Hidden Creek - Katharine Newlin Burt
"Wait a minute, Babe!" Sheila was sober again and not unpenitent. "I'm
coming down with you. I want to tell your father that Dickie was sweet to
me. I don't want him to--to--what was it he was going to do to-morrow?"
"Bawl Dickie out."
"Yes. I don't want him to do that. It sounds awful."
"Well, it is. But it won't hurt Dickie any. He's used to it."
Babe, forgiving and demonstrative, here forgot the insult to Millings and
Jim Greely, put her arm round Sheila, and went down the stairs, squeezing
the smaller girl against the wall.
"I guess I won't go with you to see Poppa," she said, stopping at the top
of the last flight. "Poppa's kind of a rough talker sometimes."
Sheila looked rather alarmed. "You mean you think he--he will bawl me
out?"
"I wouldn't wonder." Babe smiled, showing a lump of putty-colored
chewing-gum between her flashing teeth.
Sheila stood halfway down the stairs. She had not yet quite admitted to
herself that she was afraid of Sylvester Hudson and now she did admit it.
But with a forlorn memory of Dickie, she braced herself and went slowly
down the six remaining steps. The parlor door was shut and back of it to
and fro prowled Sylvester. Sheila opened the door.
Hudson's face, ready with a scowl, changed. He came quickly toward her.
"Well, say, Miss Sheila, I am sure-ly sorry--"
Sheila shook her head. "Not half so sorry as I am, Mr. Hudson. I came
down to apologize."
He pulled out a chair and Sheila sat down. Sylvester placed himself
opposite to her and lighted a huge black cigar, watching her meanwhile
curiously, even anxiously. His face was as quiet and sallow and gentle as
usual. Sheila's fear subsided.
"_You_ came down to apologize?" repeated Hudson. "Well, ma'am, that
sounds kind of upside down to me."
"I behaved like a goose. Your son hadn't done or said anything to
frighten me. He was sweet. I like him so much. He was coming home and saw
me walking off alone, and he thought that I might be lonely or frightened
or fall into the snow--which I did"--Sheila smiled coaxingly; "I went
down up to my neck and Dickie pulled me out and was--lovely to me. It
wasn't till I was halfway down the hill that I--that it came to me, all
of a sudden, that--perhaps--he'd been drinking--"
"Perhaps," said Sylvester dryly. "It's never perhaps with Dickie."
Sheila's eyes filled. For a seventeen-year-old girl the situation was
difficult. It was not easy to discuss Dickie's habit with his father.
"I am so--sorry," she faltered. "I behaved absurdly. Just because I saw
that he wasn't quite himself I ran away from him and made a scene. Truly,
Mr. Hudson, he had not said or done anything the least bit horrid. He'd
been sensible and nice and friendly--Oh, dear!" For she saw before her a
relentless and incredulous face. "You won't believe me now, I suppose!"
"I can't altogether, Miss Sheila, for I reckon you wouldn't have run away
from a true-blue, friendly fellow, would you?"
"Yes, Mr. Hudson, I would. Because, you see, I did. It was just a sort of
panic. Too much moonshine."
"Yes, ma'am. Too much moonshine inside of Dickie. I hope"--he leaned
toward her, and Sheila, the child, could not help but be flattered by his
deference--"I hope you're not thinking that Dickie's unfortunate habit is
my fault. I'm his father and I own that saloon. But, all the same, it's
not my fault nor The Aura's fault either. I never did spoil Dickie. And
I'm a sober man myself. He's just naturally ornery, no account. He always
was. I believe he's kind of lacking in the upper story."
"Oh, _no_, Mr. Hudson!"
The protest was so emphatic that Sylvester pulled his cigar out of his
mouth, brushed away the smoke, and looked searchingly at Sheila. She was
sitting very straight. Against the crimson plush of an enormous
chair-back her small figure looked extravagantly delicate and her little
pointed fingers on the arms, startlingly white and fine. A color flamed
in her cheeks, her eyes and lips were possessed by the remorseful
earnestness of her appeal.
"Well, say, if _you_ think not!" Sylvester narrowed his eyes and thrust
the cigar back into a hole made by his mouth for its reception; "you're
the first person that hasn't kind of agreed with me on that point. I
can't see why he took to the whiskey, anyway. Moderation's my motto and
always was. It's the motto of The Aura. There ain't a bar east nor west
of the Rockies, Miss Sheila, believe _me_, that has the reputation for
decency and moderation that my Aura has. She's classy, she's
stylish--well, sir--she's exquisite"--he pronounced it ex-_squis_it--"I
don't mind sayin' so. She's a saloon in a million. And she's famous. You
can hear talk of The Aura in the best clubs, the most se-lect bars of
Chicago and Noo York and San Francisco. She's mighty near perfect. Well,
say, there was an Englishman in there one night two summers ago. He was
some Englishman, too, an earl, that was him. Been all over the world,
east, west, and in between. Had a glass in his eye--one of those fellers.
Do you know what he told me, Miss Sheila? Can you guess?"
"That The Aura was classy?" suggested Sheila bravely.
"More'n that," Sylvester leaned farther toward her and emphasized his
words with the long forefinger.
"'It's all but perfect'--that's what he said--'it only needs one thing to
make it quite perfect!'"
"What was the thing?"
But Hudson did not heed her question. "Believe me or not, Miss Sheila,
that saloon--"
"But I do believe you," said Sheila with her enchanting smile. "And
that's just the trouble with Dickie, isn't it? Your saloon is--must
be--the most fascinating place in Millings. Why, Mr. Hudson, ever since I
came here, I've been longing to go into it myself!"
She got up after this speech and went to stand near the stove. Not that
she was cold--the small room, which looked even smaller on account of its
huge flaming furniture and the enormous roses on its carpet and
wall-paper, was as hot as a furnace--but because she was abashed by her
own speech and by his curious reception of it. The dark blood of his body
had risen to his face; he had opened his eyes wide upon her, had sunk
back again and begun to smoke with short, excited puffs.
Sheila thought that he was shocked and she was very close to tears. She
blinked at the stove and moved her fingers uncertainly. "Nice girls," she
thought, "never want to go into saloons!"
Then Sylvester spoke. "You're a girl in a million, Miss Sheila!" he
said. His voice was more cracked than usual. Sheila transferred her
blinking, almost tearful look from the stove to him. "You're a heap too
good for dish-washing," said Sylvester.
For some reason the girl's heart began to beat unevenly. She had a
feeling of excitement and suspense. It was as if, after walking for many
hours through a wood where there was a lurking presence of danger, she
had heard a nearing step. She kept her eyes upon Sylvester. In his there
was that mysterious look of appraisal, of vision. He seemed nervous,
rolled his cigar and moved his feet.
"Are you satisfied with your work, Miss Sheila?"
Sheila assembled her courage. "I know you'll think me a beast, Mr.
Hudson, after all your kindness--and it isn't that I don't like the work.
But I've a feeling--no, it's more than a feeling!--I _know_ that your
wife doesn't need me. And I know she doesn't want me. She doesn't like to
have me here. I've been unhappy about that ever since I came. And it's
been getting worse. Yesterday she said she couldn't bear to have me
whistling round her kitchen. Mr. Hudson"--Sheila's voice broke
childishly--"I can't help whistling. It's a habit. I couldn't work at all
if I didn't whistle. I wouldn't have told you, but since you asked me--"
Sylvester held up his long hand. Its emerald glittered.
"That's all right," he said. "I wanted to learn the truth about it.
Perhaps you've noticed, Miss Sheila, that I'm not a very happy man at
home."
"You mean--?"
"I mean," said Sylvester heavily--"_Momma_."
Sheila overcame a horrible inclination to laugh.
"I'm so sorry," she said uncertainly. She was acutely embarrassed, but
did not know how to escape. And she _was_ sorry for him, for certainly it
seemed to her that a man married to Momma had just cause for unhappiness.
"I ought to be ashamed of myself for bringing you here, Miss Sheila. You
see, that's me. I'm so all-fired soft-hearted that I just don't think.
I'm all feelings. My heart's stronger than my head, as the palmists say."
He rose and came over to Sheila; standing beside her and smiling so that
the wrinkle stood out sharply across his unwilling lip. "Did you ever go
to one of those fellows?" he asked.
"Palmists?"
"Yes, ma'am. Well, now, say, did they ever tell you that you were
going to be the pride and joy of old Pap Hudson? Give me your little
paw, girl!"
Sheila's hand obeyed rather unwillingly her irresolute, polite will.
Hudson's came quickly to meet it, spread it out flat in his own long
palm, and examined the small rigid surface.
"Well, now, Miss Sheila, I can read something there."
"What can you read?"
"You're goin' to be famous. You're goin' to make Millings famous. Girl,
you're goin' to be a picture that will live in the hearts of fellows and
keep 'em warm when they're herding winter nights. The thought of you is
goin' to keep 'em straight and pull 'em back here. You 're goin' to be
a--a sort of a beacon light."
He was holding her slim hand with its small, crushable bones in an
excited grip. He was bending forward, not looking at the palm, but at
her. Sheila pulled back, wincing a little.
"What do you mean, Mr. Hudson? How could I be all that?"
Sylvester let her go. He began to pace the room. He stopped and looked at
her, almost wistfully.
"You really think that I've been kind of nice to you?" he asked.
"Indeed, you have!"
"I'm not a happy man and I've got to be sort of distrustful. I haven't
got much faith in the thankfulness of people. I've got fooled too often."
"Try me," said Sheila quickly.
He looked at her with a long and searching look. Then he sighed.
"Some day maybe I will. Run away to bed now."
Sheila felt as if she had been pushed away from a half-opened door.
She drew herself up and walked across the huge flowers of the carpet.
But before going out she turned back. Sylvester quickly banished a
sly smile.
"You won't be angry with Dickie?" she asked.
"Not if it's going to deal you any misery, little girl."
"You're _very_ kind to me."
He put up his hand. "That's all right, Miss Sheila," he said. "That's all
right. It's a real pleasure and comfort to me to have you here and I'll
try to shape things so they'll suit you--and Momma too. Trust _me_. But
don't you ask me to put any faith in Dickie's upper story. I've climbed
up there too often. I'll give up my plan to go round there to-morrow
and--" He paused grimly.
"And bawl him out?" suggested Sheila with one of her Puckish impulses.
"Hump! I was going a little further than that. He would likely have done
the bawlin'. But don't you worry yourself about Dickie. He's safe for
this time--so long's you don't blame me, or--The Aura."
His voice on the last word suffered from one of its cracks. It was as
though it had broken under a load of pride and tenderness.
Sheila saw for a moment how it was with him. To every man his passion and
his dream: to Sylvester Hudson, his Aura. More than wife or child, he
loved his bar. It was a fetish, an idol. To Sheila's fancy Dickie
suddenly appeared the sacrifice.
CHAPTER VI
THE BAWLING-OUT
Dickie's room in The Aura Hotel was fitted in between the Men's Lavatory
and the Linen Room. It smelt of soiled linen and defective plumbing.
Also, into its single narrow window rose the dust of ashes, of old rags
and other refuse thrown light-heartedly into the back yard, which not
being visible from the street supplied the typical housewife of a
frontier town with that relaxation from any necessity to keep up an
appearance of economy and cleanliness so desirable to her liberty-loving
soul. The housekeeper at The Aura was not Mrs. Hudson, but an enormously
stout young woman with blonde hair, named Amelia Plecks. She was so
tightly laced and booted that her hard breathing and creaking were
audible all over the hotel. When Dickie woke in his narrow room after his
moonlight adventure, he heard this heavy breathing in the linen room and,
groaning, thrust his head under the pillow. With whatever bitterness his
kindly heart could entertain, he loathed Amelia. She took advantage of
the favor of Sylvester and of her own exalted position in the hotel to
taunt and to humiliate him. His plunge under the pillow did not escape
her notice.
"Ain't you up yet, lazybones?" she cried, rapping on the wall. "You
won't get no breakfast. It's half-past seven. Who's at the desk to see
them Duluth folks off? Pap's not going to be pleased with you."
"I don't want any breakfast," muttered Dickie.
Amelia laughed. "No. I'll be bound you don't. Tongue like a kitten and a
head like a cracked stove!"
She slapped down some clean sheets on a shelf and creaked toward the
hall, but stopped at the open door. Sylvester Hudson was coming down the
passage and she was in no mind to miss the "bawling-out" of Dickie which
this visit must portend. She shut the linen-room door softly, therefore,
and controlled her breathing.
But Dickie knew that she was there and, when his father rapped, he knew
why she was there.
He tumbled wretchedly from his bed, swore at his injured ankle, hopped to
the door, unlocked it, and hopped back with panic swiftness before his
father's entrance. He sat in his crumpled pajamas amidst his crumpled,
dingy bedclothes, his hair scattered over his forehead, his large, heavy
eyes fixed anxiously upon Sylvester.
"Say, Poppa--" he began.
Then "Pap's" voice cracked out at him.
"You hold your tongue," snapped Sylvester, "or you'll get what's comin'
to you!" He jerked Dickie's single chair from against the wall, threw the
clothing from it, and sat down, crossing his legs, and holding up at his
son the long finger that had frightened Sheila. Dickie blinked at it.
"You know what I was plannin' to do to you after last night? I meant to
come round here and pull you out of your covers and onto the floor
there"--he pointed to a spot on the boards to which Dickie fearfully
directed his own eyes--"and kick the stuffin' out of you." Dickie
contemplated the long, pointed russet shoes of his parent and shuddered
visibly. Nevertheless in the slow look he lifted from the boot to his
father's face, there was a faint gleam of irony.
"What made you change your mind?" he asked impersonally.
It was this curious detachment of Dickie's, this imperturbability, that
most infuriated Hudson. He flushed.
"Just a little sass from you will bring me back to the idea," he
said sharply.
Dickie lowered his eyes.
"What made me change was--Miss Arundel's kindness. She came and begged
you off. She said you hadn't done anything or said anything to frighten
her, that you'd been"--Sylvester drawled out the two words in the
sing-song of Western mockery--"'sweet and love-ly.'"
Dickie's face was pink. He began to tie a knot in the corner of one of
his thin gray sheet-blankets.
"I don't know how sweet and lovely you can be, Dickie, when you're lit
up, but I guess you were awful sweet. Anyway, if you didn't say anything
or do anything to scare her, you don't deserve a kickin'. But, just the
same, I've a mind to turn you out of Millings."
This time, Dickie's look was not ironical. It was terrified. "Oh, Poppa,
say! I'll try not to do it again."
"I never heard that before, did I?" sneered Sylvester. "You put shame on
me and my bar. And I'm not goin' to stand it. If you want to get drunk
buy a bottle and come up here in your room. God damn you! You're a nice
son for the owner of The Aura!"
He stood up and looked with frank disgust at the thin, huddled figure.
Under this look, Dickie grew slowly redder and his eyes watered.
Sylvester lifted his upper lip. "Faugh!" he said. He walked over to the
door. "Get up and go down to your job and don't you bother Miss
Sheila--hear me? Keep away from her. She's not used to your sort and
you'll disgust her. She's here under my protection and I've got my plans
for her. I'm her guardian--that's what I am." Sylvester was pleased like
a man that has made a discovery. "Her guardian," he repeated as though
the word had a fine taste.
Dickie watched him. There was no expression whatever in his face and his
lips stood vacantly apart. He might have been seven years old.
"Keep away from her--hear me?"
"Yes, sir," said Dickie meekly.
After his father had gone out, Dickie sat for an instant with his head
on one side, listening intently. Then he got up, limped quietly and
quickly on his bare feet out into the hall, and locked the linen-room
door on the outside.
"Amelia's clean forgot to lock it," he said aloud. "Ain't she careless,
though, this morning!"
He went back. There was certainly a sound now behind the partition, a
sound of hard breathing that could no longer be controlled.
"I'll hand the key over to Mary," soliloquized Dickie in the hollow and
unnatural voice of stage confidences. "She'll be goin' in for the towels
about noon."
Then he fell on his bed and smothered a fit of chuckling.
Suddenly the mirth died out of him. He lay still, conscious of a pain in
his head and in his ankle and somewhere else--an indeterminate spot deep
in his being. He had been forbidden to see the girl who ran away out into
the night to look at the stars, the girl who had not laughed at his
attempt to describe the white ecstasy of the winter moon. He had
frightened her--disgusted her. He must have been more drunk than he
imagined. It _was_ disgusting--and so hopeless. Perhaps it would be
better to leave Millings.
He sat up on the edge of his bed and let his hands hang limply down
between his knees. It seemed to him that his thoughts were like a wheel,
half-submerged in running water. The wheel went round rapidly, plunging
in and out of his consciousness. Hardly had he grasped the meaning of one
half when it went under and another blur of moving spokes emerged.
Something his father had said, for instance, now began to pass through
his mind.... "I've got my plans for her".... Dickie tried to stop the
turning wheel because this speech gave him a distinct feeling of anger
and alarm. By an effort of his will, he held it before his
contemplation.... What possible plans could Sylvester have for Sheila?
Did she understand his plans? Did she approve of them? She was so young
and small, with that sad, soft mouth and those shining, misty eyes.
Dickie, with almost a paternal air, shook his ruffled head. He shut his
eyes so that the long lashes stood out in little points. A vision of
those two faces--Sheila's so gleaming fair and open, Sylvester's so dark
and shut--stood there to be compared. Her guardian, indeed!
Dickie dressed slowly and dragged himself down to the desk, where very
soberly and sadly he gave the key of the linen room to Mary. Then he sat
down, turned on the Victor, and lit a cigarette. The "Duluth folks" had
gone without any assistance from him. There was nothing to do. It
occurred to Dickie, all at once, that in Millings there was always
nothing to do. Nothing, that is, for him to do. Perhaps, after all, he
didn't like Millings. Perhaps that was what was wrong with him.
The Victor was playing:
"Here comes Tootsie,
Play a little music on the band.
Here comes Tootsie,
Tootsie, you are looking simply grand.
Play a little tune on the piccolo and flutes,
The man who wrote the rag wrote it especially for Toots.
Here comes Tootsie--play a little music on the band."
On the last nasal note, the door of The Aura flew open and a resplendent
figure crossed the chocolate-colored varnish of the floor. Tootsie
herself was not more "simply grand." This was a young man, perhaps it
would be more descriptive to say _the_ young man that accompanies _the_
young woman on the cover of the average American magazine. He had--a
nose, a chin, a beautiful mouth, large brown eyes, wavy chestnut hair, a
ruddy complexion, and, what is not always given to the young man on the
cover, a deep and generous dimple in the ruddiest part of his right
cheek. He was dressed in the latest suit produced by Schaffner and Marx;
he wore a tie of variegated silk which, like Browning's star, "dartled"
now red, now blue. The silk handkerchief, which protruded carefully from
his breast pocket, also "dartled." So did the socks. One felt that the
heart of this young man matched his tie and socks. It was resplendent
with the vanity and hopefulness and illusions of twenty-two years.
The large, dingy, chocolate-colored lobby became suddenly a background to
Mr. James Greely, cashier of the Millings National Bank, and the only
child of its president.
Upon the ruffled and rumpled Dickie he smiled pleasantly, made a curious
gesture with his hand--they both belonged to the Knights of Sagittarius
and the Fire Brigade--and came to lean upon the desk.
"Holiday at the bank this morning," he said, "in honor of Dad's
wedding-anniversary. We're giving a dance to-night in the Hall. Want to
come, Dickie?"
"No," said Dickie, "I hurt my ankle last night on the icy pavement. And
anyhow I can't dance. And I sort of find girls kind of tiresome."
"That's too bad. I'm sure sorry for you, Hudson. Particularly as I came
here just for the purpose of handing you over the cutest little billy-doo
you ever saw."
He drew out of his pocket an envelope and held it away from Dickie.
"You're trying to job me, Jim,"--but Dickie had his head coaxingly on one
side and his face was pink.
"I'll give it to you if you can guess the sender."
"Babe?"
"Wrong."
"Girlie?"
"Well, sir, it ain't Girlie's fist--not the fist she uses when she drops
_me_ billy-doos."
Dickie's eyes fell. He turned aside in his chair and stopped the
grinding of the graphophone. He made no further guess. Jim, with his
dimple deepening, tossed the small paper into the air and caught it
again deftly.
"It's from the young lady from Noo York who's helping Mrs. Hudson," he
said. "I guess she's kind of wishful for a beau. She's not much of a
looker Girlie tells me."
"Haven't you met her yet, Jim?" Dickie's hands were in his pockets, but
his eyes followed the gyrations of the paper.
"No. Ain't that a funny thing, too? Seems like I never get round to it. I
just saw her peeping at me one day through the parlor curtains while I
was saying sweet nothings to Girlie on the porch. I guess she was kind of
in-ter-ested. She's skinny and pale, Girlie says. Your mother hasn't got
any use for her. I bet you, it won't be long before she makes tracks back
to Noo York, Dickie. Girlie says she won't be lingering on here much
longer. Too much competition."
Jim handed the note to Dickie, who had listened to this speech with his
seven-year-old expression. He made no comment, but silently unfolded
Sheila's note.
The writing itself was like her, slender and fine and straight, a little
reckless, daintily desperate. That "I," now, on the white paper might be
Sheila skimming across the snow.
"_My dear Dickie_--somehow I can't call you 'Mr. Hudson'--I am so
terribly sorry about the way I acted to you last night. I don't know
why I was so foolish. I have tried to explain to your father that you
did nothing and said nothing to frighten me, that you were very polite
and kind, but I am afraid he doesn't quite understand. I hope he won't
be very cross with you, because it was all my fault--no, not quite all,
because I think you oughtn't to have followed me. I'm sure you're sorry
that you did. But it was a great deal my fault, so I'm writing this to
tell you that I wasn't really frightened nor very angry. Just sorry and
disappointed. Because I thought you were so very nice. And not like
Millings. And you liked the mountains better than the town. I wanted--I
still want--you to be my friend. For I do need a friend here,
dreadfully. Will you come to see me some afternoon? I hope you didn't
hurt yourself when you slipped on those icy steps.
"Sincerely SHEILA ARUNDEL"
Dickie put the note into his pocket and looked unseeingly at Jim. Jim was
turning up the bottoms of his trousers preparing to go.
"So you won't come to our dance?" he asked straightening himself, more
ruddy than ever.
"Well, sir," said Dickie slowly and indifferently, "I wouldn't wonder
if I would."
CHAPTER VII
DISH-WASHING
On that night, while all Millings was preparing itself for the Greelys'
dance, while Dickie, bent close to his cracked mirror, was tying his
least crumpled tie with not too steady fingers, while Jim was applying to
his brown crest a pomade sent to him by a girl in Cheyenne, while Babe
was wondering anxiously whether green slippers could be considered a
match or a foil to a dress of turquoise blue, while Girlie touched her
cream-gold hair with cream-padded finger-tips, Sheila Arundel prowled
about her room with hot anger and cold fear in her heart.