Girl Alone Part 33

Enid Barr left with her daughter for Kansas City that night, after wiring her husband, Courtney Barr, who was still awaiting word from her in Capital City. For two days Sally and Enid shopped for a suitable wardrobe for Sally, went to shows together, explored the city, and spent many hours talking. Whenever the question of Sally's future arose, Enid spoke only in generalities, evading all direct questions, but about Sally's childhood and young girlhood in the orphanage and on the Carson farm, and about her experiences with the carnival, Enid was insatiably curious and invariably sympathetic. Sally sensed that her mother was anxiously awaiting Courtney Barr's arrival before making any definite plans, and gradually the girl grew to dread the ordeal of meeting her mother's husband, the man who would become her father by adoption.

And when at last he came she knew that her troubled intuition had been correct. However "wonderful" he had been to Enid when she had discovered that her child had not been born dead but was alive somewhere in the world, Sally felt instantly that his kindness and generosity toward Enid would not extend to herself.

Courtney Barr was a meticulously groomed, meticulously courteous man who had, in slipping into middle-age, lost all traces of the boy and youth he must have been. To Sally's terrified eyes, this rather heavy, ponderous man, on whom dignity rested like a royal cloak, looked as if he had been born old and wise and cold. She wondered how her exquisite, arrogant little mother could love him so devotedly.

Almost immediately after the awkward introduction-"This is our Sally, Court!"-the three of them had had dinner together, a silent meal, so far as Sally was concerned. She had felt that the Enid with whom she had talked and laughed and wept these two days had slipped away, leaving this sophisticated, strange woman in her place, a woman who was in nowise related to her, a woman who was merely Mrs. Courtney Barr.

They left her alone for an hour after dinner, an hour which she spent in her own room in writing a long, frightened, appealing letter to David.

At nine o'clock Enid knocked on her door and invited her to join them in the parlor of the luxurious suite which had been such a delight to orphanage-bred Sally.

She found Courtney Barr seated in a large arm chair, her mother perched on the arm of it, one tiny foot in a silver slipper swinging with nervous rapidity. The man smiled bleakly, a smile that did not reach his cold gray eyes, as Sally took the nearby chair that he indicated.

"Mrs. Barr and I have been discussing your immediate future, Sally," he began ponderously, in tones that he evidently thought were kind.

Inst.i.tutional timidity closed down upon Sally; under those cold eyes she lost that ephemeral beauty of hers which depended so largely upon her emotions. It was her inst.i.tutional voice-meekness hiding fear and rebellion-which answered: "Yes, sir."

"Oh, let me talk to her, Court!" Enid begged. "You're scaring my baby to death. He fancies himself as an old ogre, Sally darling, but he's really a dear inside. You see, Sally, I was so eager to find my baby that I made no plans at all."

Courtney Barr said, "I think I'd better do the talking after all, my dear. Your sentimentality-natural, of course, under the circ.u.mstances-would make it impossible for you to state the case clearly and convincingly."

Sally's cold hands clasped each other tightly in her lap as she stared with wide, frightened eyes at the man who was about to arrange her whole future for her.

"I have made Mrs. Barr understand how impossible it will be for us to take you into our home at once, as our adopted daughter," Courtney Barr went on in his heavy, judicial voice.

Sally sprang to her feet, her eyes blazing in her white face. "I didn't ask to be found, to be adopted!" she cried. "If you don't want me, say so, and let me go back to David!"

It was the loving distress on Enid Barr's quivering face that quickly brought Sally to bewildered, humiliated submission, rather than the cold anger and ill-concealed hatred in Courtney Barr's pale gray eyes. Enid had left the arm of her husband's chair and had drawn Sally to a little rose-up-holstered settee, and it was with her mother's hand cuddling hers compa.s.sionately that Sally listened as the man's heavy, judicial voice went on and on:

"I am sure, Sally, that when you have had time for reflection you will see my viewpoint. Naturally, your mother's happiness means more to me than does yours, and I believe I know my wife well enough to state positively that a newspaper scandal or even gossip among our own circle would cause her the most acute distress. It shall be our task, Sally, to see that she is spared such distress.

"I'm sorry to appear brutal," Barr said stiffly. "But it is better for us to face the facts, for if our friends ever know them they will not mince words. If you should come into our home now, as you are, gossips would immediately set themselves to dig up the facts. Too many people already know that Sally Ford has been sought by the police as a-delinquent. My wife and I could not possibly hope to explain our extraordinary interest in a runaway orphan. Do you agree with me, Sally?" He tried to make his voice kind, but his eyes were as cold and hard as steel.

"Yes, sir," Sally agreed in her meek, inst.i.tutional voice. But she felt so sick with shame and anger that her only desire then was to run and run and run until she found a haven in David's arms. At the thought, some of the spiritedness which her few weeks of independence had fostered in her a.s.serted itself. "But, Mr. Barr, if I would disgrace my mother, why don't you let me go? I can marry David and no one will ever know that I have a mother-"

"That is very sensible, Sally," Courtney Barr nodded, a gleam of kindliness in his cold eyes, "and I have tried to make your mother believe that your happiness would be best a.s.sured by your sticking to your own cla.s.s-"

"It isn't her cla.s.s, if you mean that she's suited only to poverty and hard work!" Enid Barr interrupted pa.s.sionately. "Look at her, Court!

She's a born lady! She's fine and delicate clear through-"

"And so is David!" Sally cried indignantly. "He may be middle-cla.s.s, but he's the finest, most honorable man in the world!"

"We shall not quarrel about cla.s.s," Courtney Barr cut in with heavy dignity. "The important thing is that your mother is determined to have you, to fit you for the station to which she belongs. I believe she is making a mistake, both from your standpoint and from hers, but I am willing to agree to a sensible arrangement. Our plan now, Sally, is to put you into a conservative, rather obscure girls' finis.h.i.+ng school in the South. I have several relatives-'poor relations,' I suppose you would call them-in the South, and it is my suggestion that you enter school as my ward-mine, you understand, not your mother's, so that any suspicion as to your real parentage will rest upon me, rather than upon her." He arched his eyebrows at Sally, looking rather consciously n.o.ble, and she nodded miserably. "During the two years that you will be in school-"

"Two years!" Sally echoed blankly. Two years more of loneliness, of not belonging, of being an orphan!

"Two years will pa.s.s very quickly," Courtney Barr a.s.sured her. "Enid, please control yourself! I am infinitely sorry to distress you in this manner, but it is the only sensible thing to do."

"Yes, Court," Enid choked and buried her exquisite face in her small, useless-looking white hands.

Sally put her arms about her mother, and leaned her glossy black head against the golden one. "I'll try to be contented and happy, Mr. Barr.

Of course I want to protect Mother-"

"That is another thing, Sally," Courtney Barr interrupted in an almost gentle voice. "You must try to remember not to refer to Mrs. Barr as your mother in the hearing of anyone-anyone! If we are going to protect her, we must begin now."

"Yes, sir," Sally bowed her head lower so he might not see her tears.

"Both Mrs. Barr and I will drop casual remarks about my pretty young ward in school down South, until our friends have become accustomed to the idea. You will be registered as Sally Barr, a distant relative of my own, and my ward. It is even probable that it would not be unwise to have you with us for a short time next summer. We have an estate on Long Island, you know.

"As my ward and as my distant relative, you would not be particularly conspicuous, but our friends would meet you casually and be the less surprised when it became known that Mrs. Barr and I had decided to adopt you as our daughter. All our friends and acquaintances know that it has been a great grief to us that we have no children, and I believe our action in this matter would occasion no great surprise. The adoption itself will take place before your eighteenth birthday, while you are still in school. If there is any newspaper publicity, it will be of an innocuous kind, I hope.

"Naturally I shall take care that any newspaper investigation will not be able to go back of the story I shall prepare very carefully, and if there is any hint of scandal at all, it will inevitably reflect on me and not on your mother, as I have already pointed out. After your adoption and your graduation from the finis.h.i.+ng school, you will, of course, take your place in our home as our daughter, will make your debut in society that fall, and, I hope, be very happy with us and in your new life."

Sally sat very still, her eyes wide and blank, while her bewildered, unhappy mind tried to picture the future which Courtney Barr was outlining for her. At last she shook her head, as if to clear away the mists of doubt and bewilderment. Her mother had taken Sally's little lax, cold hands and was cuddling them against her cheeks, bringing a fingertip to her lips occasionally.

"Poor baby! And-poor mother!" Enid whispered brokenly, and the spell was broken. The hard lump of unhappiness and resentment that had been aching in Sally's throat since Courtney Barr had begun to speak melted in tears. They wept in each other's arms, while Enid's husband walked impatiently up and down the room.

When the storm had spent itself, Sally remembered David again, and pain and fear contracted her heart sharply.

"Did you see David, Mr. Barr?" She sat up and dabbed at her wet cheeks with one of the exquisite sheer linen handkerchiefs which Enid had given her.

"Oh, yes, yes!" Barr answered quickly. "I managed his affairs very neatly. Rand, the district attorney, personally attended to the quas.h.i.+ng of the charges against him, and it cost only a thousand dollars to get Carson to issue a statement to the press that he had really seen nothing compromising between young Nash and yourself. He also admitted that the boy's anger had been in a measure justified, that the a.s.sault had been provoked by his own mistaken charges against you and Nash. The boy's reputation is cleared now and he can go back to college this fall. I also saw his grandfather and persuaded him that the boy had been a hero rather than a blackguard. Young Nash is at home on his grandfather's farm again, so that incident is successfully closed."

Grat.i.tude brought Sally to her feet. "Thank you, Mr. Barr! You've been wonderful! It won't be so hard for me to be away at school if I know that David is in school, too. I wrote him tonight, but I'll tear it up and write a new letter, telling him all about everything and how happy I am that he's free of those awful charges-"

"No, Sally," Barr interrupted, frowning. "Your mother and I are agreed that you must not write to young Nash, that there must be no thought of an engagement-"

"Not write to David?" Sally, echoed blankly. "I love David, Mr. Barr, and I always will. It's not fair to ask me to promise not to write to him."

"I already have his promise not to write to you," Barr told her implacably. "He understands the situation, agrees with your mother and me that your past must be forgotten as quickly as possible. You are entering upon a new life tomorrow when you leave for Virginia with me, a life that will be totally different from David Nash's. You will-though you don't seem to realize it-be an heiress to great wealth some day-"

"You told him that!" Sally accused him hotly. "You told him he'd be a fortune-hunter if he tried to marry me when I'm of age! Oh, you're not fair! You have no right to turn David against me, when I love him as I do-"

"You're only sixteen, Sally!" Barr cut in sternly, "You don't know the meaning of the word love-"

"Please, Court," Enid begged, her own face white and drawn with pity for Sally. "Please let me handle this myself. Sally is overwrought now, nervously exhausted. Come along to bed now, darling," she coaxed, her little hands upon Sally's shoulders. "Let Mother tuck you up and sing you a lullaby. I'm not going to be cheated of that experience even if my baby is bigger than I am."

Fresh tears gushed into Sally's eyes, and she allowed herself to be led away. At the door she paused:

"Good night, Mr. Barr. I-I don't want you to think I don't appreciate what you've done for me-and David-and what you're going to do for me. I do think you're good and that you want to be kind to me, but I know you're making a mistake about David and me. I am young, but I know I love David and that I'll never want to marry anyone else."

Courtney Barr flushed and looked embarra.s.sed. "Thank you, Sally. I'm sure we'll be friends. I want to be. I expect to take my duty as your father very seriously, to try to make you happy. As for David, time has a way of settling things if we only give it a chance. By the way, my dear," he added hastily as Sally was about to pa.s.s on into her bedroom with her mother, "I think it will be wiser if your mother does not accompany us to Virginia. I will arrange for you to board with my relatives in Virginia until school opens this fall. They will be glad, for a consideration, to do and say anything I wish them to in regard to you, and we must begin immediately to take every precaution to protect your mother."

"Yes, sir," Sally answered faintly, her eyes appealing to Enid for consolation.

When Sally was in bed, having been flutteringly and lovingly a.s.sisted in her preparation by her mother, Enid bent over her to whisper:

"Darling, darling, don't look so forlorn! Two years will pa.s.s so swiftly and if you're very good, we'll let you ask David to your coming-out party."