Читать книгу Why Joan? - Eleanor Mercein Kelly - Страница 8

Table of Contents

The fellow-traveler who had incurred Miss Darcy's displeasure by a too-active sympathy was much pleased, being of a sentimental turn of mind, to witness a family reunion which presently took place in the station at Louisville. A tall, slender gentleman of a youngish Confederate colonel type—gray mustache and imperial, with a soft hat set very slightly to one side of his handsome head—detached himself from the crowd with a cry of, "Here I am, Dollykins!"

Whereupon the girl dropped all her belongings, and cast herself upon him speechless, to be lifted well off the ground and hugged and kissed very thoroughly.

"Fine! She's got a father, anyway, and a bully old bird at that," thought the young man, who had never owned either father or mother or much of anything else that he could remember. It was his further privilege to hurry after the pair with a suit-case, some magazines, and a box of candy which both had characteristically forgotten.

He was thanked by Major Darcy with an affable smile, and by his daughter with a curt, impersonal nod of dismissal after Sister Mary Joseph's best manner; which also pleased him, for he was by no means a thin-skinned young man, and preferred his gentlewomen haughty. He followed the pair far enough to observe the vehicle to which the father was obviously conducting her.

"Humph!" he said to himself; "rich people!" and turned away, rather disappointed. (Why this should be, the writer cannot say, being merely a chronicler of facts.)

Joan's flow of excited babble paused as she herself saw this vehicle. "Goodness! Are we going home in a taxicab? What grandeur!" she murmured, mentally figuring out the tariff. Then the monogram on the door enlightened her.

"Oh, it's Mrs. Calloway's," she said, relieved, a little ashamed to have quite forgotten the existence of their well-meaning neighbor. "How good of her to send it for me!" she added with a giggle, recalling her recent game of Pretend. "All you need to do to complete the picture, Daddy, is to say, 'Home, James!'"

Major Darcy obligingly murmured, "Home, James!" The chauffeur touched his cap, and enclosed them in the perfumed elegance of the limousine.

Joan gave a crow of laughter, and rubbed her cheek affectionately against her father's sleeve. This was like old times indeed, happy old times, when in his lighter moments the Major had frequently entered into the spirit of her play. The contact of his sleeve was unusually soft, and she suddenly held him at arm's length to see him better.

"Why, Major Darcy! If you haven't gone and bought yourself a new suit in honor of the occasion. A beauty, too!"

He surveyed what he could of himself complacently. "The fellow has given me rather a good fit, I think."

Joan gasped. "'The fellow!' Then it's not a ready-made—you've actually been to a tailor for it? Oh, Daddy darling!" she cried excitedly, "have you been making money?"

The Major's eyebrows lifted. "I believe," he remarked, "that I have usually made money, have I not? Sufficient, at least, to keep my family comfortable."

Joan was reminded with a jerk of Darcy traditions. "Of course!" She flushed. "I didn't mean—"

And suddenly she realized that the look she had been so long dreading to see in his eyes, that expression of anxiety which was almost fear, had quite disappeared. There was an air about him of security, of nonchalance, as one who would say, "Bring on your Indians! Who's afraid?" (Not that the Major would have condescended to know the meaning of the family expression, "Indians.")

Joan gave his hand a quick little squeeze that was oddly maternal. "I'm so glad, Dad," she said quietly; and went on to speak of other things.

They turned into the street where home was. Silence fell upon her. The prospect of facing her mother's absence was more difficult than she had thought it would be. At least there was Ellen to comfort her; gruff, matter-of-fact old Ellen, always at her crossest when most deeply moved. She pinned her thoughts to Ellen.

The Major's recent prosperity seemed not to have affected his dwelling-place as yet. As they drew near, Joan saw even in the dusk that the little lawn in front needed attention; nor was there so much as a light in the window to greet her—Ellen was always so careful about the gasbill. Then, as the limousine did not stop, she realized the For Rent sign on the door.

"Why, Dad, we've moved!" she cried with an odd pang at her heart. "Oh, but where?"

"Wait and see. 'Lay-lows for meddlers,'" he smiled, pleased with his little stage-effect.

The limousine bowled smoothly around the corner into the fashionable avenue beyond; and Joan thought, with a habit of anxiety beyond her years, that the new money would not last long if they were to live in such a neighborhood as this. But they stopped at a door she remembered, an imposing door with a porte-cochère, where, still as in her game of Pretend, a lady in a tea-gown stood waiting for them. Not, however, her mother.

"Here you are at last, girlie!" cried the cheery voice of Mrs. Calloway; and she was received into a voluminous pink chiffon embrace, highly scented with the latest thing in perfumes.

Joan fought her way quite rudely out of this embrace, feeling suffocated. Her knees had begun to tremble.

"Are—are we visiting you!" she quavered, piteously putting off the inevitable.

The lady laughed, a laugh as plump and soft and cushiony as the rest of her. "There, now, Dickie; I don't believe you've had the nerve to tell her yet!"

She rustled over and stood beside the Major, slightly in front of him, so that she could lean back archly against his shoulder; a position which seemed to bring an arm automatically into position about her waist.

"Dollykins," said Richard Darcy, clearing his throat and not quite meeting the girl's wide gaze, "this is my—my graduation gift to you. Your new mamma!"