A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill Part 34

"We thought you were never coming to see us, Cousin Don," she said, half pouting, and giving a side glance at Noah Wicker. "You 've been home a whole week!"

"Heavens, Connie! I didn't expect to find you so grown up. How long have you been out?"

"I 've never been in," she said, releasing her hand and smiling consciously. "Aren't you coming to the Bartrums' party to-night?"

"No, I'm not in a mood for parties these days."

"But I 've never had a chance to dance with you since you taught me to waltz."

"Horrible deprivation! Can you still do the cake walk I taught you?"

"Yes, and so can Miss Lady! Isn't it funny? She says it 's the one the darkeys dance at the picnics up at Thornwood! Come on, Miss Lady; let 's show them!"

"Constance, Constance!" remonstrated the Doctor gently, as the girl seized Miss Lady's hands and tried to draw her to her feet. "You see, Donald, the children forget that Mrs. Queerington is anything but a play-fellow, and sometimes--" he rose and laid a hand on her shoulder, "sometimes she forgets, too."

Donald pushed back his chair abruptly.

"I think I'll come to the party, Connie, after all. I'll run up to Decker's room at the hotel and change my togs. You will save me a waltz or two?"

"All of them, if you like! It's going to be the jolliest dance of the season, everybody says so. Change your mind, Miss Lady, and come! I don't see how you can hesitate when you remember the time you had at the Sequins'! Gerald is coming for me; we can all go down together."

Miss Lady needed only the spark of Connie's enthusiasm to start all the forbidden fires in her. Her eyes flew to the Doctor's face.

He smiled as he caught her eager look. "Go with them, my dear, if you like. It is quite a natural instinct, I believe, to celebrate the first night of the New Year."

"But you, will you take me? Just this once, Doctor?"

"No, no. My party days are over. Donald here will take my place, will you not, Donald?"

But Miss Lady gave him no chance to answer. That mad insistent clamor within her for joy, for life, for love, could not be trusted for a moment. She was afraid of herself!

"I'll stay home," she said, with a brave attempt at gaiety, conscious of Donald's critical eyes upon her. "We will have a pinochle tournament, and Noah and I will beat the home team on its own ground. Won't we, Noah?"

But Noah did not hear her; he was absorbed in watching Connie who stood on tiptoe, pinning a flower in Don Morley's b.u.t.tonhole.

CHAPTER XX

For the next month little else was talked about but Donald Morley's trial. The truth of the matter sustained a compound fracture every time the subject was discussed. In some quarters it was confidently a.s.serted that the fugitive from justice had been captured the moment he landed in America, and was allowed his liberty only under a heavy bond. Others contended that a guilty conscience had driven him to confession.

Meanwhile his friends were either exasperated at his folly in reviving the old scandal, or quixotically enthusiastic over his demand for justice. Mrs. Sequin bitterly opposed his action until she found that the Bartrums, Dr. Queerington, and other influential friends upheld him, then she decided to suspend her judgment until the trial was over. Of course if he was going to be a hero, she wanted to be his loving sister, but if he was going to be convicted, she would have nothing more to do with him. He had gone directly against her advice in coming home, and she observed with ominous certainty that "he would see."

Donald threw himself into the work before him with grim determination.

He spent hours daily in Mr. Gooch's stuffy office going over transcript of testimony in the Dillingham trial; he made a number of visits to Billy-goat Hill, recalling every detail of the shooting. On the first visit he had sought out Sheeley, confident of being able to jog his memory, concerning his part in the affray, but to his dismay he found that Sheeley had already been summoned to the office of the prosecuting attorney. In every direction he turned he encountered the octopus of the law.

Mr. Gooch gave him little encouragement. He wheezed, and whined, and contested every suggestion. His client appeared to him a foolhardy boy who had gotten well out of an ugly sc.r.a.pe, and did not have sense enough to stay out. So strongly did he feel this that he felt called upon to express it at great length, on every possible occasion.

Donald would sit before him with arms folded, and jaws set, waiting impatiently for these harangues to cease. He had employed him because he was the family lawyer, and because he was a friend of Doctor Queerington's. At the end of the first week he realized that he had made a mistake, and confided the fact to Noah Wicker.

Noah, having successfully worked through the law course at the university, was now, by the persistent efforts of Miss Lady, occupying a dark corner of Mr. Gooch's outer office. Here, with feet hooked under a rung of a stool, and fingers grasping his pompadour, he doggedly wrestled with the cases he heard in court, laboriously puzzling out obscure points by the aid of the Statute and the Code.

Donald soon fell into the habit of discussing his approaching trial with him, at such times as Mr. Gooch was absent. He found Noah's calm, impersonal point of view a relief after the skeptical, disapproving att.i.tude of the older attorney.

During these days Donald spent as little time as possible at Angora Heights. The family skeletons that had always lurked in the Sequin closets, seemed to revel in their commodious new quarters. It is a melancholy fact that the more closets one acquires, the more skeletons there are to occupy them!

Mrs. Sequin's existence, if restless in town, was trebly so in the country. Between catching trains and receiving and speeding guests, engaging and dismissing servants, and agonizing over the non-essentials, she dwelt in the vortex of a whirlwind that disturbed everything in its wake.

Between her and Margery the gulf was widening. Having declared her independence, the girl went further, and entered a training cla.s.s in the kindergarten, an act which caused a rupture that threatened to be serious, until the head of the family for once a.s.serted his authority, and unexpectedly sided with his daughter.

Basil Sequin during these days had little time to bestow upon family matters. He rose at six o'clock, drank three cups of black coffee, devoured the newspapers, and was on the way to the office before his gardener was out of bed. Before and after banking hours he had committee meetings, and special appointments, s.n.a.t.c.hing a few minutes for luncheon at the nearest restaurant.

Donald had had but one chance to talk with him since his return, and that was one evening when he was summoned to his den. He found him pacing restlessly up and down the room, his hands thrust deep in his pockets.

"You've decided to stand the trial, I hear?" Mr. Sequin asked abruptly.

"Yes, I had to get the matter cleared up. It is all so idiotic, my being indicted! I don't antic.i.p.ate any trouble."

"You can't tell," said Mr. Sequin, "but I didn't send for you to discuss the trial. It's business I want to talk about. Do you know how much stock you own in the People's Bank?"

"No, I can't say that I do exactly."

"Well, it's time you were finding out. How would you like to take charge of your own affairs from now on?"

Donald looked at him in undisguised surprise. Heretofore the only time that money matters had been discussed between them was when he had been guilty of some extra extravagance. This sudden change of tactics on the part of his brother-in-law was disconcerting.

"Why, I shouldn't like it at all, unless it would relieve you," he said.

"It isn't that. One bother more or less doesn't matter. The point is, I want you to act for yourself. The result of this trial is by no means certain; you may need considerable ready money before you get through with it. Why don't you sell your bank stock, and make some better paying investments on your own hook?"

"Why, I thought the bank stock--" began Donald, but Mr. Sequin wheeled upon him impatiently.

"Do you want my advice or not?"

"Of course I want it."

"Very well. Listen to me. Almost every dollar you have is tied up in the People's Bank. Go down to-morrow morning to a broker, Gilson's the best man, tell him that you must have a big sum of money at once. In order to get it you are willing to sacrifice every share of your People's stock.

Tell him not to put it on the market, but to sell it in small blocks to different people, and not to stick at the price. Make him understand that it has to do with your trial, and caution him particularly not to let me know of the transaction."

"But I don't understand," said Donald, watching with troubled eyes the stooped figure that continued to pace up and down the room like an animal in a cage.

"I didn't offer to explain. I offered to advise," Mr. Sequin snarled.

"There are complications that couldn't be made clear to you in a month!

I'll ask you not to refer to this matter again to me or to any one else.

I have a lot of papers to look over now, so I'll say good night."