274CHAPTER XXXIXJINNIE’S VISIT TO THEODORE
So suddenly had the two strong, friendly forces been swept from Jinnie’s daily life that as yet she had not the power to think with precision. Lafe she had had every day for almost three years, and Theodore King—oh, how she loved him! Rumors were afloat that no power could save Lafe—her dear, brave cobbler.
Day by day the girl’s faith increased, and of late she had uttered silent prayers that she might be allowed to see Theodore.
One morning she was in the kitchen rocking little Lafe when Peggy called her.
“There’s some one to see you,” said she.
Jinnie gave the mother her baby and went to the shop door. A man in a white suit smiled down upon her.
“I’m from the hospital,” said he. “Mr. King would like to see you this morning.”
Jinnie’s heart seemed to climb into her throat.
“Mr. Theodore King?” she murmured.
“Yes,” said the young man. “I’ve got a car here. Will you come?”
“Of course! Wait till I get my hat.”
Once at their destination, they tiptoed into Theodore’s room noiselessly, and as Jinnie stood over the bed, looking down upon him, she suffered keenly, he looked so deathlike; but she resolutely controlled her feelings. When Theodore275glanced at her, she forced herself to smile, and the sight of the lovely girl refreshed the sick man, giving him a new impetus to recover.
He smiled back, endeavoring not to show his weakness.
“You see I’m getting well,” he whispered.
Jinnie nodded. She wasn’t sure whether he was or not. How her heart ached to do something for him!
One of his long, thin hands lay over the coverlet, and Jinnie wanted to kiss it. Tears were standing thick on her lashes.
The doctor stood beside her, consulting his watch.
“If you wish to speak, Mr. King,” he said kindly, “you must do so quickly, for the young lady can stay but two minutes more. That’s all!”
The doctor turned his back upon them, watch in hand.
“Kiss me, dear!” murmured Theodore.
Oblivious of the doctor’s presence, Jinnie stooped and kissed him twice, taking the thin hand he extended.
“I sent for you because I feared you’d go to work at the wood again.”
Jinnie would reassure him on this point even by an untruth, for she might be driven, for the sake of Peggy and the children, to go back into that hated occupation.
“I promise I won’t,” she said.
“Are you still taking lessons?”
Jinnie shook her head.
“I couldn’t when you were sick. I just couldn’t.”
“But you must; you must go to-morrow. I have something here for you,” he said, reaching under the pillow with his free hand.
Jinnie drew back abashed.
“You’re too sick to think of us,” she murmured.
Theodore raised her hand to his lips.
“No! No, darling, I think of you always—every day and276shall even when I’m dead. You must take this money. Do you love me, dearest, very much?”
He smiled again as she stooped impetuously to kiss him, and with her face very close to his, she whispered,
“Lafe didn’t do it, darling!”
“I know it,” replied Theodore, closing his eyes.
Then the doctor turned and sent her away.
When she sank back in the automobile, Jinnie opened her hand with the roll of bills in it, and all the way home, she repeated, “He has given His angels charge over thee.” She was hoping and praying for Theodore King.
Two days later, coming down the hill, she met Miss Merriweather on horseback. The young woman stopped her and asked her to accompany her home. Jennie hesitated. She still had memories of the cat sent to its death in Molly’s fit of anger and the woman’s chilling reception of her at the King dinner. Nevertheless she turned and walked slowly beside the horse. When they reached the porch of Mr. King’s home, a groom came and led the animal away. Jinnie laid down her fiddle, taking the chair indicated by Molly. It had been Jordan Morse’s idea that she should endeavor to again talk with the girl, but the woman scarcely knew how to begin. Jinnie looked so very lovely, so confiding, so infinitely sweet. Molly leaned over and said:
“Wasn’t it queer how suddenly I remembered who you were? That night at the party your name refused to come to my mind. I’ve wanted to tell you several times how sorry I was about your accident!”
“I recognized you the minute I saw you,” said Jinnie, smiling, relieved a little by Molly’s apology.
“You’ve a good memory,” answered Molly. “Now I want to tell you something, and I hope you’ll be guided by my judgment.”277
Jinnie looked straight at her without a sign of acquiescence.
“What is it?” she asked presently.
“You must leave Grandoken’s!”
Jinnie started to speak, but Molly’s next words closed her lips.
“Please don’t get nervous! Listen to me! You’re a very young and very pretty girl and there—there is some one interested in you.”
Jinnie pricked up her ears. Some one interested in her! Of course she knew who it was. Theodore! But she wouldn’t leave Peggy even for him, and the thought that he would not ask this of her brought her exquisite joy.
“Is it Mr. King who’s interested in me?” she asked, timidly.
Molly’s eyes narrowed into small slits.
“No, it isn’t Mr. King who’s interested in you!” she replied a trifle mockingly. “Mr. King’s too sick to be interested in anybody.”
Jinnie couldn’t refrain from saying, “He looked awful ill when I saw him at the hospital.”
Molly stared at her blankly. She grew dizzy and very angry. This girl always made her rage within herself.
“You’ve seen him since—since––”
A maddened expression leapt into Molly’s eyes.
“I drive there every day, but they won’t letmesee him,” she said, reddening.
“Mr. King sent for me,” Jinnie replied, resolutely.
And as the girl admitted this, with deepening flushes, Molly looked away. When she had first spoken of Jinnie’s future to Jordan Morse, she had pleaded with him to be kind to her, but now she could surround that white throat and strangle the breath from it without compunction.278
“Will you tell me what he said to you?” she queried, trying to hide her anger.
Jinnie looked down, and locked her fingers together.
“I can’t tell,” she said at length, moving in discomfort.
She wanted to go—to get away from the woman who looked at her so analytically, so resentfully. She got up nervously and picked up her fiddle.
“Don’t go,” urged Molly, starting forward.
Then she laughed a little and went on, “I suppose I did feel a bit jealous at first because we—Mr. King and I—have been friends so many years. But now we won’t think any more about it. I do want you to go from that terrible Paradise Road. It’s no place for a girl in your position.”
“You’ve told me that before,” retorted Jinnie, with clouded eyes. “My position isn’t anything. I haven’t any other home, and I’m a sort of a helper to Peggy.”
A helper to Peggy! Doubtless if Lafe had heard that he would have smiled. Truly she was a wonderful little helper, but she was more than that, much more—helper, friend, and protector all in one.
“Another thing,” added Jinnie quickly, “I love ’em all.”
“You’ve your own home in Mottville,” the woman suggested. “You ought to be there.”
Jinnie sank back into the chair.
“Oh, I couldn’t ever go there!” she cut in swiftly. “But I can’t tell you why.”
“Don’t you want me to help you?”
Jinnie shook her head doubtfully.
“It wouldn’t help any, taking me away from Peggy. I’d rather you’d do something for Lafe. Help him get out of prison. Will you?”
“I’m not interested in him,” said Molly. “But I am in you––”279
“Why?” blurted Jinnie.
Molly colored.
“One can’t explain an interest like mine. But I’d go back to Mottville with you, and help you with your––”
Jinnie shook her head violently.
“I wouldn’t go there for anything in the world,” she interjected.
“I can’t understand why not!”
“Well, first I couldn’t, and I won’t.... Then Peggy needs me in Paradise Road, and there’s the baby and Bobbie.”
“Who’s Bobbie?”
“Our little kid,” replied Jinnie, smiling sweetly.
She did not think it necessary to explain that she had found Bobbie in the woods. He was as much one of them as Lafe’s baby or herself. Neither did she speak of the boy’s pitiful condition.
In spite of Jinnie’s absolute refusal, Molly went on:
“But you don’t understand. You’ve got your own life to think of!”
Jinnie burst in with what she thought was a clinching triumph.
“I take lessons on my fiddle every day. Some time I hope––”
Molly’s eyes gleamed again.
“How can you afford to take lessons?”
The questioner read the truth in the burning blush that swept the girl’s dark hair line, and her little white teeth came together.
“Mr. Grandoken is not your uncle,” she snapped.
“He’s more’n my uncle; he’s a father to me, and when he comes home––”
“He’s not coming home. Murderers don’t get off so easily.”280
Jinnie got up and again picked her fiddle from the floor.
“He isn’t a murderer!” she stammered, with filling eyes. “Lafe wouldn’t kill anything.... I’ve been with him almost three years and I know. Why, he wouldn’t let Peg or me swat flies.”
Miss Merriweather saw her mistake. She realized then as never before that nothing could take from the girl her belief in the cobbler.
“Sit down,” she urged. “Don’t go yet.”
“I don’t want to sit down,” said Jinnie, very much offended. “I’m going! I’m sorry you think Lafe––”
Molly rose too. Impetuously she held out her hand.
“I really shouldn’t have spoken that way, because I don’t know a thing about it.”
Jinnie relented a little, but not enough to sit down. She was too deeply hurt to accept Molly’s hospitality further.
“And we musn’t quarrel, child,” decided the woman. “Now won’t you reconsider my proposition? I should love to do something for you.”
Resolutely the dark curls shook in refusal.
“I’m going to stay with Peggy till Lafe gets out, and then when I’m eighteen I’m going to school. I’ve been studying a lot since I left Mottville.... Why sometimes––” she resumed eagerly, “when we haven’t had enough to eat, Lafe’s made me buy a book to study out of, and I promised him I’d stay with his family till he came back. And––” she walked to the edge of the porch, turning suddenly, “and he’s coming back, all right,” she ended, going down the stairs.
Molly watched the slim young figure swing out to the road. The girl didn’t look around, and the woman waited until she had disappeared through the gate.
“He’ll not get out, and you, you little upstart,” she gritted, “you’ll not stay in Paradise Road, either.”
281CHAPTER XLAN APPEAL TO JINNIE’S HEART
One afternoon she was on her way home from her lesson when she heard a voice call, “Miss Grandoken!” She glanced up swiftly, recognizing the speaker immediately. He had been present that first night she had played for Theodore’s guests, and she remembered vividly her intuitive dislike of him; but because he was a friend of Theodore’s she went forward eagerly. The man drove his car to the side of the pavement and bowed.
“Would you care to be of service to Mr. King?” he asked, smiling.
Jinnie noticed his dazzling teeth and scarlet lips.
“Oh, yes, indeed! I wish I might.”
“Then come with me,” replied the man. “Will you?”
Without fear she entered the open car door and sat down, placing her violin on the seat beside her. She sank back with a sigh. The time had come she had so longed for; she was going to do something for Theodore. She was glad now she had consented to take two lessons that day, or she would have missed this blessed opportunity to show her gratitude to her dear one, in acts, as well as words. The car turned and sped up the hill.
If Jinnie wondered where the man was taking her, she did not allude to it. They were driving in the same direction she took every day to visit the master, and the very familiarity of it turned aside any question that arose282in her mind. As he helped her from the machine, she looked up at the sombre building in front of them. In passing it daily she had often wondered what it was and if any one lived within its vast stone walls. One hasty glance, as she was being ushered in, showed paint pails, brushes, and long ropes fastened from the roof to broad planks below.
“Miss Merriweather will be here very soon,” the man explained good-naturedly. “She wants you to go with her to the hospital.”
Jinnie’s mind flew to that one time she had visited Theodore’s sick bed. She would be glad to see Molly the Merry.
She had forgiven all the woman’s cruelty.
The long flights of stairs they mounted were dark and uncarpeted. Their footsteps made a hollow sound through the wide corridors, and there was no other sign of human life about the place. But still Jinnie followed the man in front of her, up and up, until she had counted five floors. Then he took a key from his pocket and put it in the lock, turning it with a click.
Jinnie waited until, stepping inside, he turned and smilingly bade her enter. There was so little natural suspicion in the girl’s heart that she never questioned the propriety, much less the safety, of coming into a strange place with an unknown man. Her dear one was ill. She was anxious to see him again, to help him if possible. She felt a little shy at the thought of seeing Miss Merriweather once more. The man led her to an inner room and suavely waved to a chair, asking her to be seated. Casting anxious eyes about the place, she obeyed.
“I’m going after Miss Merriweather now, if you’ll wait a few moments,” explained the stranger. “She wasn’t ready and asked me to bring you first. I think she’s preparing a surprise for Mr. King.”283
Jinnie’s tender little heart warmed toward Molly the Merry. Just then she had untold gratitude for the woman who was allowing her to take Theodore something with her own hands. Oh, what joy!
She smiled back at the speaker as he moved toward the door. Then he left her, asking her politely to make herself at home until he returned.
Jinnie waited and waited until she thought she couldn’t possibly wait any longer. Peg would be worried, terribly worried, and little Bobbie wouldn’t eat his supper without her. But because of Miss Merriweather’s kindness and her own great desire to see her sweetheart, she must stay until the last moment. She grew tired, stiff with sitting, and the little clock on the mantel told her she’d been there over two hours. She got up and went to the window. The building stood high on a large wooded bluff overlooking a deep gorge. The landscape before her interested her exceedingly, and took her in fancy to the wilderness of Mottville. The busy birds fluttered to and fro, twittering sleepily to each other, and for a short time the watcher forgot her anxiety in the majesty of the scene.
Miles of hills and miles and miles of water stretched northward as far as her eyes could discern anything. The same water passed and repassed the old farmhouse, and for some time Jinnie tried to locate some familiar spot, off where the sky dipped to the lake. It wasn’t until she noticed the hands of the clock pointed to half past six that she became terribly nervous.
She wanted to go to the hospital and get back to Peg. Mrs. Grandoken couldn’t leave the baby with Blind Bobbie, and there was supper to buy. Once more she paced the rooms, then back to the window. She shivered for some unknown reason, and a sharp consciousness of evil suddenly grew out of the lengthening hours. With the284gathering dusk the hills and gorge had fallen into voiceless silence, and because her nerves tingled with vague fear, Jinnie drew the curtains to shut out the yawning dark, and lighted a lamp on the table.
The room was arranged simply with a small divan, at the head of which was a pillow. Jinnie sat down and leaned back. Her face held a look of serious attention. She wondered if anything had happened to Molly the Merry. Then abruptly she decided to go downstairs. If they weren’t coming, she’dhaveto go home. She went to the door and, turning the knob, pulled hard. The door was locked, and the key was gone! Her discovery seemed to unmake her life in a twinkling. She was like one stricken with death—pale, cold and shivering. She did not know what she was going to do, but she must act—she must do something! A round of inspection showed her she could not open one of the doors. The windows, too, had several nails driven into their tops and along the sides, and the doors were securely fastened with keys. She went back to the window, raised the curtains, and looked out into the gloom. There was not another light to be seen.
The clock on the mantel had struck nine, and Jinnie had grown so horrified she dared not sit down. Many a time she went to the door and pressed her ear to it, but no sound came through the deep silence.
It was after eleven when she dropped on the divan and drew the coverlet over her. The next she knew, daylight was streaming in upon her face.
285CHAPTER XLIJINNIE’S PLEA
Jinnie sprang up, unable at first to remember where she was. Then it all came to her. She was locked away from the world in a big house overlooking the gorge. However, the morning brought a clear sun, dissipating some of her fear—filling her with greater hope.
The dreadful dreams during the night had been but dreams of fear and pain—of eternal separation from her loved ones. Such dreams, such fears, were foolish! No one could take her away from Peggy. She wouldn’t go! Ah, the man would return very soon with Molly the Merry.
The clock struck eight. What would Blind Bobbie think—and Peggy? The woman might decide she had left her forever; but no, no, Peg couldn’t think that!
Childlike, she was hungry. If some one had intentionally imprisoned her, they must have left her something to eat. Investigation brought forth some cold meat, a bottle of milk, and some bread. Jinnie ate all she could swallow. Then for an hour and a half she paced up and down, wishing something would happen, some one would come. Anything would be better than such deadly uncertainty.
Perhaps it was the overwhelming stillness of the building, possibly a natural alertness indicative of her fear, that allowed Jinnie to catch the echoes of footsteps at the farther end of the corridor. But before she got to the286door, a key grated in the lock, and the man who had brought her there was standing beside her. Their eyes met in a clinging, challenging glance—the blue of the one clashing with the sinister grey, as steel strikes fire from steel. An insolent smile broke over his face and he asked nonchalantly:
“Did you find the food?”
Jinnie did not answer. She stood contemplating his face. How she hated his smile, his white teeth, and his easy, suave manner. Their glances battled again for a moment across the distance.
“Why did you bring me here?” she demanded abruptly.
He spread his feet outward and hummed, toying the while with a smooth white chin.
“Sit down,” said he, with assumed politeness.
Jinnie stared at him with contemptuous dread in her eyes.
“I don’t want to; I want to know why I’m here.”
“Can’t you guess?” asked the stranger with an easy shrug.
“No,” said Jinnie. “Why?”
“And you can’t guess who I am?”
“No,” repeated Jinnie once more, passionately, “and I want to know why I’m here.”
He came toward her, piercing her face with a pair of compelling, mesmeric eyes that made her stagger back to the wall. Then he advanced a step nearer, covering the space Jinnie had yielded.
“I’m Jordan Morse,” he then said, clipping his words off shortly.
If a gun had burst in Jinnie’s face, she could have been no more alarmed. She was frozen to silence, and every former fear her father had given life to almost three years before, beset her once more, only with many times287the amount of vigor. Nevertheless, she gave back look for look, challenge for challenge, while her fingers locked and interlocked. Her uncle, who had sent her father to his grave, the man who wanted her money, who desired her own death!
Then her eyes slowly took on a tragic expression. She knew then she was destined to encounter the tragedy of Morse’s terrific vengeance, and no longer wondered why her father had succumbed to his force. He stood looking at her, his gaze taking in the young form avidiously.
“You’re the most beautiful girl in the world,” he averred presently.
Jinnie’s blue eyes narrowed angrily. However, in spite of her rage, she was terribly frightened. An instinct of self-preservation told her to put on a bold, aggressive front.
“Give me that key and let me go,” she insisted, with an upward toss of her head.
She walked to the door and shook it vigorously. Morse followed her and brought her brutally back to the center of the room.
“Not so fast,” he grated. “Don’t ever do that again! I’ve been hunting you for almost three years.... Sit down, I said.”
“I won’t!” cried Jinnie, recklessly. “I won’t! You can’t keep me here. My friends’ll find me.”
The man hazarded a laugh.
“What friends?” he queried.
Jinnie thought quickly. What friends? She had no friends just then, and because she knew she was dependent upon him for her very life, she listened in despair as he threw a truth at her.
“The only friends you have’re out of business! Lafe Grandoken will be electrocuted for murder––”288
The hateful thing he had just said and the insistence in it maddened her. She covered her face with her hands and uttered a low cry.
“And Theodore King is in the hospital,” went on Morse, mercilessly. “It’ll do no good for you to remember him.”
She was too normally alive not to express the loving heart outraged within her.
“I shall love him as long as I live,” she shivered between her fingers.
“Hell of a lot of good it’ll do you,” grunted the man coarsely.
Keen anxiety empowered her to raise an anguished face.
“You want my money––” she hesitated. “Well, you can have it.... You want it, don’t you?”
Her girlish helplessness made Morse feel that he was without heart or dignity, but he thought of his little boy and of how this girl was keeping from him the means to institute a search for the child, and his desire for vengeance kindled to glowing fires of hate. He remembered that, steadily of late, he had grown to detest the whole child-world because of his own sorrow, and nodded acquiescence, supplementing the nod with a harsh:
“And, by God, I’m going to have it, too!”
“Then let me go back to Lafe’s shop. I’ll give you every cent I have.... I won’t even ask for a dollar.”
It took some time for Morse to digest this idea; then he slowly shook his head.
“You wouldn’t be allowed to give me what would be mine––”
“If I die,” breathed Jinnie, shocked. She had read his thought and blurted it forth.
“Yes, if you die. But I haven’t any desire to kill you.... I have another way.”
“What way? Oh, tell me!”289
“Not now,” drawled Morse. “Later perhaps.”
The man contemplated the tips of his boots a minute. Then he looked at her, the meditative expression still in his eyes.
“To save your friends,” he said at length, “you’ve got to do what I want you to.”
“You mean—to save Lafe?” gasped Jinnie, eagerly.
Morse gave a negative gesture.
“No, not him. The cobbler’s got to go.He knows too much about me.”
Jinnie thought of Lafe, who loved and helped everybody within helping distance, of his wonderful faith and patience, of the day they had arrested him, and his last words.
She could not plan for herself nor think of her danger, only of the cobbler, her friend,––the man who had taken her, a little forlorn fugitive, when she had possessed no home of her own—he who had taught her about the angels and the tenderness of Jesus. From her uncle’s last statement she had received an impression that he knew who had fired those shots. He could have Lafe released if he would. She would beg for the cobbler’s life, beg as she had never begged before.
“Please, please, listen,” she implored, throwing out her hands. “You must! You must! Lafe’s always been so good. Won’t you let him live?... I’ll tell him about your wanting the money.... You shall have it! I’ll make any promise for him you want me to, and he’ll keep it.... He didn’t kill Maudlin Bates, and I believe you know who did.”
Morse lowered his lids until his eyes looked like grey slits across his face.
“Supposing I do,” he taunted. “As I’ve said, Grandoken knows too much about me. He won’t be the first one I’ve put out of my way.”290
He said this emphatically; he would teach her he was not to be thwarted; that when he desired anything, Heaven and earth, figuratively speaking, would have to move. He frowned darkly at her as Jinnie cut in swiftly:
“You killed my father. He told me you did.”
Morse flicked an ash from a cigar he had lighted, and his eyes grew hard, like rocks in a cold, gray dawn.
“So you know all my little indiscretions, eh?” he gritted. “Then don’t you see I can’t give you—your liberty?”
Liberty! What did he mean by taking her liberty away? She asked him with beating heart.
“Just this, my dear child,” he advanced mockingly. “There are places where people’re taken care of and—the world thinks them dead. In fact, your father had a taste of what I can do. Only he happened to––”
“Did you put him somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Same kind of a place I’m going to put you––” He hesitated a moment and ended, “A mad house!”
“Did you let him come home to me?”
“Not I. Damn the careless keepers! He skipped out one day, and I didn’t know until he’d a good start of me. I followed as soon as possible, but you were gone. Now—now—then, to findsucha place for you!”
Jinnie’s imagination called up the loathsome thing he mentioned and terrified her to numbness. At that moment she understood what her father had written in that sealed letter to Lafe Grandoken.
But she couldn’t allow her mind to dwell upon his threat against herself.
“What’d you mean when you said I could save my friends?”
“You’re fond of Mrs. Grandoken, aren’t you?”291
Jinnie nodded, trying to swallow a lump in her throat.
“And—and there’s a—a—blind child too—who could be hurt easily.”
Jinnie’s living world reeled before her eyes. During this speech she had lost every vestige of color. She sprang toward him and her fingers went blue-white from the force of her grip on his arm.
“Oh, you couldn’t, you wouldn’t hurt poor little Bobbie?” she cried hysterically. “He can’t see and he’s sick, terribly ill all the time. I’ll do anything you say—anything to help ’em.”
Then she fell to the floor, groveling at his feet.
“Get up! You needn’t cry; things’ll be easy enough for you if you do exactly as I tell you. The first order I give you is to stay here quietly until I come again.”
As he spoke, he lifted her up, and she stood swaying pitiably.
“Can’t I let Peg know where I am?” she entreated when she could speak. “Please! Please!”
“I should think not,” scoffed Morse. Then, after a moment’s consideration, he went on, “You might write her a note, if you say what I dictate. I’ll have it mailed from another town. I don’t want any one to know you’re still in Bellaire.”
“Could I send her a little money, too?” she asked.
“Yes,” replied Morse.
“Then tell me what to write, and I will.”
After he had gone and Jinnie was once more alone, she sat at the window, her eyes roving over the landscape. Her gaze wandered in melancholy sadness to the shadowy summit of the distant hills, in which the wild things of nature lived in freedom, as she herself had lived with Lafe Grandoken in Paradise Road, long before her uncle’s menacing shadow had crossed her life. Then her eyes lowered292to the rock-rimmed gorge, majestic in its eternal solitude. She was on the brink of some terrible disaster. She knew enough of her uncle’s character to realize that. She spent the entire day without even looking at her beloved fiddle, and after the night closed in, she lay down, thoroughly exhausted.
Peggy took a letter from the postman’s hand mechanically, but when she saw the well-known writing, she trembled so she nearly dropped the missive from her fingers. She went into the shop, where Bobbie lay face downward on the floor. At her entrance, he lifted a white face.
“Has Jinnie come yet?” he asked faintly.
“No,” said Peg, studying the postmark of the letter. Then she opened it. A five-dollar bill fell into her lap, and she thrust it into her bosom with a sigh.
“Peggy Darling,” she read with misty eyes.
“I’ve had to go away for a little while. Don’t worry. Here’s some money. Use it and I’ll send more. Kiss Bobbie for me and tell him Jinnie’ll come back soon. And the baby, oh, Peggy, hug him until he can’t be hugged any more. Don’t tell Lafe I’m away.
“With all my love,“Jinnie.”
Peggy put down the letter.
“Bobbie!” she said.
The boy looked up. “I ain’t got any stars, Peggy,” he wailed tragically. “I want Jinnie and Lafe.”
“I’ve got a letter from Jinnie here,” announced Peggy.
The boy got to his feet instantly.
“When she’s comin’ back?”
“She don’t say, but she sends a lot of kisses and love to you. She had to go away for a few days.... Now293don’t snivel!... Come here an’ I’ll give you the kisses she sent.”
He nestled contentedly in Peggy’s arms.
“Let me feel the letter,” came a faltering whisper presently.
Bobbie ran his fingers over the paper, trying with sensitive finger tips to follow the ink traces.
“Can I keep it a little while?” he begged.... “Please, Peggy!”
“Sure,” said Peg, putting him down, and when the baby cried, Mrs. Grandoken left the blind child hugging Happy Pete, with Jinnie’s letter flattened across his chest between him and the dog.
294CHAPTER XLIIBOBBIE TAKES A TRIP
Jinnie had been gone two weeks. Nearly every day the postman brought a letter from the girl to Peggy, and after reading it several times to herself, she gave it to Blind Bobbie. Mrs. Grandoken had discovered this was the way to keep him quiet.
One afternoon the boy sat on the front steps of the cobbler’s shop, sunning himself.
“You can hear Jinnie better when she comes,” said Peg, as an excuse to coax him out of doors. “Now sit there till I get back from the market.”
Bobbie had Happy Pete in his arms when he heard strange footsteps walking down the short flight of steps. He lifted his head as he heard a voice speak his name.
“Bobbie,” it said softly. “Are you Bobbie?”
“Yes,” replied the boy tremblingly.
The soft voice spoke again. “Do you want to see Jinnie?”
Bobbie clutched Happy Pete with one arm and struggled up, holding out a set of slender fingers that shook like small reeds in a storm.
“Yes, I want to see ’er,” he breathed. “Do you know where she is?”
“If you’ll come along with me, I’ll take you to her. Bring the dog if you like.”
“I want to see her to-day,” stated Bobbie.295
Jordan Morse took Bobbie’s hand in his.
“Come on then, and don’t make a noise,” cautioned the man. “Put down the dog; he’ll follow you.”
Once in Paradise Road, he stooped and lifted the slight boyish figure and walked quickly away. Beyond the turn in the road stood his car. He placed Bobbie and the dog on the seat beside him, and in another moment they were speeding toward the hill.
At that moment Jinnie was brooding over her violin. Her fiddle was her only comfort in the lonely hours. The plaintive tones she drew from it were the only sounds she heard, save the rushing water in the gorge and the thrashing of the trees when the wind blew. The minutes hung long on her hands, and the hours seemed to mock her as they dragged along in interminable sequence. With her face toward the window, she passed several hours composing a piece which had been in embryo in her heart for a long time. The solitude, the grandeur of the scenery, the wonderful lake with its curves and turns, sometimes made her forget the tragic future that lay before her.
She was just finishing with lingering, tender notes when Jordan Morse came quickly through the corridor.
Bobbie stiffened in his arms suddenly.
“I hear Jinnie’s fiddle,” he gasped. “I’m goin’ to my Jinnie.”
When the key turned in the lock, the girl came to the door. At first she didn’t notice the blind child, but her name, unsteadily called, brought her eyes to the little figure. Happy Pete recognized her with a wild yelp, wriggled himself past the other two, and whiningly crouched at her feet. Jinnie had them both in her arms before Morse turned the key again in the lock.
“Bobbie and Happy Pete!” she cried. Then she got up and flashed tearful eyes upon Morse.296
“What did you bring them for? Did you tell Peg?”
“No, I didn’t tell Peg and—and I brought him––” he paused and beckoned her with an upward toss of his chin.
Jinnie followed him agitatedly.
“I brought him,” went on Morse, “because I don’t just like your manner. I brought him as a lever to move you with, miss.”
Then he left hurriedly, something unknown within him stirring with life. He decided afterward it was the sight of the blind child’s golden head pressed against Jinnie’s breast that had so upset him.
As he drove away, he crushed a desire to return again, to take them both, boy and girl, back to the cobbler’s shop. But he must not allow his better emotions to attack him in this matter. He had known for a long time Jinnie could be wielded through her affection for the lad. He thought of his own child somewhere in the world and what it meant to him to possess Jinnie’s money, and set his teeth. He would bring the girl to his terms through her love for the slender blind boy.
That day Jinnie wrote a letter to Peg, telling her that Bobbie was with her, and Happy Pete, too.
The stolid woman had quite given way under the mysterious disappearance of the boy. When she returned home, she searched every lane leading to the marshes until dusk. In fact, she stumbled far into the great waste place, calling his name over and over. He was the last link that held her to the days when Lafe had been in the shop, and Peg would have given much if her conscience would cease lashing her so relentlessly. It eased her anxiety a little when a new resolution was born in her stubborn heart. If they all came back to the shop, she’d make up to them in some way for her ugly conduct. With this297resolve, she went home to her own baby, sorrowful, dejected and lonely.
All the evening while Peg was mourning for them, Jinnie sat cuddling Bobbie, until the night put its dark hood on the ravine and closed it in a heavy gloom. Happy Pete, with wagging tail, leaned against the knees of the girl, and there the three of them remained in silence until Bobbie, lifting his face, said quiveringly:
“Peggy almost died when you went away, Jinnie.”
Jinnie felt her throat throb.
“Tell me about it,” she said hoarsely.
“There ain’t much to tell,” replied the child, sighing, “only Peggy was lonely. She only had me and the baby, and I didn’t have any stars and the baby’s got no teeth.”
“And the baby? Is he well, dear?” questioned Jinnie.
“Oh, fine!” the boy assured her. “He’s growed such a lot. I felt his face this morning, and oh, my, Jinnie, his cheeks puff out like this!”
Bobbie gathered in a long breath, and puffed out his own thin, drawn cheeks.
“Just like that!” he gasped, letting out the air.
“And Lafe?” ventured Jinnie.
“Lafe’s awful bad off, I guess. Bates’ little boy told me he was going to die––”
“No, Bobbie, no, he isn’t!” Jinnie’s voice was sharp in protestation.
“Yes, he is!” insisted Bobbie. “Bates’ boy told me so! He said Lafe wouldn’t ever come back to the shop, ’cause everybody says he killed Maudlin.”
As the words left his lips, he began to sob. “I want my cobbler,” he screamed loudly, “and I want my beautiful stars!”
“Bobbie, Bobbie, you’ll be sick if you scream that way. There, there, honey!” Jinnie hushed him gently.298
“I want to be ‘Happy in Spite’,” the boy went on. But his words brought before the pale girl that old, old memory of the cobbler who had invented the club for just such purposes as this. How could she be ‘Happy in Spite’ when Bobbie suffered; when Peg and baby Lafe needed her; happy when Lafe faced an ignominious death for a crime he had not committed; happy when her beloved was perhaps still very ill in the hospital? She got up and began to walk to and fro. Suddenly she paused in her even march across the room. Unless she steadied her fluttering, stinging nerves, she’d never be able to still the wretched boy. There’s an old saying that when one tries to help others, winged aid will come to the helper. And so it was with Jinnie. She had only again taken Bobbie close when there came to her Lafe’s old, old words: “He hath given his angels charge over thee.”
“Bobbie,” she said softly, “I’m going to play for you.”
As Jinnie straightened his limp little body out on the divan, she noticed how very thin he had become, how his heart throbbed continually, how the agonized lines drew and pursed the sensitive, delicate mouth.
Then she played and played and played, and ever in her heart to the rhythm of her music were the words, “His angels shall have charge over thee.” Suddenly there came to her a great belief that out of her faith and Lafe’s faith would come Bobbie’s good, and Peg’s good, and especially the good of the man shut up in the little cell. When the boy grew sleepy, Jinnie made him ready for bed.
“I’ll lie down with you, Bobbie,” she whispered, “and Happy Pete can sleep on the foot of the bed.”
And as the pair of sad little souls slept, Lafe’s angels kept guard over them.