CHAPTER XI

Mother and Son

Miss Upton had looked upon the parting amenities of the two young people with beaming approval; and Geraldine's first words when they were alone astonished her.

As soon as they were inside the shop and the door closed, the young girl looked earnestly into her friend's eyes. Miss Mehitable returned her regard affectionately. The golden hair had been wound up and secured with Mrs. Barry's hairpins.

"I wish there were some way by which I need never see him again," she said.

"Why, Miss Melody, child, what do you mean? Every word I told you in my letter was true. Perhaps you never got it, but I told you that he is the _finest_--"

"Yes, yes, I believe it," was the hasty reply. "I did receive your letter, and some time I'll tell you how, and what a comfort it was to me. Oh, Miss Upton"--the girl threw her arms around the stout figure--"I can't tell you what it means to me for you to take me in; and this is your shop you told me of--" she released Miss Mehitable and looked about--"and I'm going to tend it for you and help you in every way I can. It is paradise--paradise to me, Miss Upton."

Her fervor brought a lump to her companion's throat, but she knew that Mrs. Whipp was listening from the sitting-room, and Miss Mehitable did love peace.

"Yes, yes, dear child; it'll all come out right," she said vaguely, patting the white shoulder. "I have another good helper and I want you to meet her. Come with me." She led the girl through the shop.

Mrs. Whipp had retreated violently from the front window when she saw the closed car drive up, and now she was standing, at bay as it were, with eyes fixed on the doorway through which her employer would bring the stranger. Pearl was placidly purring in the last rays of the sinking sun, her milk-white paws tucked under her soft breast, the only unexcited member of the family.

Mrs. Whipp had excuse for staring as the young girl came into view.

Short wisps of golden hair waved about her face. Her beauty struck a sort of awe to the militant woman, who was standing on a mental fence in armed neutrality holding herself ready to spring down on that side which would regard the stranger as an interloper come to sponge on Miss Upton, or possibly she might descend upon the other side and endure the newcomer pa.s.sively.

"This is our little girl, Charlotte," said Miss Mehitable; "our little girl to take care of, and who wants to take care of us. This is Mrs.

Whipp, Geraldine."

Charlotte blinked as the newcomer's face relaxed in her appealing smile, and she came forward and took Mrs. Whipp's hard, unexpectant hand in her soft grasp. "Such a fortunate girl I am, Mrs. Whipp," she said, "I'm sure I shall inconvenience you at first (this fact had been too plainly legible on the weazened face to be ignored), but I will try to make up for it--try my very best, and it may not be for long."

Charlotte mumbled some inarticulate greeting, falling an instant victim to the young creature's humility and loveliness.

"I look very queer, I know," continued Geraldine, "but you see I just came down out of the sky."

"She really did," put in Miss Upton. "She came in Mr. Barry's areoplane."

"Shan't I die!" commented Mrs. Whipp, continuing to stare with a pertinacity equal to Rufus Carder's own. "I believe it. She looks like an angel," she thought. Miss Mehitable watched her melting mood with inward amus.e.m.e.nt.

"What a beautiful cat!" said Geraldine. "She's tame, isn't she? Will she let you touch her?"

"Well," said Charlotte with a broader smile than had been seen on her countenance for many a day, "I guess they don't have cats in the sky."

She lifted Pearl and bestowed her in Geraldine's arms.

The girl met the lazy, golden eyes rather timorously, but she took her.

"All the cats where--where I was--were wild--and no one--no one fed them, you see."

"Well, this cat is named Pearl," said Miss Mehitable. "She's Charlotte's jewel and you can bet she does get fed. How about us, Charlotte?" She turned to the waiting table. "I want to give Miss Melody her supper and put her to bed, and after she has slept twelve hours we'll get her to tell us how it feels to fly. Thank Heaven, she's here with no broken bones."

Meanwhile Ben Barry had reached home and made a rather formal toilet for the evening meal. Even before his mother saw it, she knew she was going to be disciplined. While the waitress remained in the room the young man's gravity and meticulous politeness would have intimidated most mothers with a conscience as guilty as Mrs. Barry's. She was forced to raise her napkin several times, not to dry tears, but to conceal smiles which would have been sure to add fuel to the flame.

She showed her temerity by soon dismissing the servant. Her son met her twinkling eyes coldly. She leaned across the table toward him and revealed the handsome teeth he had inherited.

"Now, Benny, don't be ridiculous," she said.

This beginning destroyed his completely. He arrived at his climax at once.

"How could you be so heartless!" he exclaimed. "She had told me she wanted you to love her. Your coldness shocked her."

This appeal, so pathetic to the speaker, caused Mrs. Barry again to raise her napkin to her rebellious lips.

"I tell you," went on Ben heatedly, "she has been through so much that the surprise and humiliation of your manner made her faint."

"Now, dear, be calm. Didn't I bring her to again? Didn't I do up her hair--it's beautiful, but I like it better wound up, in company--didn't I want to give her--"

"Do you suppose," interrupted Ben more hotly, "do you suppose she wasn't conscious, and hurt, too, by her unconventional appearance?"

He was arraigning his parent now with open severity.

"How about my shock, Ben? I'm old-fashioned, you know. You come, leading that odd little waif and displaying so much--well, enthusiasm, wasn't it--wasn't the whole thing a little extreme?"

"Yes, the situation was certainly very extreme. An old rascal had managed to capture that flower of a girl, and made her believe that to save her dead father's good name she must marry him. I come along with the Scout and pick her up out of a field where she was walking, he running, and yelling, and firing his gun at us. There was scarcely time for her to put on a traveling costume to accord with your ideas of decorum, was there?"

Mrs. Barry's eyes widened as they gazed into his accusing ones.

"How dreadful," she said.

"Yes; and even in all her relief at escaping, Miss Melody was in doubt as to whether she was not deserting her father's cause--torn, as the books say, with conflicting emotions. You may think it was all very pleasant."

"Benny, I think it was dreadful! Awfully hard for you, dear; and, oh, that wretch might have disabled the plane and hurt you! Why did I ever let you have it?"

"To save her! That's why you let me have it."

His mother regarded his glowing face. "What a wretched mess!" she was thinking. "What a bother that the girl is so pretty!"

"You remember the other evening when I came home from that motor-cycle trip, and the next day Miss Upton came and told you Miss Melody's story?"

"Yes, dear." Mrs. Barry added apologetically, "I'm afraid I didn't pay strict attention."

"Well, it is a pity that you did not, for I've known ever since that day that Geraldine Melody is the only girl I shall ever marry."

His mother's heart beat faster as she marked the expression in those steady, young eyes.

There was silence for a s.p.a.ce between them. She was the first to speak, and she did so with a cool, unsmiling demeanor which reminded him of childhood days when he was in disgrace.

"Then you care nothing for what sort of mind and character are possessed by your future wife. The skin-deep part is all that interests you."

"That's what she said," he responded quickly. "I suggested that she put affairs in a shape where it would be of no use for an irritating conscience to try to make trouble. I urged her to marry me this afternoon before we came home."