Coming Through the Rye (22 page)

“H'm!” said Cousin Maria coldly. “I don't see what a chief of police had to do with it.”

“He has a great deal to do with it,” said Aunt Patty calmly. “Will you take some of this cinnamon toast? I've just been teaching the maid how to make it.”

“I should think there would be enough to do in a house like this, and at a time like this, without trifling with fancy cooking,” acridly remarked Cousin Maria, taking two pieces of cinnamon toast on her plate.

“I don't consider anything trifling that gives an appetite and a little comfort at a time like this,” said Aunt Patty serenely. “What time does your train go back? Will you have to hurry?”

“I'm not going back till I've seen Cousin Romayne again. She ought to be awake pretty soon, oughtn't she? I'll just go up when I've finished my tea.”

“Oh no,” said Aunt Patty firmly, “she won't be awake for an hour and a half at least, and she doesn't feel that she can see you anymore today. If you are staying at a hotel, I can telephone for a taxi for you.”

“Really!” said Cousin Maria with her chin up. “I think you take too much upon you. I certainly shall go up and see my cousin. If she isn't awake, she'll have to wake up, that's all. I have to get back to Millville tonight, and I've got to make my proposition to her. Mother is expecting me to bring her with me.”

“Romayne has no idea of going with you. If that's all, you can save yourself the trouble. But it will be quite impossible anyway for you to see her. It is against the doctor's instructions that she be disturbed. She has been under heavy strain and must rest. Were you intending to stay for the funeral? Because the service proper is to be held in Virginia, you know.”

“Service? Mercy no! I wouldn't think they'd have the face to have a service after what he has done! Nobody'll
come
. I certainly wouldn't want George Ransom to have that much satisfaction out of me. Let him
understand
that he had
disgraced
the family!”

“Oh, do you really think it would give him satisfaction?
Now?
”

The sharp-tongued Maria looked at her intently, suspecting that she was being made fun of, but Aunt Patty's tone was quite quiet and sweet. “It seems to me he is wiser than to care for such things now, even if he ever did.”

“You surely don't thing George Ransom has gone to
heaven
, do you?” said Cousin Maria excitedly. “You
can't think
he was
saved
, surely?”

“The thief on the cross was saved,” reminded Aunt Patty gently. “You and I are not his judges.”

“Are you
upholding
bootlegging?” Cousin Maria's voice was almost a scream.

“Not consciously,” said Aunt Patty. “Can I give you another cup of tea? I'm afraid you'll be late getting home.”

“I expected to have to sacrifice something. What makes you so sure Romayne won't come to us? I'm sure I don't see where she can go. She hasn't any property, has she? The paper said she hadn't a cent. It would be tainted money if she had.”

“I'm sure I didn't enquire,” said Aunt Patty. “But Romayne has no idea of being dependent on anyone, and if she had, she has plenty of places to go. She certainly is not coming to you, although I am sure if she were able just now to speak for herself, she would thank you for offering.”

“Well, she's going to have a
chance
to speak for herself in about a minute,” said Cousin Maria, swallowing the last of her tea and reaching for another piece of cinnamon toast, “for I'm going up to see her! It's
ridic
ulous, babying her like this! She's got her own way to make in the world, and she'll have to stand on her own feet!”

She had risen while she was speaking and walked toward the door, but Aunt Patty had risen also and taken up the telephone, speaking into it quietly under the rattle of Cousin Maria's threats.

“Is Mr. Hollister there? This is Miss Sherwood. Will you please send him around to Ransom's
at once
with a taxi for duty?”

She hung up the receiver and followed the visitor into the hall. It had all been done so casually that Cousin Maria had not realized.

“You have been in close touch with Romayne and her mother and father during the years, I suppose?” asked Aunt Patty, pausing in the hall and stooping to straighten a rug, as if she were merely making polite talk.

“No,” said Maria, caught by the bait of a bit of gossip, “my mother never approved of Cousin Caroline's marriage into the Ransom family. George's brother used to go with me for a while, but Mother broke it right off and sent me away to school! And afterward he jilted the loveliest girl, from New York! She died of consumption. They were all alike, those Ransoms, not a good one among them! Handsome and wicked! All they could do was spend money they hadn't earned! Well, I suppose I might as well go look at him, now I'm here. Mother will want to hear all about it. Which room is he in?”

“No,” said Aunt Patty firmly. “I don't think Romayne would care to have you go, feeling as you do about him. Romayne loved her father tenderly.”

“How
could
she!” exclaimed the visitor angrily. “That's just what I said when Mother suggested my coming after her. ‘Mother,' I said, ‘they're all tarred with the same pitch, those Ransoms! Romayne will be just like them. Why, how could a good respectable girl
love
a man like that? But she'd have to
give them all up
if she came to us!”

The door opened suddenly, and Chris Hollister in full uniform appeared for duty, his hat in his hand, a respectful look upon his nice young face. Cousin Maria turned a sharp look of curiosity toward him, but Aunt Patty forestalled anything she might have said by giving her directions.

“Mr. Hollister, you will please take Miss Forbes to her train at once. She will tell you which station.”

“But I'm not
going
, I tell you, till I've seen Romayne!” blazed Cousin Maria. “And I'm going to see George Ransom, too. I always do my duty by the dead, even if they are criminals!”

“I'm sorry,” said Aunt Patty firmly, “but you'll have to go at once. Mr. Hollister is in charge of this house this afternoon, and he has order to see that Romayne is not disturbed. Anything you wish to say to her you can write. The undertaker has the key to the room where Mr. Ransom is lying. I will bid you good afternoon, Miss Forbes,” and Aunt Patty, with a meaningful look at Chris, swept softly up the stairs, a lady to the top.

“I'll see that you pay for this,” screamed Cousin Maria, white with rage and starting to follow up the stairs, but somehow Chris stepped between her and the stairs.

“Just step this way, Miss Forbes. The taxi is right outside,” he said in his deep bass voice.

Cousin Maria looked at the solid young giant before her with his Sam Brown belt and pistols and paused.

“Step right this way!” repeated Chris once more with his best football roar.

And Cousin Maria stepped.

A
unt Patty came up to Romayne's room several hours later with a tempting tray, and to say that Chris Hollister was downstairs with a request from the officers who had been stationed in the house during Mr. Ransom's illness. They wanted to know if it would trouble Miss Ransom if they attended the service in a group. They all felt deeply sympathetic with her in this most trying situation, but they were afraid that perhaps their presence might be unpleasant to her.

Romayne lay still for a moment thinking about it, and then she said, “No, it wouldn't trouble me, I'd
like
them to come! I want them to know, somehow, that he was forgiven.” She paused a moment and then looked up earnestly. “I would like them
all
to come.…” And Aunt Patty folded that look away to tell Evan about it.

The service was in the evening after it was quite dark.

It was held down in the office where the tragedy had begun. Aunt Patty, prompted by Evan, suggested otherwise, but Romayne shook her head.

“No, I'd like it to be there. It seems as if he would want it to be there—where”—she hesitated—“where the other thing had gone on. It seems as if it was the only way it could be wiped out. I don't suppose you will understand—”

But Aunt Patty brushed the bright tears away from her eyes and said, “Yes, child, I understand.”

For to Aunt Patty Romayne had confided the story of her father's last moments.

So the big desk was rolled to the back of the room, the heavy silk curtains drawn, and the alabaster vases filled with roses that the officers who had guarded the house brought.

There were other flowers, an overwhelming amount of them, great pillows and wreaths and costly sprays, sent by Judge Freeman, the Worrells, and members of the “gang” at sea. The fact that they knew to a minute what had happened and when to send flowers, and that the flowers came in such profusion, made the display offensive to Romayne. She had them all put in the hall, and only the roses of the officers were near the coffin.

She bought no flowers herself and would not allow Aunt Patty to bring any.

There was one other magnificent spray of roses and lilies bearing the card of Kearney Krupper. Romayne had asked Aunt Patty to call him on the telephone the night before and ask him to inform her brother, if he knew where he was, that his father was dead. The flowers had arrived early the next morning.

Romayne regarded the flowers mournfully as she came down the stairs for the service. She shunned touching them as she passed into the front room. It seemed to her they represented her father's shame.

The officers were lined up in the front of the room, gloved and uniformed, looking dependable and uncomfortable.

At the last minute, as Dr. Stephens was opening his Bible to begin the service, a stranger arrived. He was a young man flashily attired, and he stood in the hall looking at Romayne with hard, interested eyes as the minister read the service. The flowers were banked behind him, and he seemed a part of them. Romayne did not look at him after the first glance. It annoyed her that a stranger should be present. She wondered why he had come and if he were another of the “business associates.”

Romayne sat with Aunt Patty near the casket and listened to the words of the burial service. It seemed so strange that these words were being spoken there in their home, for the father who had, but a few short days before, been going about well and strong. The words seemed to give her the vista of the desolate future more distinctly than she had yet seen it. Down through the years, separated from her father by this burial service, she must walk alone to the end! The triumph was still in her heart when she thought of the end and the glory of it, but the years between loomed dark and long.

But when the minister came to the verses she had selected and began to read them, she lifted her head and took courage. Now was her father being made right before the representatives of his world here in this room where he had sinned.

“These verses,” said the minister, “were read and re-read many times to Mr. Ransom during his last illness. It is perhaps not known by all present that he aroused, at the end, and spoke; and that the one word that he uttered was
forgiven
! Let us pray!”

It was a tender enfolding prayer that followed, and Romayne felt as if it brought the promises of God right up to the throne and used them as a plea.

During the little hush when the prayer was over, after the undertaker had announced that the burial would be private, Romayne still sat apart, a look of peace on her white face. She lifted her eyes once and saw across the hall the honest, troubled face of Chris Hollister beaded with perspiration, uncomfortable in his dress uniform, trying to do all he could, and somehow it came to her that it was not all for his own sake he was doing it. His chief's orders were behind all this quiet helpfulness and decorum.

Then the flashily dressed stranger came over to speak to her, and she shrank back and wished she had gone upstairs at once.

“I'm Kearney Krupper,” announced the young man in an undertone. “Is there any place where I could speak to you in private?”

“Oh no! It isn't necessary, is it?” said Romayne, shrinking back. She could not bear the intrusion just then, and it would be about Lawrence. Oh, she couldn't talk about Lawrence now!

“Well, perhaps not,” said the young man, squaring his back impolitely to Miss Sherwood and encompassing Romayne by seeming to spread himself widely and shut her off from the others in the room. “So sorry I couldn't have come to you right away last evening, but I had a date, you know. Glad to do anything I can for you!”

Romayne lifted her eyes to his face and gave him a perfunctory “Thank you,” wishing he would go away quickly.

The young man was studying the delicate features, the clear eyes, the exquisite curves of cheek and brow and lip, the fine texture of the white skin. Such things were his specialties. He was always collecting new specimens.

“So sorry you had to go through all this!” He waved his hand effusively toward the casket. “But of course you know it's much better so. Saves a lot of trouble for everybody.”

Romayne cast a startled glance at him and turned coldly away, answering nothing. She had a strong desire in her heart to strike him. There was something offensive in his voice.

“I sent your
message
,” went on the unpleasant voice nothing daunted. “Of course your
friend
—you understand what I mean?—your
friend
—expected this before he left. He fully agreed with me that it was the best thing that could happen—”

Romayne felt that she was going to scream if this went on, and she turned sharply away once more and found to her relief that Chris Hollister stood formidable and glowering by her side.