GI Brides (12 page)

“Why certainly, I remember my dear old friend George Kendall, and
of course
I remember you, little Lexie! I remember you well. You used to have such a happy, little smiling face and sunny curls. Yes, I remember you, and have often wondered where you were. What can I do for you, Lexie? I’d like to see you again. Where are you?”

“I’m out at our little house. That is, I’m at a public telephone now, not far from the cottage. But I’m in awful perplexity, and I thought perhaps you would let me ask you a question or two, and tell me what you think my father would want me to do.”

“Why, of course, little girl. What is the matter?”

“Well, you see, I’ve been working my way through college and am ready to graduate in June, but my half sister—you remember my father had another daughter—Elaine?”

“Yes, I remember Elaine. She was older, was she not? And she did not have a very happy face, though she was quite pretty.”

“Yes,” gasped Lexie, and felt that her counselor understood the situation fully. “Well, I came back here to put the house in shape to rent, and while I was here got a telegram from Elaine. Her husband was in the army, and word had come he was missing in action. She said she was sick and she was coming home with her three children. And before I could do anything about it she arrived with a trained nurse, who left as soon as they got here. Elaine seems to have no money and says she is too sick to do anything, and I am due back at my college where I have a job and important examinations to take, finals, you know. But the worst of it is that Elaine claims that our father told her when she was a little girl that there was a large sum of money left by her own mother for her and that when she was of age she would get it. And now she is obsessed with the idea that the money must have been left in my mother’s trust and that Mother has spent it on me and herself.”

“Impossible! Outrageous! Absurd! Of course there was nothing of the sort!” shouted the judge.

Lexie caught her breath.

“And now,” she said, her voice trembling full of tears, “she says she is going to sue me for it. This morning she sent her oldest child to a neighbor and got her to telephone for an awful lawyer she has been corresponding with. He is a bad man, a man we knew in school when he was a boy. Bettinger Thomas. Perhaps you have heard of him.”

“I should say I have!” said the judge, indignation in his voice. “He is a villain if there ever was one.”

“Oh, I am so glad you understand!” gasped Lexie gratefully. “I was afraid you wouldn’t. Well, he is at the house now. He has been asking me all sorts of insulting questions about what Mother did with that money, and putting words into my mouth to which he wants me to assent. I told him I knew nothing about any such thing, never heard my father speak of any such money. I said I knew he was in financial trouble when he died, and that Mother worked very hard to pay the funeral expenses and then to put aside money for us both to go to college. When Elaine married instead of going to college, she gave her share to her as a wedding gift, and started in to do extra evening work to get money for my college. But she died from overwork. I told him that, and then I went out of the room. But the lawyer chased me into the kitchen and insisted I come back to answer more questions. I made an excuse and slipped out of the house to this telephone. I’m very much ashamed to bother you, but I knew that you understood my father’s ways and wishes, and that you would know if there was ever any money left to Elaine that we did not know about. I do so need someone to advise me what to do, how to answer that awful lawyer. He is very crude and tries to bully me into saying what he tells me to. Please, do you think I should answer him? And what should I say?”

“Say nothing, my dear! Just refuse to answer his questions. You say you have already told him you never heard of any such money, and so, if you cannot get away from him, then simply tell him: ‘I have nothing further to say.’”

“Oh, thank you! I am so relieved,” said Lexie with almost tears in her voice. “I had hoped to get away, but I can’t go till the woman comes whom I hope I’ve secured to stay with Elaine. Do you think I ought to go at all when she is sick? You see, I have a job out there when I have finished my course.”

“I certainly think you should finish your college course if possible,” said the judge, “but I’d have to know more about this to rightly advise you. When and where can I see you? Should I come out there? Or can you come to my office?”

“Perhaps I could get away to come there,” said Lexie. “I can’t be sure whether we could talk at home without Elaine hearing everything. Of course she ought to hear everything, but how she would act when she heard it is another thing. Can I call you this afternoon and let you know if I am free to come?”

“You certainly can. I’ll be here at four o’clock. And until then, if I were you I would keep away from that lawyer if you can. If that’s impossible just sit quietly, calmly, and do not answer his questions, beyond saying once or twice, ‘I’m sorry, that’s all I have to say,’ or, if necessary again, ‘I do not know.’ Don’t lose your temper, or try to make smart answers. He has a way of nagging people into that. Just be calm. Even a vacant smile is better than getting excited or frightened, or making unwise answers. Wait until we can talk together. Keep your answers for a trial, if it has to come to a trial. But personally I don’t think it will. Certainly I know all about your father’s affairs. He told me everything when he was first taken sick, and asked me to look out for you. I’m so glad you came to me. I had rather lost sight of you.”

“Oh, thank you, Judge. This is a great relief to me to know there is someone who will help if I get into trouble.”

“You won’t get into trouble, my dear. Not from that man. I’ll look out for him. But your sister. Remember, she will be likely to do some goading of you also.”

“Oh yes, she has already!” sighed Lexie.

“Well, don’t be goaded. Just take it smiling as far as you can, and keep sweet. There is no point in getting angry, though I grant you there will probably be plenty to make you angry.”

“Yes,” said Lexie, “there will! But I’ll just keep quiet and act dumb.”

“That’s the idea, child! And now, will you be all right till four o’clock? Well, call me up if anything unforeseen happens, and meantime don’t worry.”

Lexie went quietly back to the house and entered through the kitchen to the dining room where the children were squabbling over which should have the biggest cookie, and suddenly there came upon her a new strength to deal with the situation. She went over to Gerald and putting a firm hand about this wrist, folded her other hand over the cookie he had just taken from the wailing Bluebell.

“Oh no, we don’t do that!” she said in a low voice. “Gentlemen don’t snatch cookies from babies. And you are the only gentleman of the party, so you must act like one.”

Bluebell had ceased to howl and was listening, and suddenly broke into a joyful smile.

“Oh, is this a party?” she inquired happily.

“Why yes, I suppose you might call it a little party,” said Lexie. “Suppose you try to act as if you were at a party, and that will make it a party, you know.”

“
She
don’t act nice at parties,” said Gerald, pointing his crummy finger at Bluebell.

“Oh, but gentlemen don’t try to bring out other people’s faults,” said Lexie. “Suppose you pass the plate to Bluebell and say ‘Bluebell, will you have another cookie?’”

Gerald was intrigued by this suggestion and took the plate with zest, imitating Lexie’s little speech with an effective tone until Angelica giggled.

“Oh, but you mustn’t laugh when a gentleman is being polite,” said Lexie. “Gerry did that very nicely. Now, Gerry pass the plate to Angel.”

Gerald entered into the game eagerly, and Angelica went one better and reached gracefully for her cookie, with a slight bow, and said: “Thank you very kindly, brother!”

They were just in the midst of this little game when the door opened and there stood the lawyer, pompously glaring at Lexie.

“So!” he said irately. “You keep your sister waiting while you play a game with the children. Is that your important duty that hindered you from responding to your sister’s urgent call for you?”

Lexie looked up coldly.

“I’ll be there in a moment,” she said, in a tone of decided dismissal.

“I’ll say you will!” said the man, striding over to where she stood and laying hold of her arm to draw her along.

But just as he did so Bluebell reached out her short, fat arm to snatch Gerald’s cookie and unheeding, knocked against and swept her brimming glass of milk across the edge of the table and straight on to the immaculate suit of the lawyer, deluging the front of his coat and pouring milk down his perfectly creased trousers.

The fat lawyer’s hand dropped suddenly from Lexie’s rigid arm, and with an angry cry he stood back and looked down at himself in dismay and fury.

Then he lifted his eyes to the staring baby, who was giggling delightedly at the catastrophe she had wrought, and a look like a thundercloud passed over his fat, flabby face.

“You little
brat
!” he said furiously. “You little
devil you
!” and he lifted his heavy hand and administered a sound slap on the round pink cheek of the baby. The sound reached into the next room to the excitable mother, who was languishing on the couch, waiting for her annoying sister to appear. But when she heard the resounding slap she sprang furiously to her feet and dashed quite agilely over to the door, which she opened with a snap.

“What are you doing, Lexie? Slapping my baby? You outrageous girl! To think you would vent your fury on a baby! A poor little innocent. What can she have done to deserve a cruel slap like that?”

Her indignant tones were drowned by Bluebell’s first heartrending shriek of horror at the chastisement she had suffered at the hand of a stranger. It was the “stranger” part that was to her the most terrible, added to the fact that she hadn’t at all intended to douse the gentleman’s elegant suit. There were plenty of times when she
had
intended to do terrible things, when she
should
have been chastised, but this was not one of them. In fact, it hadn’t entirely dawned upon her that she was in the least to blame for this catastrophe. She had only been trying to snatch Gerald’s cookie, and the deluge had been a mere incidental consequence. So why the slap? Besides, it hurt! And as this fact became more and more evident to her stinging facial nerves, Bluebell howled the louder. In fact, one might call the noise she made a roar, drowning everything else completely out.

Lexie opened her mouth to deny any part in that slap, but saw there was no use. It would not even get across while the child was crying. It was maddening. Elaine stood acting the plaintive mother part, flashing her eyes at her sister, casting apologetic glances at the lawyer who was wholly engrossed in mopping up his new suit with a pair of expensive, imported handkerchiefs, and ignoring everything else. Nobody was doing a thing to comfort the distressed baby.

Then suddenly Lexie caught a glimpse of Bluebell’s puckered lip, and came over with a soft old napkin snatched quickly from the sideboard linen drawer, dipped it in a glass of water from the table, and gently wiped the bruised cheek that distinctly bore the red imprint of heavy fingers, with a wide bleeding scratch where a sharply manicured fingernail had ripped the delicate skin.

Elaine watched with jealous eyes.

“Oh yes,” she sneered mockingly, “you’re making a great show of trying to be kind and gentle, now that you’ve slapped her! Even brought the blood! That’s you all over, Lexie! Slap an innocent little baby till the blood comes and then pretend to be so sorry for her!
Slap
a
baby
! How
could
you? For what, I’d like to know? And then pet her up in the presence of others! I’ll teach you to slap my child! How
dare
you!”

Suddenly Angelica spoke up shrilly.

“Aunt Lexie
didn’t
slap Bluebell! It was that man who slapped her.” She pointed an accusing finger at Bettinger Thomas. “Aunt Lexie was standing over on the other side of the table, and that man was trying to make her go in the other room. Bluebell reached over to snatch Gerry’s cookie and knocked her glass of milk over on his pants, and it made him mad. He slapped her hard, and
scratched
her. I
saw
him! He’s a bad old man! That neighbor-lady told me he was. She said you oughtn’t to have him come here, he was a bad man! She said your muvver wouldn’t like it!”

“Be still, Angelica! You’re a naughty girl to say things like that! I’ve told you not to repeat things the neighbors say. The neighbors are bad people to talk that way! And of course it was your aunt Lexie that slapped Bluebell. You mustn’t contradict me!”

“No, it wasn’t Aunt Lexie that slapped her. I saw it. It was that bad old man. He was mad because his pants got all milky.”

Bettinger Thomas lifted a very red face and angry eyes. There was no apology in his glance, only annoyance.

“This is a new and very expensive suit!” he declared in furious explanation. “I am attending an important luncheon at the country club this morning, and now my suit is ruined! It is all that girl’s fault, too. If she had come into the other room when I told her you wanted her, this never would have happened. I am sorry. I shall have to put the price of this suit on your account. It was quite expensive!”

“Well, if it was Lexie’s fault she will of course want to pay for it.”

“Yes, and it won’t be the only thing she has to pay for if she keeps on in the way she has started. It may be that we shall have to resort to having her arrested and put under charge if she continues to refuse to tell what she knows.”

Lexie caught her breath softly and closed her trembling lips. Then she remembered what her friend the judge had said. She must not talk. And certainly she must not cry.

She closed her lips tight in a think line. She put her mind on the effort not to look angry. Anger at present, and in this company, could not help. Neither must she look frightened. She wasn’t frightened now that Judge Foster was her friend and was going to help her through this trouble.