Kerry (24 page)

“Why! It must be almost like heaven to live in a place like this!” said Kerry.

The tired business man looked down indulgently on the sweet girl face, framed in that halo of red-gold hair, and wondered what it was about this girl that was so refreshing. He wished—

He did not know what it was he wished, for the door opened at that instant and another girl about Kerry’s age stood there with a reproach on her lips, and sharpness in her eyes.

She might have been a pretty girl but there was too much makeup and lipstick to even pretend to be natural, and the black hair was too severely arranged, showing the whole of the pretty ears, giving her a touch of boldness.

“For cat’s sake, Dad! Why this unearthly hour? I told you to come on the twelve train. You knew we were due at the country club at two. Now we’ll have to simply rush through lunch and no time to change!”

“Have a care, Natalie, child, don’t be rude!” protested her father indulgently. “This is Miss Kavanaugh. You can surely take time to speak to her. As for the twelve train, I told you that was out of the question. Saturday is the busiest day of the week. I was lucky to get off on the one train.”

Natalie surveyed her guest with cool appraisement.

“Awfully glad to see you,” she announced coolly. “Where is your bag?” She glanced disapprovingly at the briefcase whose mending stitches seemed suddenly to Kerry to shout to her hostess for recognition—and
get
it, too. “Now, Dad! Didn’t you tell Miss Kavanaugh to bring her golf and evening things? I told you the very last thing last night you know!”

“Look here, Nattie, can’t you let us come in? I had no opportunity to tell Miss Kavanaugh anything, child. We met at the train gate five minutes before one. You wouldn’t have had her wait and go back to pack, would you? Certainly you must have things enough to lend her if she hasn’t brought hers with her.”

Here Kerry rose to the occasion with a bit of her own lofty manner acquired somewhere in Europe and used only on rare occasions.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” she said with a queenly lift of her chin, and a smile that could be daunted by nothing. “If I haven’t the right things for the occasion, I’ll just sit here on the porch and watch the view. It’s grand enough to fill several whole days and nights, too, I should think.”

Natalie stared at her and gave an odd little laugh of contempt.

“Oh, if you feel that way!” she said. “That’s the way Dad talks. That’s why we’re stranded out in this dead dump instead of being in our town house. Well, I’m sure I’m glad if you enjoy it!”

The lunch was indeed a somewhat rushed affair, for Natalie occupied the center of the stage and kept things in tumult.

Mrs. Holbrook proved to be a slender, nervous woman, smartly dressed, and rouged, an older edition of Natalie. She was wearing her hat all ready to go out. Between them they nagged the husband and father most unmercifully about everything that was mentioned, yet he seemed fond of them. The mother was scarcely warmer in her greeting than the daughter had been, yet there was about the home an atmosphere of informality, as if every member of the family brought home whom they pleased quite freely, and Kerry felt almost at once set down as a visitor on account of the office, to whom they had to be polite for business reasons.

When the meal was half done two young men came in, one dark and slim and lithe, Natalie’s twin brother, Harrington Holbrook, the other a big Celtic-looking athlete who immediately absorbed Natalie to the exclusion of all others. Kerry would have been quite willing to sit in the background and listen, but Harrington Holbrook was seated beside her, and he at once began to talk to her with far more friendliness in his voice than either his mother or sister, who after their first greeting, had left her practically to herself. Mr. Holbrook’s whole attention was taken up in lazily and amusedly defending himself, which he did in much the same manner as he might have brushed off a litter of puppies or kittens that were swarming over him. There was a stroke and a pat in his voice each time he put them off.

When Natalie had finished the pastry with which the meal ended, she arose abruptly.

“Come on, folks. It’s time we were in motion.”

She paused reflectively, studying Kerry’s neat black frock.

“You’ll have to have some togs!” she said, pointing her finger at Kerry rudely. “Get a hustle on. Can you dress in three minutes?”

“Oh, couldn’t you please leave me out?” pleaded Kerry, shrinking back. “I would just love to sit here and read.”

“Indeed no,” said Harrington with firmness, “you’re my partner, you know. Fix her up, Nat, and make it snappy! We’re going to do eighteen holes anyway this afternoon.”

“But I really don’t play golf !” exclaimed Kerry in agitation. “You know I never was on a golf links but twice or three times in my life, and then I just knocked the balls around a little.”

“Well, if you don’t play it’s time you learned,” said the youth cheerfully.

Kerry looked around to protest to the father but he had vanished upstairs, and there was noting to do but follow the abrupt Natalie and be clothed to suit the family.

Natalie produced a little French knitted dress of orange and brown that fitted Kerry very well and made her look more like a vivid little flame than ever. For a hat she deftly knotted a broad band of brown velvet ribbon around Kerry’s head, remarking as she did so in a most casual tone, “You’ve got stunning hair, you know!”

But there was no admiration in the tone, no hint that she meant it for a compliment. Kerry had a feeling that she was merely taking account of stock socially for her own afternoon. She wanted her guest to make a good impression for her own social prestige.

She rooted out a pair of golf shoes that fitted Kerry fairly well, and Kerry, much against her will, went down where the car and the young men were waiting.

Young Holbrook took her in with new approval.

“Good work, Nat!” he said, and then to Kerry, “I say, you’re some looker, do you know it?”

Kerry found herself getting red with annoyance. She was not used to such frank personalities, and they embarrassed her. But she managed to summon a laugh.

“It’s the borrowed plumage,” she said, “fine feathers make fine birds. Oh, what a wonderful view!”

The young man followed her glance.

“Yes. Nice river, isn’t it? But rather too much commercialized now for beauty. Too many dirty boats going up and down you know!”

The young man had placed Kerry by his side in the front seat, evidently intending to do the driving himself. Natalie and the other young man were already in the backseat, Natalie in a flaming scarlet dress and cap.

“What are we waiting for, oh, my heart?” asked the big Celt, casting his blue eyes up toward the house, and then at Natalie.

“Oh, Dad and Mother! The other car has a flat tire and something wrong with the carburetor and has to go to the garage and be fixed. Isn’t it tiresome?”

“In that case I’ll have to rustle out of this comfortable seat I suppose,” complained the youth.

Both young people got out when the elder Holbrooks appeared, and took the middle seats, but they kept up a constant run of talk about it. Kerry wondered if she were getting old maidish. These young people seemed so openly rude to their elders. Or was this merely American, and had she become Europeanized?

The afternoon was surprisingly pleasant, although Kerry had not anticipated pleasure in it. She shrank from exposing her ignorance of the game, she shrank from appearing among strangers in borrowed garments, and she shrank most of all from the attentions of the Holbrook youth who continued to flatter her at every opportunity. It amused Kerry to think that from being almost a recluse she had blossomed out in one short week into receiving attentions from three different men! Even a proposal of marriage from one of them! She could barely suppress a sudden grin of amusement as she remembered the occurrence of the evening before, and a sudden gratitude came over her that she was out here in this beautiful open and not cooped up in her room hiding from Dawson.

“Pep her up, Harry!” had been the final greeting of Natalie to her twin as she sailed off with her own escort, and soon Kerry and Harrington Holbrook were left far behind while Kerry was being taught “strokes” and the various details necessary to the game.

The young man was good company. He accepted her as a comrade and did not make her feel uncomfortable. There were certain things about him that made her think of his father, kind, and amusing and not self-centered. Yet now and then when he spoke of his “work,” which she presently discovered was with a great architect, she glimpsed that keen look that the elder Holbrook had worn in the office the first day she had seen him.

Mrs. Holbrook left them at the clubhouse. There was bridge and a tea later. They did not see her again until the eight o’clock dinner.

Mr. Holbrook, in knickers and plain stockings and a gray sweater, looked like a big nice boy. He passed her once on another fairway and smiled.

“Having a good time, little girl?” he said, and Kerry felt her heart warm within her. He was her boss, her father’s publisher! How good God had been to her!

The evening was much worse than the afternoon.

Kerry came down in her green chiffon looking sweet and lovely. The velvet bows had made her frock another thing and were most becoming. A string of pearl beads and her lovely hair were all the adornments she ever needed, though she did not know that. But the eyes of Natalie scorched over her dissatisfiedly.

“I’ll have to get to work on you again!” she announced, rudely looking her over. “You can’t go to the clubhouse tonight in that thing!”

“Natalie, really!” protested her father. “Your jokes are carried a little too far for courtesy I think.”

“I’m not joking, Dad,” said Natalie, “I’m dead in earnest. Ask mother if I’m not.”

Mrs. Holbrook turned her sharp attention and a lorgnette on Kerry’s quaint little garb.

“Why don’t you let her wear that little green tulle?” she said, turning to her daughter. “She seems to look good in green. It brings out her hair.”

“I thank you,” Kerry said quietly. “If you will just kindly leave me out of your plans this evening I shall be so much obliged. I had no idea of going out anywhere or I should not have felt free to come. You will really make me more comfortable if you will just go and let me stay quietly here reading. I couldn’t think of letting you dress me up again. It is most kind of you of course, but really, you know, I don’t belong.”

“Now, Natalie, you see you have really been rude,” said her father, trying to look severe and failing.

“Not at all!” said the mother sharply. “Natalie is perfectly right. Miss Kavanaugh came out here not knowing what we were expecting to do and didn’t bring along the right things. It’s Natalie’s place to lend her something. Besides, when we entertain a guest we usually take her with us wherever we go. I have arranged for her to be there of course.”

“Say, look here!” spoke up the young son of the house. “I’ve got something to say about this. Miss Kavanaugh is going with me this evening, and I like the dress she has on. It looks like the woods at twilight, and her hair makes you think of the sunset left over.”

“Don’t get poetic, Harry,” scoffed his mother. “Miss Kavanaugh’s dress is not in the least suitable. It is too somber. She would feel uncomfortable in it.”

“Well, it strikes me you all are rather dumb,” persisted the young man. “Didn’t Dad say Miss Kavanaugh’s father had recently died? Perhaps she doesn’t feel like wearing all the doohickies the rest of you do.”

“Oh!” said Mrs. Holbrook, casting a sudden accusative look at Kerry, as much as to say, “What are you doing here then?”

“Oh!” said Natalie, as if an affront had just been offered her.

Then Kerry lifted clear eyes and spoke steadily, “Mr. Holbrook, you are very kind. You are all very kind. But that is not the reason. I should not have come if I had been going to put my recent sorrow upon other people, and anyway my father did not approve of mourning, or anything like that. The truth is I am wearing the only dress I happen to have at present. I’m sorry that it does not seem to suit the occasion, but you see I’m not suitable myself I am afraid. I’ve always lived a very quiet life, and I’ve had no occasion to have dresses for dances. You see I don’t dance either. It hasn’t been in my line.”

Then up spoke the father of the family, gravely with open admiration in his eyes and voice.

“Well, I think Shannon Kavanaugh has reason to be proud of his daughter!” he said. “If my daughter had come up as fine and sweet as this girl has, without all the folderols the world thinks necessary today, I certainly would be delighted.”

Natalie gave a toss of her head at this and made a wry face.

“Oh, Dad! You’re so old-fashioned!” She laughed contemptuously.

“I’m sure it’s very commendable in Miss Kavanaugh to be content with what she has,” observed Mrs. Holbrook coolly.

“It is!” said the elder Holbrook. “It’s most commendable in her to take an interest in the real things of life instead of giving herself entirely to play as most of the women and girls I know are doing. But there’s one thing I want distinctly understood. Miss Kavanaugh is our guest, and she is to do exactly as she pleases. If she doesn’t want to go to dances, she doesn’t have to, understand? And she’s not to be made uncomfortable about it either.”

“Oh, of course!” said Mrs. Holbrook coldly, eyeing Kerry disapprovingly. “But you must remember, Ripley, it was you who suggested taking Miss Kavanaugh to the clubhouse and introducing her.”

“Yes, Dad,” put in Natalie impudently, “and it was you who told us to invite all our crowd. You gave me all the dope to tell them about Miss Kavanaugh, how she was the daughter of a distinguished scientist and all that, and now I’ve got them perfectly crazy to meet her, and what am I going to say?”

Kerry listened to the family conference in dismay. The mother and daughter talked on about her exactly as if she were not present. But presently Kerry interrupted.

“Really, Mrs. Holbrook, I couldn’t think of causing you embarrassment. Of course I will do whatever you wish me to do. If going over there will relieve the situation I’m perfectly willing to go, and would be delighted to meet your friends. And although I am much embarrassed to put you to the trouble, I am willing, of course, to wear what you wish—if you have something simple that you won’t mind my wearing. You must remember, I don’t dance. Perhaps that will be an embarrassment to you also.”