Читать книгу Rose O'Paradise - Grace Miller White - Страница 6

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On a hill, reared back from a northern lake, stood a weather-beaten farmhouse, creaking in a heavy winter blizzard. It was an old-fashioned, many-pillared structure. The earmarks of hard winters and the fierce suns of summer were upon it. From the main road it was scarcely discernible, settled, as it was, behind a row of pine trees, which in the night wind beat and tossed mournfully.

In the front room, which faced the porch, sat a man—a tall, thin man, with straight, long jaws, and heavy overhanging brows. With moody eyes he was staring into the grate fire, a fearful expression upon his face.

He straightened his shoulders, got up, and paced the floor back and forth, stopping now and then to listen expectantly. Then again he seated himself to wait. Several times, passionately insistent, he shook his head, and it was as if the refusal were being made to an invisible presence. Suddenly he lifted his face as the sound of a weird, wild wail was borne to him, mingling with the elf-like moaning of the wind. He leaned forward slightly, listening intently. From somewhere above him pleading notes from a violin were making the night even more mournful. A change came over the thin face. 10

“My God!” he exclaimed aloud. “Who’s playing like that?”

He crossed the room and jerked the bell-rope roughly. In a few moments the head of a middle-aged colored woman appeared at the door.

“Did you tell my daughter I wanted to see her?” questioned the man.

“No, sah, I didn’t. When you got here she wasn’t in. Then she slid to the garret afore I saw ’er. Now she’s got to finish her fiddlin’ afore I tell ’er you’re here. I never bother Miss Jinnie when she’s fiddlin’, sah.” The old woman bowed obsequiously, as if pleading pardon.

The man made a threatening gesture.

“Go immediately and send her to me,” said he.

For perhaps twenty minutes he sat there, his ears straining to catch, through the whistling wind, the sounds of that wild, unearthly tune—a tune different from any he had ever heard. Then at length it stopped, and he sank back into his chair.

He turned expectantly toward the door. Footsteps, bounding with life, with strength, were bearing down upon him. Suddenly a girl’s face—a rosy, lovely face—with rapturous eyes, was turned up to his. At the sight of her stern father, the girl stopped, bringing her feet together at the heels, and bowed. Then they two—Thomas Singleton the second and Virginia, his daughter—looked at each other squarely.

“Ah, come in!” said the man. “I want to talk with you. I believe you’re called Virginia.”

“Yes, sir; Jinnie, for short, sir,” answered the girl, with a slight inclination of her head.

Awkwardly, and with almost an embarrassed manner, she walked in front of the grate to the chair pointed out to her. The man glanced sharply at the strongly-knit young 11 figure, vibrant with that vital thing called “life.” He sighed and dropped back limply. There followed a lengthy silence, until at last Thomas Singleton shifted his feet and spoke slowly, with a grim setting of his teeth.

“I have much to say to you. Sit back farther in your chair and don’t stare at me so.”

His tones were fretful, like those of a man sick of living, yet trying to live. He dropped his chin into the palm of his hand and lapsed into a meditative gloom.

Virginia leaned back, but only in this did she obey, for her eyes were still centered on the man in silent attention. She had little awe of him within her buoyant young soul, but much curiosity lay under the level, penetrating glance she bent upon her father. Here was a man who, according to all the human laws of which Virginia had ever heard, belonged to her, and to her alone. There were no other children and no mother. Yet so little did she know of him that she wouldn’t have recognized him had she met him in the road. Singleton’s uneasy glance, seeking the yellow, licking flames in the grate, crossed hers.

“I told you not to stare at me so, child!” he repeated.

This time the violet eyes wavered just for an instant, then fastened their gaze once more upon the speaker.

“I don’t remember how you look,” she stammered, “and I’d like to know. I can’t tell if I don’t look, can I?”

Her grave words, and possibly the steady, piercing gaze, brought a twitch to the father’s lips. Surely his child had spoken the truth. He himself had almost forgotten he had a girl; that she was the only living creature who had a call upon the slender thread of his life. Had he lived differently, the girl in front of him would have been watching him for some other reason than curiosity.

“That’s why I’m looking at you, sir,” she explained. “If any one on the hills’d say, ‘How’s your father looking, 12 Jinnie?’ if I hadn’t looked at you sharp, sir, how’d I know?”

She sighed as her eyes roved the length of the man once more. The ashes in the grate were no grayer than his face.

“You’re awful thin and white,” she observed.

“I’m sick,” replied Singleton in excuse.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” answered Virginia.

“You’re quite grown up now,” remarked the man presently, with a meditative air.

“Oh, yes, sir!” she agreed. “I’m a woman now. I’m fifteen years old.”

“I see! Well, well, you are quite grown up! I heard you playing just now. Where did you ever learn such music?”

Jinnie placed her hand on her heart. “I got it out of here, sir,” she replied simply.

Involuntarily Singleton straightened his rounded shoulders, and a smile touched the corners of his mouth. Even his own desperate condition for the moment was erased from his mind in the pride he felt in his daughter. Then over him swept a great regret. He had missed more than he had gained in his travels abroad, in not living with and for the little creature before him.

Her eyes were filled with contemplation; then the lovely face, in its exquisite purity, saddened for a moment.

“Matty isn’t going to take me across her knee never any more,” she vouchsafed, a smile breaking like a ray of sunshine.

The blouse slipped away from her slender throat, and she made a picture, vivid and beautiful. The fatherhood within Thomas Singleton bounded in appreciation as he contemplated his daughter for a short space, measuring accurately the worth within her. He caught the wonderful 13 appeal in the violet eyes, and wished to live. God, how he wanted to live! He would! He would! It meant gathering his supremest strength, to be put forth in efforts of mere existing. Something out of an unknown somewhere, brought to him through the stormy, wonderful music he had heard, made the longing to live so vehement that it hurt. Then the horror of Virginia’s words drifted through his tortured brain.

“What?” he ejaculated.

“Now I’m fifteen,” explained the girl, “I get a woman’s beating with a strap, you see. A while ago I got one that near killed me, but I never cried a tear. Matty was almost scared to death; she thought I was dead. Matty can lick hard, Matty can.”

Virginia sighed in recollection.

“You don’t mean to say the nigger whipped you?”

The girl shook her curly head.

“Whipped me! No! Matty don’t whip; she just licks with all her muscle. … Matty’s muscle’s as strong as a tree limb.”

Mr. Singleton bowed his head. It had never occurred to him in all those absent years that the child was being abused. How simply she had told her tale of suffering!

“But I’m fifteen now,” she repeated gladly, “so I stand up, spread my feet like this”—she rose and suited the action to the words—“and Matty lays her on damn hard, too.”

He covered his mouth with one thin hand, choked down a cough, and endeavored to change the subject.

“And school? Have you been to school?”

“Oh, yes!” assured the girl, sitting down again. “I went to school back in the hills. There were only five boys and me. There wasn’t any girls. I wish there had been.” 14

“You like girls, I imagine, then,” said her father.

“Oh, yes, sir! Yes, indeed, sir! I often walk five miles to play a while with one. None of the mothers around Mottville Corners’ll let their girls be with me. You see, this house has a bad name.”

A deep crimson dyed the man’s ashen skin. He made as if to speak, but Jinnie went on.

“Over in the Willow Creek settlement the kids are awful bad, but I get along with ’em fine, because I love ’em right out of being hellish.”

She was gazing straight into her father’s face in all sincerity, with no trace of embarrassment.

“You know Mrs. Barker, the housekeeper you left me with?” she demanded a little later. “Well, she died when I was ten. Matty stayed, thinking every day you’d come home. I suppose mebbe I did grow up sort of cussed, and I suppose everybody thinks I’m bad because I’ve only a nigger to live with, and no mother, not—not even you.”

Singleton partly smothered an oath which lengthened itself into a groan, looked long at the slim young figure, then at the piquant face.

“Just lately I’ve been wanting some one of my own to love,” she pursued. “I only had Milly and her cats. Then the letter come saying you’d be here—and I’m very glad.”

The smile lighting her face and playing with the dimples in her cheeks made Thomas Singleton feel as if Heaven’s breath had touched him.

“Do you care at all for me?” he asked gloomily.

There had come over him a desire that this winsome girl—winsome in spite of her crudity—would say she did. Wonder, love, sympathy, were alive in her eyes. Jinnie nodded her head.

“Oh, yes, sir!” she murmured. “Of course I love you! I couldn’t tell you how much. … I love—why, I even 15 love Mose. Mose’s Matty’s man. He stole and et up all our chickens—but I love him just the same. I felt sorry about his killing the hens, because I loved them too.”

“I see,” sighed the father.

“Now there’s Molly—I call her Molly the Merry––”

“Who’s Molly the Merry?” interrupted Singleton.

“Old Merriweather’s daughter. She’s prettier than the summer roses, and they’re pretty, believe me. Her smiles’re warmer’n the sun.”

“Ah, yes! I remember the Merriweathers. Is the old man still alive?”

“Well, yes, but he’s as good as dead, though. Ain’t walked in three years. And Matty’s man, Mose, told Matty, and Matty told me, he’s meaner’n forty damn devils.”

“So you swear, too?” asked the father, breathing deeply.

Virginia opened wide and wider two sparkling blue eyes.

“Swear, sir?” she protested. “I didn’t swear.”

“Pardon me,” replied Singleton, laconically. “I thought I heard you say ‘damn’ several times.”

Virginia’s smile showed two rows of white teeth.

“Oh, so you did!” she laughed, rising. “But ‘damn’ isn’t swearing. You ought to hear me really swear sometimes. Shall I show you how I—I can swear?”

Singleton shook his head.

“I’d rather you wouldn’t! … Sit down again, please.”

The man at intervals turned a pair of burning bright eyes upon her. They weren’t unlike her own eyes, only their expression puzzled Virginia.

She could not understand the rapid changes in her father. He wasn’t the man she had mentally known all these years. But then, all she had had by which to visualize 16 him was an old torn picture, turned face to the wall in the garret. He didn’t look at all like the painting—he was thinner, older, and instead of the tender expression on the handsome, boyish face, time had placed one of bitterness, anxiety, and dread. He sat, crouched forward, stirring the grate fire, seemingly lost in thought. Virginia remained quiet until he was ready to speak.

“I’m going to die soon—very soon.”

It was only natural that Virginia should show how his statement shocked her. She grew deathly white, and an expression of misery knit the lovely young face.

“How soon?” she shivered, drawing back.

“Perhaps to-night—perhaps not for weeks, but I must tell you something before then.”

“All right,” agreed Virginia, “all right. … I’m here.”

“I haven’t been a good father to you,” the man began after a pause, “and I’m not sure I could do better if I should stay on here with you. So I might as well go now as any time! Your mother would’ve done differently if she’d lived. You look some like her.”

“I’m sorry I don’t remember her,” remarked Virginia apologetically.

“She went away when you were too little even to know her. Then I left you, too, though I don’t suppose any one but her could have made you happy.”

“Oh, I’ve been happy!” Jinnie asserted. “Old Aunt Matty and the cats’re all I need around, and I always have my fiddle. I found it in the garret.”

It was easy to believe that she was telling the truth, for to all appearances she looked happy and healthy. However, Mr. Singleton’s eyes darkened and saddened under the words. Nothing, perhaps, had ever touched him so deeply. 17

“It’s no life for a girl of fifteen years to live with cats and niggers,” he muttered.

One less firmly faithful to conscience would have acquiesced in this truthful statement; not so Virginia.

“Matty’s a good nigger!” she insisted, passionately. “She’d do anything she could for me!”

Seemingly the man was not impressed by this, for his strong jaws were set and unyielding upon the unlighted cigar clenched between his teeth.

“I might as well tell you to-night as to-morrow,” he concluded, dropping the cigar on the table. “Your mother left you her money and property when she died.”

“I know it, sir, and it’s a lot, too! Matty told me about it one night along with ’er ghost stories, sir. … Ever heard Matty’s ghost stories, sir?”

“No, but I didn’t bring you here to talk about Matty. And tell me, what makes you say ‘sir’ to me all the time?”

His impatient tone, his sharp, rasping voice, didn’t change Virginia’s respectful attitude. She only bent her head a trifle and replied:

“Anybody must always say ‘sir’ to another body when she’s kind of half afraid of him, sir.”

She was composed for a moment, then went on:

“It isn’t every day your father comes home, sir, and I’ve waited a long, long time. I’d be a hell of a kid if I couldn’t muster up a ‘sir’ for you.”

Singleton glanced sidewise at his young daughter, bending his brows together in a frown.

“You’re a queer sort of a girl, but I suppose it’s to be expected when you’ve only lived with niggers. … Now will you remember something if I tell it to you?”

“Yes, sir,” breathed Virginia, drawing back a little from his strong emotion.

“Well, this! Don’t ever say ‘sir’ to any human being 18 living! Don’t ever! Do you understand me? What I mean is, when you say ‘sir,’ it’s as if you were—as if you were a servant or afraid—you make yourself menial. Can you remember, child?”

“Yes, sir—yes, I’ll remember. … I think I’ll remember.”

“If you’re going to accomplish anything in the world, don’t be afraid of any one.”

A dozen explanations, like so many birds, fluttered through Virginia’s mind. Before her rose her world of yesterday, and a sudden apology leapt to her lips. She turned on her father a wondering, sober glance.

“I’ve never said ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ before in all my life—never!” she remarked.

“So you’re afraid of me?”

“A little,” she sighed.

“Ah, don’t be, child! I’m your father. Will you keep that in mind?”

“I’ll try to; I will, sure.”

Mr. Singleton shifted uneasily, as if in pain.

“This money is coming to you when you’re eighteen years old,” explained Mr. Singleton. “My dying will throw you into an ocean of difficulties. I guess the only service I’ve ever done you has been to keep your Uncle Jordan from you.”

“Matty told me about him, too,” she offered. “He’s a damn bad duffer, isn’t he, mister?”

“Yes, and I’m going to ask you not to call me ‘mister,’ either. Look here! … I’m your father! Can’t anything get that into your head?”

“I keep forgetting it,” answered the girl sadly. “And you’re so big and thin and different from any man I know. You look as weak as a—as a cat.”

She stretched forth her two strong legs, but sank back. 19

“Yes, your Uncle Jordan is bad,” proceeded Singleton, presently, “bad enough to want to get us both out of the way, and he wouldn’t find much of an obstacle in you.”

A clammy chill clutched at Virginia’s heart like tightening fingers. The import of his words burned deep within her. She got to her feet—but reseated herself at once at a wave of her father’s hand. The thought of death always had a sobering effect upon her—it filled her with longing, yet dread. The beautiful young mother, whose picture hung in the best room, and whose eyes followed her in every direction, was dead. Matty had told her many times just how her mother had gone, and how often the gentle spirit had returned to hover over the beloved young daughter. Now the memory of it was enhanced by the roar of the wind and the dismal moaning of the tall pines. Virginia firmly believed that her mother, among other unearthly visitants, walked in the night when the blizzard kept up its incessant beating. She also believed that the sound through the pines—that roaring, ever-changing, unhuman sound—was not of the wind’s making. It was voices—spirit voices—voices of the dead, of those who had gone down into the small cemetery beyond the road.

Only the day before Matty had told her how, one night, a tall, wandering white thing had walked in silence across the fields to Jonathan Woggles’ house. In the story, Jonathan’s grandpa was about to pass away. The glittering spirit stalked around and around the house, waiting for the old man’s soul. She was about to relate the tale when her father repeated:

“Your uncle is bad enough to want us out of the way.”

The shuddering chill again possessed her. She was torn between horror and eagerness—horror of what might be and eagerness to escape it. 20

“But he can’t get us out, can he?” she questioned.

“Yes, I’m afraid he can and will! Your Uncle Jordan is your mother’s stepbrother, no direct relation to you, but the only one left to look after you in the world but me. If you’ve any desire to live, you must leave here after I’ve gone, and that’s all there is to it!”

Virginia then understood, for the first time, something of the danger menacing her. Her heart beat and pounded like an engine ploughing up hill. From sheer human desire of self-preservation, she partly rose from the chair, with the idea of immediate departure.

“I could go with Matty, couldn’t I?” she suggested.

Mr. Singleton made a negative gesture with his head, flinging himself down again.

“Matty? Matty, the nigger? No, of course not. Matty is nothing to any one who hasn’t money, and you’ll have none to pay her, or any one else, after I’m gone. You must eat and live for three long years. Do you understand that? … Sit back in your chair and don’t fidget,” he concluded.

The girl obeyed, and a silence fell between them. The thought of the wonderful white presence of which Matty had told her faded from her mind. Her heart lay stone-like below her tightening throat, for her former world and all the dear familiar things it held were to be dashed from her, as a rose jar is broken on a marble floor, by a single decision of the thin, tall father whom yesterday she had not known. She understood that if her uncle succeeded in his wicked plans, she, too, would join that small number of people, dead and buried, under the pines. Her father’s words brought the cemetery, with its broken cross and headstones, its low toolhouse, and the restless night spirits, closer than Matty, with her vivid, 21 ghastly tales, had ever done. In the past, Matty had stood between her and her fears; in the future, there would be only a stranger, her uncle, the man her father had just warned her against. At length Mr. Singleton coughed painfully, and spoke with evident effort.

“The doctor told me not long ago I might die at any moment. That’s what made me escape—I mean, what drove me home.”

He rose and walked nervously up and down the room.

“The doctor made me think of you. I can’t live long.”

“It’s awful bad,” answered the girl, sighing. “I wouldn’t know where to go if there wasn’t any Matty—or—you.”

Her voice lowered on the last word, and she continued: “I wish I had my mother. Matty says mothers kiss their girls and make over ’em like Milly Ann does with her kittens—do they? Some of ’em?”

The father glanced curiously into the small, earnest, uplifted face.

“I couldn’t help being your girl,” pursued Virginia. “I’d have had another father if I could, one who’d ’ve loved me. Matty says even fathers like their kids sometimes—a little.” She paused a minute, a wan, sweet smile passing over her lips. “But I’ve got Milly Ann and her kittens, and they’re soft and warm and wriggley.”

What a strange child was this daughter of his! She spoke of cats as if they were babies; of loving as if it were universal. Each moment, in her presence, he realized more and more what he had missed in thus neglecting her. But he had hurried to Mottville from foreign lands to perform one duty, at least—to save her, if possible. So he returned to his vital subject.

“Your Uncle Jordan’s coming, perhaps this week. He’s found out I’m here! That’s why you must go away.” 22

“Shall I—just go?” queried Virginia. “I don’t know of any special place—do you?” and she shivered again as the wind, in a fierce gust, blew out from the slumbering fire a wreath of smoke that encircled the room and hung grey-blue about the ceiling.

“I only know one man,” reflected Mr. Singleton, presently, “and you’ll have to find him yourself—after I’ve gone, of course; but if Jordan Morse should come, you’d have to go quickly.”

“I’d go faster’n anything,” decided the girl, throwing up her head.

“Your mother’s father used to have a family in his tenement house on this place, and they were all very fond of her when she was a girl. One of the sons moved to Bellaire. He’s the only one left, and would help you, I know.”

“Mebbe if you’d talk to my uncle––” Virginia cut in.

An emphatic negative gesture frightened her.

“You don’t know him,” said Singleton, biting his lips. “He’s nearer being a devil than any other human being.” It was a feeling of bitterness, of the deadly wrong done him, that forced him to sarcasm. “The great—the good Jordan Morse—bah!” he sneered. “If he’s ‘good,’ so are fiends from perdition.”

He sent the last words out between his teeth as if he loathed the idea expressed in them. If they brought a sombre red to the girl’s cheeks, it was not because she did not have sympathy with him.

Sudden leaping flames of passion yellowed the man’s eyes, and he staggered up.

“May God damn the best in him! May all he loves wither and blight! May black Heaven break his heart––”

Jinnie sprang forward and clutched him fiercely by the 23 arm. “Don’t! Don’t!” she implored. “That’s awful, awful!”

Singleton sank back, brushing his foaming lips with the back of his hand.

“Well,” he muttered, “he followed me abroad and did for me over there!”

“Did for you?” Virginia repeated after him, parrot-like, gazing at him in a puzzled way as she sat down again.

“Yes, me! If I’d had any sense, I might have known his game. In the state of his finances he’d no business to come over at all. But I didn’t know until he got there how evil he was. Oh, God! I wish I had—but I didn’t, and now my only work left is to send you somewhere––Oh, why didn’t I know?”

The deep sadness, the longing in his voice brought Virginia to her feet once more. She wanted to do something for the thin, sick man because she loved him—just that! Years of neglect had failed to kill in the young heart the cherished affection for her absent parent, and in some subtle way he now appealed to the mother within her, as all sick men do to all heart-women.

“I’d like to help you if I could, father,” she said.

The man, with a quick, spasmodic action, drew her to him. Never had he seen such a pair of eyes! They reminded him of Italian skies under which he had dreamed brave dreams—dreamed dreams which would ever be dreams. The end of them now was the grave.

“Little girl! My little girl!” he murmured, caressing her shoulders. Then he caught himself sharply, crushing the sentiment from his voice.

“Hide yourself; change your name; do anything to keep from your uncle. When you’re old enough to handle your own affairs, you can come out of your hiding-place—do you understand me?” 24

“I think I do,” she said, tears gathering under her lids.

“I don’t know of any one I could trust in this county. Jordan Morse would get ’em all under his spell. That would be the last of you. For your mother’s sake––” His lips quivered, but he went on with a masterful effort to choke down a sob—“I may honestly say, for your own sake, I want you to live and do well.”

There was some strain in his passionate voice that stirred terrific emotion in the girl, awakening new, tumultuous impulses. It gave her a mad desire to do something, something for her father, something for herself. At that moment she loved him very much indeed and was ready to go to any length to help him. He had told her she must leave. Perhaps––

Virginia glanced through the window into the darkness. Through the falling snow she could see a giant pine throw out appealing arms. They were like beckoning, sentient beings to the girl, who loved nature with all the passionate strength of her young being. Yet to-night they filled her with new wonder—an awe she had never felt before. Despite her onrushing thoughts, she tried to calm her mind, to say with eager emphasis:

“Shall I run to-night—now?”

“No, not to-night; don’t leave me yet. Sit down in the chair again; stay until I tell you.”

“All right,” murmured Virginia, walking away.

The father watched the fire a few minutes.

“I’ll give you a letter to Grandoken, Lafe Grandoken,” he said presently, looking up. “For your mother’s sake he’ll take you, and some day you can repay him. You see it’s this way: Your mother trusted your uncle more than she did me, or she’d never have given you into his care in case of my death. Well, he’s got me, and he’ll get you.” 25

With no thought of disobedience, Virginia slipped from the chair to her feet.

“He won’t get me if I run now, will he?” she questioned breathlessly; “not if I go to—what’d you say his name was?”

She was all excitement, ready to do whatever she was bidden. Slowly, as she stood there, the tremendous suspense left her.

“Why couldn’t we both go, you and me?” she entreated eagerly. “Let’s both go to-night. I’ll take care of you. I’ll see you don’t get wet.”

Her glance met and held his for a few seconds. The vibrant voice thrilled and stirred the father as if he had been dead and suddenly slipped back to life again. A brave smile, tenderly sweet, broke over Virginia’s lips.

“Come,” she said, holding out her hands. “Come, I’ll get my fiddle and we’ll go.”

He was struck by the vehemence of her appeal. He allowed himself to listen for a moment—to overbalance all his preconceived plans, but just then his past life, Jordan Morse, his own near approaching end, sank into his mind, and the fire in his eyes went out. There was finality in the shake of his shoulders.

“No, no,” he murmured, sinking back. “It’s too late for me. I couldn’t earn money enough to feed a pup. I’m all to pieces—no more good to any one. No, you’ll have to go alone.”

“I’m sorry.” The girl caught her breath in disappointment. She was crying softly and made no effort to wipe away her tears.

The silent restraint was broken only by the ticking of the shadowy clock on the mantel and Virginia’s broken sobs. She stifled them back as her father spoke comfortingly. 26

“Well, well, there, don’t cry! If your mother’d lived, we’d all ’ve been better.”

“I wish she had,” gasped the girl, making a dash at her eyes. “I wish she’d stayed so I’d ’ve had her to love. Perhaps I’d ’ve had you, too, then.”

“There’s no telling,” answered Singleton, drawing up to his desk and beginning to write.

Virginia watched the pen move over the white page for a space, her mind filled with mixed emotions. Then she turned her eyes from her father to the grate as a whirl of ashes and smoke came out.

Matty’s story came back to her mind, and she glanced toward the window, but back to the fire quickly. The blizzard seemed to rage in sympathy with her own riotous thoughts. As another gust of wind rattled the casements and shook down showers of soot from the chimney, Virginia turned back to the writer.

“It’s the ghosts of my mother’s folks that make that noise,” she confided gently.

“Keep quiet!” ordered Singleton, frowning.

After the letters were finished and sealed, Mr. Singleton spoke. “There! I’ve done the best I can for you under the circumstances. Now on this,”—he held up a piece of paper—“I’ve written just how you’re to reach Grandoken’s in Bellaire. These letters you’re to give to him. This one let him open and read.” Mr. Singleton tapped a letter he held up. “In this one, I’ve written what your uncle did to me. Give it to Grandoken, telling him I said to let it remain sealed unless Jordan Morse claims you. If you reach eighteen safely, burn the letter.”

He paused and took out a pocketbook.

“Money is scarce these days, but take this and it’ll get you to Grandoken’s. It’s all I have, anyway. Now go along to bed.” 27

He handed the envelopes to her, and his hand came in contact with hers. The very touch of it, the warmth and life surging through her, gave a keener edge to his misery.

Virginia took the letters and money. She walked slowly to the door. At the threshold she halted, turning to her father.

“May I take the cats with me?” she called back to him.

She started to explain, but he cut her words off with a fierce ejaculation.

“Hell, yes!” he snapped. “Damn the cats! Get out!”

Once in the hall, Virginia stood and looked back upon the closed door.

“I guess he don’t need me to teach him swear words,” she told herself in a whisper.

Then she went down to the kitchen, where Matty sat dreaming over a wood fire.