CHAPTER IVA CRISIS
Atfive o’clock, during a brief lull in the usual noises on the avenue, there was a faint and aristocratic murmur of machinery in front of the mansion. The McKelvey girls’ motor-car drew up at the curb, and Miss Flora Baron alighted.
The Misses McKelvey had come for her early in the afternoon and had driven her out to their suburban home, where she was always treated almost like one of the family.
She was the sort of girl that people love unquestioningly: gentle, low-voiced, seemingly happy, grateful, gracious. Besides, there was a social kinship between the two families. Mrs. McKelvey had been a Miss Van Sant before her marriage, and the Van Sants and the Boones had been neighbors for a century or more.
“Good-by, Flora,” called the McKelvey girls almost in one voice, as their guest hurried toward her gate. Their cheerful faces were framed by the open door of their shining coupé. And Flora looked back over her shoulder and responded gayly, and then hurried up into the vestibule of the mansion.
She carried an armful of roses which the McKelveyshad insisted upon her bringing home: roses with long stems, from which many of the green, wax-like leaves had not been removed.
When she entered the hall she paused and sighed. Now that her friends could not see her any longer, she abandoned a certain gladsome bearing. It was so lovely out at the McKelveys’, and it was so—so different, here at home. She had the feeling one might have upon entering a dungeon.
The fingers of her right hand closed upon the dull-green-and-silver tailored skirt she was wearing, and one foot was already planted on the first step of the stairway. She meant to offer the roses to her mother, who would be in the sitting-room up-stairs.
But before she had mounted to the second step she heard her brother Victor’s voice in the dining-room, and she knew by his manner of speaking that he was at the telephone.
This circumstance in itself was not remarkable, but he was asking for police headquarters!
Visions of a burglary passed before her mind, and she wondered whimsically what anybody could find in the house worth stealing. Her brother’s next words reached her clearly:
“Oh, I couldn’t say just how old she is. Say about ten. Somebody must have reported that she is lost.... Well, that certainly seems strange....”
Flora changed her mind about going up-stairsimmediately. Instead, she turned toward the dining-room. Victor was continuing his message: “Are you sure such a report hasn’t been made at one of the substations?” And after a brief interval there was the sound of the receiver being hung up.
However, when Flora entered the dining-room her brother was speaking at the telephone again. More about a little girl. “Mr. Thornburg’s office? Mr. Thornburg? This is Baron speaking. Say—has anybody spoken to you about losing a little girl this afternoon?”
Flora perceived that he was deeply concerned; his attitude was even strikingly purposeful—and Victor usually appeared to have no definite purposes at all.
“Yes,” he continued, clearly in answer to words from the other end of the wire, “I brought her home with me. I didn’t know what else to do. I thought somebody might have inquired at the theatre about her. If they do, you’ll let me know right away, won’t you? She’ll probably be with us here until she’s claimed.”
He hung up the receiver. His eyes were unusually bright.
“Here? Who?” demanded Flora.
Baron beamed upon her. “Flora!” he cried. “I’m glad you’ve come. Something has happened!”
“Who’s here?”
“The renowned actress, Bonnie May.”
“Please tell me!” she begged, as if he had made no response at all.
“A little lost girl.” Then Baron briefly explained.
Miss Baron’s eyes fairly danced. “What an adventure!” She added presently: “Is she—nice?”
“Nice? That’s a woman’s first question every time, isn’t it?” Baron reflected. “I suppose so. I know she’s pretty—the very prettiest thing!”
“And that’s a man’s first consideration, of course. What did mother say?”
“Mother is—resigned.” They moved toward the stairway. “Try to persuade mother that a child doesn’t count,” Baron urged. “I’m sure Mrs. Grundy never had any children. None like Bonnie May, anyway. When you’ve once seen her——”
They were ascending the stairway eagerly, whispering. A dozen years at least seemed to have slipped from their shoulders. They entered Mrs. Baron’s sitting-room quite eagerly.
Mrs. Baron and Bonnie May were sitting quite close together, the guest in a low chair that was Flora’s. Mrs. Baron was maintaining the rôle of indulgent but overridden oracle; Bonnie May was amiably inclined to make allowances. They were conversing in a rather sedate fashion.
“My sister, Flora, Bonnie May,” said Baron.
The child came forward eagerly. “How lovely!” she exclaimed, extending her hand.
Flora regarded the child with smiling eyes. “Oh! you mean the roses,” she said. “Yes, they are.” But she did not look at the flowers on her arm. She pushed a pennon-like fragment of veil away from her face and smiled quietly at the child.
“I didn’t mean them,” explained Bonnie May. “I meant it was lovely that you should be—that I’m to have— Do excuse me, I mean thatyouare lovely!”
Only an instant longer Miss Baron remained as if happily spellbound. A breath that was fragrant and cool emanated from her and her roses. The hue of pleasure slowly deepened in her cheeks.
“You dear child!” she said at last, the spell broken, “I can’t remember when anybody has said such a thing to me before.”
She laid the roses in her mother’s lap. “And to think we’re to keep her!” she added.
“Overnight,” Mrs. Baron made haste to say. “Yes, she is to be our guest until to-morrow.”
“But nobody has inquired for her,” said Flora. “Victor’s been telephoning. The police and the people at the theatre——”
“Where did you get such beautiful roses?” inquired Mrs. Baron, wholly by way of interruption. The arch of her eyebrows was as a weather-signal which Flora never disregarded. She changed the subject. She had much to say about her ride. But her eyes kept straying back to Bonnie May, who remained silent, her body leaning slightlyforward, her head pitched back, her eyes devouring Miss Baron’s face. The attitude was so touchingly childlike that Flora had visions of herself in a big rocking-chair, putting the little thing to sleep, or telling her stories. “Only until to-morrow,” her mother had said, but no one was asking for the child anywhere. Of course she would stay until—until——
“Yes,” she said absent-mindedly, in response to a question by her mother, “they brought me home in their car. They were so lovely to me!” Her eyes strayed back to Bonnie May, whose rapt gaze was fixed upon her. The child flushed and smiled angelically.
If any constraint was felt during the dinner-hour, Bonnie May was evidently less affected than the others at table.
The one test which might have been regarded as a critical one—the appearance of the head of the household—was easily met.
Mr. Baron came home a little late and immediately disappeared to dress for dinner. Bonnie May did not get even a glimpse of him until the family took their places at table.
“Hello! Who said there weren’t any more fairies?” was his cheerful greeting, as he stood an instant beside his chair before he sat down. He was a tall, distinguished-looking man with a pointed gray beard, which seemed always to have been ofits present color, rather than to suggest venerableness. He had piercing gray eyes, which seemed formidable under their definite black eyebrows. However, his eyes readily yielded to a twinkle when he smiled. He still adhered rigidly to the custom of dressing formally for dinner, and he entertained a suspicion that Victor’s vocation, which consisted of literary work of some indefinite kind, was making him sadly Bohemian, since his son did not perceive the need of being so punctilious. “It’s not as if we had company often,” was Victor’s defense, on one occasion, of the course he had adopted; but his father’s retort had been that “they were still in the habit of dining with one another.”
“A little girl we are sheltering to-night,” was Mrs. Baron’s explanation to her husband, who still regarded the child at the opposite end of the table.
“I am Bonnie May,” amended the child. “I am very glad to meet you, I’m sure.” She smiled graciously and nodded with such dignity as was compatible with a rather difficult position. She was occupying an “adult” chair, and little more than her head and shoulders was visible. She had briefly yet firmly discouraged the suggestion that she sit on a book.
“A—protégée of Victor’s,” added Mrs. Baron, with the amiable malice which the family easily recognized.
But Flora noted the word “protégée” and smiled. To her mind it suggested permanency.
“A very fine little girl, I’m sure,” was Mr. Baron’s comment. He was critically looking at the fowl which Mrs. Shepard, housekeeper and woman of all work, had placed before him. His entire attention was immediately monopolized by the carving implements. He appeared to forget the child’s presence.
This fact is set down as a significant one, because Flora and Baron, Jr., were both keenly and frankly interested in his impression. If he didn’t mind having her about, another point in her favor would have been gained. Mrs. Baron, too, was covertly interested in his attitude. She was not quite sure whether she wished him to confirm her fears or to share her son’s and daughter’s faith in the unexpected guest.
Thereafter the meal progressed somewhat silently. Every individual in the group was alertly awaiting developments.
“Children always like the drumstick,” declared Mr. Baron genially, looking at Bonnie May.
“Yes, I believe so,” admitted the guest politely. She added casually: “I usually prefer the wing.”
Mr. Baron rested the carving knife and fork on his plate and scrutinized the speaker sharply. The child was opening her napkin with a kind of elegant deliberation.
Then he smiled. “A wing it shall be,” he declared.
Later Mrs. Baron took occasion to assert herauthority. “Children should not stare,” she declared, trying to assume a severe contralto tone, but taking care to smile, so that her rebuke would seem to have been kindly offered.
Indeed, Bonnie May was paying less attention to her dinner than to the exquisite napery, the cut-glass vase in which some of Flora’s roses had been placed, the dinner-set of chaste design, and to the countenances about her.
“Quite true,” she admitted, in response to Mrs. Baron. “But you know, when you get into a new company, it’s quite natural to size everybody up, so you can make up your mind what to expect of them.”
She took a very small bite from a young green onion, holding her little finger elegantly apart. “How prettily the white blends with the green,” she said approvingly, looking critically at the onion.
Mrs. Baron flushed. “My remark was that children ought not to stare,” she repeated persistently and less gently.
The child’s serenity failed her. “I don’t, usually,” she said in painful embarrassment, “and I don’t believe I criticise people’s manners, either, unless it’s in private.”
She regained her self-control immediately. She replaced the onion on her plate and lifted her napkin to her lips with exquisite care.
The adult persons at the table were all lookingfrom one to another. There were horizontal lines in every forehead.
“I can’t remember having been anywhere where the service was so admirable,” the guest added, directing her glance toward her own section of the board. There was a suggestion of gentle ennui in her tone.
Mrs. Baron was glaring at her, her face aflame with mortification. It was a countenance the family was familiar with.
“Well, what have you been doing to-day, Victor?” inquired Mr. Baron jocosely.
It was the tone—and the tactics—he always adopted when he wished to avoid a crisis.
And during the remainder of the meal, Bonnie May was an extraordinarily circumspect and silent little girl.