once.
"I'm sorry, Jimmy!" she said. "I didn't mean to be horrid. Only, it was so hard for me to slip away--and I went all the way out to the garage in the cold and the dark, and you weren't there--and I'm so terribly worried. Oh, you will hurry, won't you?"
"Hurry? Well, what do you want me to do?"
"But just what--"
"Go out and hide some place where you can watch the front door. And if you see him coming--stop him! A thin, dark man, with a mustache. Oh, hurry, Jimmy! All evening long I've been waiting and waiting--in torment--for the sound of the bell. Go, Jimmy dear!"
"How long do you expect me to wait for him?"
"Oh, not so awfully long, dear. Just--" She paused. "Just till Eddy comes home. I'm sure he won't be late. Now hurry!"
"I don't want to do this," said Ross. "I can't stop--"
"Oh, shut up!" she cried; and then tried to atone by patting his cheek. "Jimmy, I'm desperate! Just help me this once! Tomorrow I'll explain it all, and you'll see. Only go now!"
"I'll have to get my overcoat from the garage," he explained.
"All right, dear!" she said, gently, and turned away. And as he went toward the back door, he heard her sob.
All the way to the garage that sob echoed in his ears. Her tears had not affected him; they were too facile, too convenient. But that half stifled sob in the dark--He went quickly, taking the key from his pocket as he went; he, too, was in a hurry, now, to spare her this thing she dreaded.
He unlocked the door, turned on the switch, ran up the stairs, through the sitting room, and into the bedroom, where his coat hung.
He stopped short in the doorway. For, sitting on the bed was a tiny girl, seriously engaged in tying a ribbon about the waist of a white flannel rabbit. She looked up at the young man, but apparently was not interested, and went on with her job.
"Lil-lee," said she.
"Yes, but I mean--how did you get here?"
"I comed in a balloon," she assured him.
Ross was completely ignorant about young children, but he realized that they were not to be held strictly accountable for their statements. And this child was such a very small one; such a funny little doll. She had a great mane of fair hair hanging about her shoulders, and, on one temple, a wilted bit of pink ribbon; she had serene blue eyes, a plump and serious face, by no means clean.
She wore a white dress, still less clean, a coral necklace, white--or grayish white--socks all down about her ankles, and the most dreadful little white shoes. He observed all this, because it was his way to observe, and because he was so amazed that he could do nothing but stare at her.
"But who brought you?" he asked.
"Minoo," she replied.
"Who's Minoo?"
The child held up the rabbit.
"Oh, Lord!" cried Ross. "Won't you please try to be--sensible? I don't know-- Are you all alone here?"
"I fink I are."
"The door was locked," he said, aloud. "I can't see-- But what shall I do with you?"
"Gimme my dindin," said she.
Ross wished to treat so small and manifestly incompetent a creature with all possible courtesy, but he was handicapped by his inexperience.
"Look here, Lily!" he said, earnestly. "I'm in the deuce of a hurry just now. If you'll wait here, I'll come back as soon as I can."
"I will be a good baby!" said she. "But I want my dindin!"
He could have torn his hair. He could not fail Amy now. And he could not leave a good baby alone and hungry, for he did not know how long.
"Shall I take it to the house?" he thought. "The cook would feed it. But--perhaps it's another of these damned mysteries. I haven't time to think it out now. I'd better keep it here until I've thought a bit. See here, Lily, what do you eat?"
"Dindin," Lily answered.
"Yes, I know. But--I've got bread. Will that do?"
He hurried into the kitchen, cut four good, sturdy slices of bread, covered them well with butter and sugar, and brought them back on a plate. Then, with a vague memory of a puppy he had once had, he thought of water, and brought a glassful.
"Now I've got to go, Lily," he explained. "But I'll come back as soon as I can. You just wait, see?"
"I will!" she said, pleasantly, and held out her arms.
He hesitated for a moment, half frightened; then he caught up the funny little doll and kissed its cheek.
It was not a doll. It was warm and alive, and solider than it looked. It clung to him, and kissed him back again.
"You won't feel the cold the first winter in the States."
That was what people in Manila and Porto Rico had told Ross. He thought of those people now. You didn't feel it, did you? Yes, you did!
He had found "some place where he could hide and watch the front door"; a plantation of firs halfway between the house and the gates. He had been there more than an hour, prowling up and down behind the screen of branches; he had at first tried to smoke, but darkness and cold annihilated any sort of zest in the tobacco. He had attempted the army setting-up exercises, considerably hampered by his overcoat; but nothing produced in him either bodily warmth or a patient serenity of mind.
He was worried about that child. Not once did he say to himself that it was none of his business; he admitted willingly that a creature of that size had a claim upon all full-grown persons; he admitted that, whoever it was, and wherever it came from, it was entitled to his protection.
"She's too little to be left there alone," he thought. "Much too little. They always have nurses--or some one. She might fall down the stairs--or turn on the gas stove. I've been gone more than an hour. Good Lord! This is too much! What the devil's the matter with that fellow, anyhow?"
He was disgusted with this thin dark man with a mustache, who was so outrageously late in coming. Very likely the funny little doll was sitting up there, crying. The raw cold pierced to the marrow of his bones.
And this, he reflected, was his second night in his native land. The first had been spent imprisoned in the garage, at the point of a revolver, but it had been a thousand times better than this. He had been warm and comfortable--and he had been innocent, a victim. Now he was taking an active part in a thoroughly discreditable affair.
He was committed to wait for a thin dark man with a mustache, and to prevent his entering the house. And how was he to do this? Walk up to him and begin to expostulate? Try to bribe him?
The thought of bribery aroused in the young man an anger which almost made him warm. No Ross would ever pay blackmail. Indeed, no Ross of his branch was fond of parting with money for any purpose at all. They were very prompt in paying their just bills and debts, but they took care that these should be moderate.
"No!" thought Ross. "If I was fool enough to give this fellow money, he'd only come back for more, later on. I'm not going to start that. No! But how am I going to stop him? Knock him out? That's all very well, but suppose he knocked me out? Or he may carry a gun. Of course, I suppose I could come up behind him and crack him over the head with a rock. That's what my Cousin Amy would appreciate. But somehow it doesn't appeal to me. After all, what have I got against this fellow? What do I know about him? Only what she's told me. And she's not what you'd call overparticular with her words."
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page