A Pasteboard Crown Part 22

The darkness seemed to hide something--secret, sweet! A strange, evanescent perfume seemed to have been left out there by beauty, wealth, and fas.h.i.+on! In the mingling odors of rice-powder, orris, violet, and fine tobacco in the close warm air there was a sensuous suggestion of eyes and smiles, of whispers and pressed hands! The potent perfume of human love was all about her! She moved restlessly. "I--the heat! my head!" she whispered, and drew away from him.

He put his foot out and closed the register. "I--I must go now," she slowly added, when there came a sound--a steady, loud sort of even roar, and Thrall knew a very deluge of icy rain must be descending upon the city to be heard so plainly there.

"Go?" he queried, gently. "Go? Why, my child, you could not stand on your feet a moment--the gale would dash you to the earth. Stay here, where you are safe."

The silence closed about them again, yet she vaguely felt there was no calm in it--it seemed only dormant. Then dimly it came to her to ask Mr.

Thrall to let her go to the box-office to wait, when suddenly the building shook as a toy house might have done, and there came a deafening, rumbling crash above their very heads, it seemed, though truly it was a chimney falling above the stage roof, and Sybil's one wild scream of terror was smothered on Thrall's breast!

"Don't, don't, my--!" he whispered, hoa.r.s.ely, holding her trembling hand to his lips and covering it with kisses. "Don't s.h.i.+ver so! 'Twas nothing! You are quite safe--quite safe! Sybil--Princess! I'd shelter you in my arms, and guard you with my life--always! if I might! if I might!"

His arms were about her. The dull roar of the rain was like the roaring from a distant world--they were alone--utterly alone--in the dimness warm and fragrant. She was all unstrung and weak from fright. His words seemed half real, half dreamed. She raised her head--she put two impotent little hands against his breast.

"Please!" she gasped. "I am not frightened now! I--" A strange la.s.situde was upon her. A door somewhere banged heavily--she s.h.i.+vered as at a blow! Her head sank back upon his breast. He bent over her, his face all pa.s.sion-pale, his heavy, drooping lids betraying their girl-like length of lashes.

"Sybil!" he breathed.

Her eyes, wide and startled, met his. "Sybil!" he entreated.

"Sweetheart!" His lips met hers in one long, tender kiss, and the house rocked in the fury of the gale!

CHAPTER XXII

PREPARING THE PIT

For some time the question troubling the Lawton family had been how and where to establish Sybil for the term of her engagement at the Globe.

Returning to Woodsedge after performances was not to be thought of. No, a residence in the city was an absolute necessity.

Mrs. Lawton indignantly wondered if Sybil Van Camp had ever realized that a sort of deputy-maternity devolved upon a G.o.d-mother--a term that had taken Leslie Galt, who was sharing the family council, out of the room in search of a handkerchief in his overcoat pocket. At which Mrs.

Lawton gloomily expressed a fear of his "becoming a fussy old man in time, because," said she, "Leslie had a handkerchief in his breast pocket that might easily have served his purpose. Now, Dorothy," she continued, "take a mother's advice, and check at once any symptom of faddishness that appears in him, or he'll have you in heelless shoes or on a milk diet, or something of that sort, before you know it. But really, dear, you shouldn't interrupt. [Leslie returned to his seat here.] The question at this moment is, what is to become of your unfortunate sister; for though she has cast in her lot with 'mere players,' and has rejected the comfort and sweet privacy of home life, it does not follow that she is prepared to pa.s.s the rest of her life upon the unsheltered, stony streets of the city. What is the matter with you, Leslie? You are not in need of another handkerchief, are you? As I was saying when someone interrupted me, I doubt if Sybil Van Camp ever had any idea of the duties of a G.o.d-mother."

"Rattle," counted Sybil on her fingers, "silver mug, corals----"

"Given long ago!" triumphed Dorothy.

"Renouncing the devil for you," went on Sybil, "and seeing that you knew creed, prayers, commandments, and church catechism----"

"Which she didn't do!" cried Mrs. Lawton; "for I have heard your father bribing you many a time to learn and repeat them to him. And now, if she had any appreciation of the duties devolving upon her, would she not open her home to her G.o.d-daughter, and shelter her for a brief period from the perils of the city?"

"Upon my word, mamma," laughed Sybil, "if you keep on in that strain I'll drop down on all fours and beg for a bone. Anyone would think you were speaking of a homeless dog. G.o.d-mother Van Camp has done more for me than I can ever repay, and she has invited me to stay in her house during my engagement, but it is not to be thought of. Why, papa, dear, I am now quite turning the household topsy-turvey by the irregularity of my hours. Rehearsals may be short, or they may be long. The cook gets cross, and G.o.d-mamma gets anxious. Her daily life is regulated like a railroad schedule for precision and exact.i.tude of time. Then, when acting once begins, the watching for my late return at night would be a cruel penance to G.o.d-mamma and ancient Margaret and the butler Murphy, who is the greatest old woman of the lot. No, I can't think of so desecrating that last retreat of all the Knickerbocker proprieties; but, in a boarding-house----"

"A barracks!" said Leslie. "Oh, I know all about boarding-houses and their keepers, from the black-bugled lady with ancestors down to the loud-voiced, false-fronted person who makes her husband eat in the kitchen, and I tell you a boarding-house is quite out of the question for you."

"That's just what Mr. Thrall said," eagerly interrupted Sybil, "when the matter was mentioned in his presence. And he knows a woman, whom he has employed for years as a wardrobe woman and sort of general dresser, to help those ladies who have no maids of their own. She is a widow, and she owns--mortgaged, of course--one of those old-fas.h.i.+oned, two-and-a-half-story, red-brick bas.e.m.e.nted houses----"

"Take a breath, Syb!" laughed Dorothy.

"That's a gem," gravely a.s.serted Galt, "that descriptive sentence is.

Spoken rapidly it does leave the impression that the widow is mortgaged and a doubt as to the red brick reaching beyond the bas.e.m.e.nt. But when one writes it all out, and punctuates carefully----"

"Leslie Galt, my young brother! Will you remember that you are still on probation? Final vows have not yet been administered. Though under instruction, you have not yet been admitted into the Lawton community for life!"

"That's about the only thing I do remember at all clearly these days,"

answered Galt, smiling meaningly at Dorothy.

But John Lawton rumpled his thin hair, and said, anxiously: "Let's get back to that mortgaged house, daughter--it's most train time for you, dear."

"Well," went on Sybil, drawing her father's hand about her neck as she spoke, "her name is--is, oh, something with an S, Mrs.--Stow--Stover-- Stine--Sty--Stivers! that's it! Mrs. Jane Stivers--odd, isn't it, papa?

And she----"

"My dear child," remonstrated Mrs. Lawton, somewhat wearily, "why will you not adopt my method of remembering names? It's so embarra.s.sing at times to have a cognomen escape you, just when you feel it, too, on the tip of your tongue, but can't get it off. Now, I always a.s.sociate a name with a thing or an action or an idea, and the result is I never have to go skipping through the alphabet as you and Dorothy do. I recall the case of Mrs.--Mrs.--dear me! Mrs.--you know, girls, to whom I refer--that woman I disliked so. I like most people, but she was underbred--at One Hundredth Street? You must remember her perfectly. I know at the time I a.s.sociated her name with something--er--er, something she hated. Now, what did that woman hate? Her husband was bandy--polite enough, but bandy, and he had a cross eye! Something she hated--now what?"

"Perhaps she hated anything very straight," laughed Dorothy. "I think I should under the circ.u.mstances!"

"There!" broke in Mrs. Lawton. "What did I tell you? Straight--she hated anything straight, because her name was Crook! And Mr. Crook was cross-eyed! It's infallible, my system! But do get on, Sybil, or really you will lose that train!"

"Well, papa!" said the girl, in a quivering voice, "Mrs. Stivers's house is--Mr. Thrall says--fairly near the theatre. It is quiet as a church, and in a most respectable quarter. She has been in the habit of renting the second floor to student lodgers. She has never kept regular boarders, but Mr. Thrall thinks she might, for a few dollars increase in the rent, take me in, instead, and do for me. He uses so many Englishy expressions in ordinary conversation. He says her age, character, and habits would recommend her, and another advantage would be that I could go home nights under her wing, without troubling Mr. Roberts for escort, who lives in the opposite direction. The parlor, he says, is given over to horse-hair. Mrs. Stivers was married during the mahogany reign of terror, you see. But I could do what I liked in my own room, to modernize. And, mamma, he proposes, as she can't come from her work out here, to be interviewed by you, that you authorize Mrs. Van Camp [Let.i.tia straightened up in her chair] to receive her and talk the matter over, and then to report to you for your decision."

Mrs. Lawton closed her eyes, and said, impressively: "A most sensible suggestion from a man tres comme il faut!"

To Sybil's questioning eyes Mr. Lawton answered: "Yes, dear! That has a promising sound. What do you think, Leslie?"

"I agree with you, sir, if the woman is kindly disposed. The fact of her working in the theatre should be a distinct advantage. The question is, will she board as well as lodge her guest? For even if a restaurant were next door Sybil is far too pretty a girl to pa.s.s in and out unnoticed."

"So very like me," breathed Let.i.tia. "It's the Ba.s.sett coloring, I think, that attracts the public eye."

"Dorothy!" exclaimed Sybil, turning from adjusting her hat before the dim old mirror, "my descendants shall rise up and call you blessed, for in the fine art of selecting a brother for your only sister you take the cake. Oh, papa! I beg your pardon! I--I meant she wins the laurel!"

"Sybil!" moaned Mrs. Lawton, distressfully, "I don't wish to rebuke you at the very moment of leave-taking, but, my very dear child, you must really check your tendency toward reckless speech. To allude to your descendants when you are not yet even engaged is not far from indelicacy; and, Dorothy, causeless laughter is rightly esteemed a proof of bad manners. Good-by, my dear; say to Mrs. Van Camp I am quite unable to go to the city in this cold weather, and must therefore ask her to act for me in the case of Mrs.--er, I don't think I quite caught the name? Eh? oh, Stivers--yes, I shall easily remember that by connecting it with a saying contradicted."

"A what, mamma?" laughed the girls.

"Stivers?" repeated Galt, meditatively, "a 'saying contradicted!' I can't find the connection. It's a mystery--impenetrable!"

"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Lawton, "it's very simple. You need just say to yourself 'not worth a stiver'--there's your saying; but she owns a house, there's your contradiction, and you have the name as quickly as possible. Yes, I shall always remember the name Stivers!"

"If," slowly put in John, "if you don't happen to forget 'the saying.'"

And good-by being said, with arms about waists the sisters held in the hall one of those secret conclaves over only heaven and themselves knew what, but without which they were never known to part for more than twenty-four hours.

Then with her moon face all red with heat and hurry Lena rushed out with a package of hot cookies, crying: "I bake dem cake youst by der train time, und dere blazes hot! But I tie 'em mit a long string so you don't com' burnt by der hants!"

Mrs. Lawton came to the door and indignantly demanded: "What folly and presumption is this, Lena Klippert? Retire at once and take your obnoxious offering with you!"

"Den you don' vant dem cookies, my Miss Lady? You tink I com' by der cheek, uf I bring 'em here?" poor Lena quavered, shamefacedly.