Kerry (21 page)

She put on her little evening dress. It was the only “dress-up” she had, and she brushed her little black hat and coat, and polished her shabby shoes. Then she hunted out the string of pearl beads, her only ornaments. She looked at herself a trifle wistfully in the mirror. It would have been nice to have something new to wear this first time going out with a young man. But there! She must not be dissatisfied, with such wonderful things happening all day long!

With a sudden wonder coming into her face she dropped upon her knees beside the bed.

“Oh, dear Father—God, I thank Thee!” she said.

McNair arrived at half past seven, and sent up a bunch of cool purple violets. In delight Kerry pinned them to her coat. He reported that there were no musical concerts that evening, but he had tickets for the next night at Carnegie Hall. The symphony orchestra would present a fine program with a wonderful Russian violinist as soloist.

“However,” he said, “I ran across an old friend from Scotland. I did not know he was on this side of the water. I find he is speaking this evening. He is rare. I know you will like him. And you’ll be especially interested because he is talking on the Lord’s Coming and the signs of the times.”

So Kerry went to a wonderful meeting, almost the first religious meeting she had ever attended, because the Kavanaugh family as a rule did not frequent churches or meetings of any kind, except to drop in now and then for the music. Isobel Kavanaugh was apt to have a headache when church was proposed of a Sunday. It rather bored her unless she had a new hat. And Shannon Kavanaugh had lived his life so within himself that he had got into the habit of staying at home unless somebody pried him out. So little Kerry had grown up without the habit of church-going.

It was all new to her. The company of earnest people came because they loved it, and all brought their Bibles. The two or three gospel songs that were sung while they gathered thrilled her with their words. She delighted in the hearty, genuine way in which the audience sang. The prayer was a revelation, just as if the petitioner were standing face-to-face with God. And then the address from the man with the sweet, rugged face, and the burr on his tongue! It was not a sermon, just an unfolding of scripture compared with scripture, until the whole made an amazing story of something that was shortly to be!

Kerry was deeply stirred, more deeply than she had ever been before. And then, quite suddenly at the end, the speaker said, “I see my dear friend, brother Graham McNair, in the audience. Will he lead us in a closing prayer?”

If the wall behind the pulpit had suddenly opened and disclosed God’s throne, perhaps this new child of God would not have been more thrilled than to have the man beside her stand and begin to talk to God in that wonderful way, just talking about them all, and bringing them to the notice of the Father in the name of Jesus. She felt as if he had made special mention of her own name when he spoke of all their needs, so perfectly did his words fit the longings of her inmost soul.

They stopped at a restaurant afterward, another quiet, exclusive place with a good string quartette playing somewhere at a distance.

“For you know, we haven’t really had but two meals today,” McNair explained with a smile.

He told her while they were eating that he had found some disturbing mail at the hotel. There was trouble and misunderstanding out at the new western office, and he might have to go out sooner than he expected. He had sent out several telegrams that might straighten things out, but it was a little uncertain yet. However, they would fill the time with sightseeing and interesting things as long as he was there, that is, as much time as she could spare.

They arranged to meet early in the morning and do certain parts of the city so that she might learn her way quickly around. Then they began to talk about the meeting. Kerry was full of questions about the wonderful signs of the times of which she had never heard before until McNair himself had told her on the ship.

She hurried upstairs after he had left her to look out of the window before she turned on her light, and see if she could see him. Yes, there he was standing under the arc light at the corner just across from her window. How tall and straight he was! She watched until he hailed a taxi and stepping in was whirled away out of her sight. Even then she stood staring at the empty spot that he had just left, conjuring her vision of him.

A figure stepped down out of the shadow of a doorway across the street and came and stood in the light, looking after the departing cab. Then he turned and looked back toward Kerry’s lodging, and up toward the windows, and walked slowly up the street opposite the house. Something in the swing of the shoulders, the turn of the head, reminded her of Dawson, but of course it could not be. She watched the man a moment then pulled down her shade and turned on the light, humming a measure of the hymn they had sung in the meeting that evening. How glad and thankful she was to be on land and in a quiet safe house with a good woman, and to have such a friend as McNair to show her the way around the city. Gladder than all to be free from the bondage and care of that awful, precious manuscript and to know it was safe in the hands of the publisher and he was now responsible.

Then she remembered that she had meant to ask Mrs. Scott for a drinking glass for her room, and decided to go down at once and get one before the woman had retired for the night.

But when she opened her door she felt a draught as if the front door was open, and listening she heard voices—a man’s voice and Mrs. Scott. The man was asking if she had any vacant rooms, and she was offering to show him a room on the third floor. She could hear the front door closing and their footsteps coming up the stairs. Just in time she retreated, and pulled her door closed, but not too soon to hear Dawson’s familiar flat voice ask, “And who is on the second floor front? I should like the second-floor room if possible.”

And Mrs. Scott replied, “No, that’s filled. A very nice young lady from England just took that room today.”

They passed on up the stairs and Kerry could hear no more, but presently Mrs. Scott came down alone, and apparently the new lodger had taken the room and remained for the night.

Kerry thought no more of getting her drinking glass. She sank down in despair on the edge of her bed with her hands over her face. What should she do now? If that was really Dawson then he meant to dog her steps. For it could not be just a happening that he had found the same house. He must have traced them somehow.

And now, what should she do? Get out again and get away somewhere? She could scarcely do that. She had paid a week’s rent in advance, and could not afford to lose even the small price that had been charged. Besides, if she went somewhere else he might find her again. She could not keep up the game of hide-and-seek continually. She almost wished that she had had the man arrested that morning. Perhaps that would have frightened him away. But what could be his possible object now? Unless indeed he thought she still had the manuscript and there was a chance of getting possession of it again.

When this idea came into her head Kerry got up and went to work as quietly as possible moving furniture around. She put her trunk across the door firmly, then made a further barricade of the bureau, a table, the bed, and two chairs, straight across the room, wedging a pillow securely between the last chair and the bed so that even if the door were unlocked it would be impossible to budge it an inch. Until it was removed no one could get either in or out. She wondered grimly what would happen in case of fire, but decided it would not take long to push her barricade away if it became necessary. Anyway, she was free from burglars tonight, and tomorrow she would ask McNair’s advice. Then she went to bed and slept soundly.

She was awakened by a tapping on her door early in the morning. Instantly alert she sprang from her bed wondering if Dawson would dare knock. She removed both the chairs in a twinkling. She threw her robe around her shoulders, and began to shove her trunk away when she was reassured by the voice of the landlady.

“It’s just a telegram for you, Miss Kavanaugh,” she called, “I signed for it. I’ll shove it under the door.”

Kerry thanked her and was quickly in possession of the telegram.

A telegram! Now who would telegraph her? Her mother? Sam Morgan, perhaps? But how would they have her address so soon? Even detectives could hardly have managed that yet. The publishers? But she had not yet told them where she was located.

A vague premonition of trouble pervaded her as she tore open the envelope and read.

Kerry found her knees growing weak under her, and sank into a chair, the yellow paper trembling in her hand. He was gone! Then she was all alone! And Dawson now in the same house with her! What should she do?

I
t seemed to Kerry that the very foundations of the earth were shaking under her again. And when she came out of the first disappointment and began to look her soul in the eye honestly she had to own up that it was not the thought of Dawson in the house that had appalled her. It was only that her new friend was going far away and not knowing how soon he would return, if ever.

She knew that this was a wrong state of mind. She had no reason whatever to think that McNair had anything but a friendly interest in her, and she had not right to any deeper interest in him. True, he had been kind to her, had done much for her for which she could never thank him enough, not only in rescuing her lost manuscript, but also in giving her a new anchor for her soul. Yet none of those things should make her feel that sick longing after him that now threatened to overwhelm her.

She let her hands fall into her lap over the telegram and stared off across the room at the dingy wallpaper of scraggy red roses on an indefinite background and tried to arraign herself. What had she been doing? Falling in love with an entire stranger? A worthy man she had no doubt, but one about whose life she knew almost nothing. He might be already engaged to someone far more his equal in every way than she was. He might have entirely other ideas. He might be even very rich. She had no idea at all. Thinking back he had said nothing that gave her any chance to judge his financial standing in the world. But she could judge by his clothes and all his little belongings, which were of the best quality, that he was not poor. And she was. What presumption on her part to allow her heart to attach itself to him in this way!

Kerry had lived abroad enough to have acquired a very strong class feeling in these things. Poor girls abroad, unless they belonged to royalty, did not expect to have attention from rich young men. It was only in Cinderella storybooks that such things happened.

Moreover, she had started out in the world to earn her own living, and it was a poor handicap to lose her heart in this way to the first good, kind man whom she met. She would not have it. She would not allow herself to even admit that she had been so silly and childish! She shut her lips firmly and got up. She went to the washstand and washed her face in good cold water, rubbing her cheeks vigorously to take away their white look. She dashed water over her eyes again and dried them, and found the tears still came unbidden. Then she went and dropped down on her knees beside the bed and tried to pray.

“Oh, Father—God, you see what a fool I am! I can’t seem to do anything about it, either! I’m just all crumpled in a heap, and I feel so alone and miserable! Won’t you help me?

“I know it’s ungrateful of me to even think of feeling bad about the loss of a stranger-friend, when you’ve been so wonderful to me, bringing back the manuscript and making the publisher so nice, and giving me a real job with such nice people, but I just can’t seem to help feeling very sad and sorrowful. Could you please do something about it for me? Take any wrong feeling I have about this away. Don’t let me be what my father used to call unmaidenly. Don’t let me want something I shouldn’t have. Make me content with the wonderful things you have already given me, and then give me strength to smile. I ask it in Jesus’ name.”

Kerry remained upon her knees for some minutes after she had finished praying, and it seemed to her that her trouble was lifted from her heart in some wonderful way, and a peacefulness came in its place.

When she got up she read her telegram again, and got a thrill out of almost every word. He was anxious about her. Well, that was wonderful! Only friendly anxiety, of course, she must remember that, but it was nice to have even an absent friend care a little. How kind of him to suggest advisers in his place! Of course he didn’t know that Dawson was rooming in the same house. That probably would have disturbed him. Still, why, after all? The manuscript was safe and she had nothing else that he could steal. She would ask the publisher that very day to suggest a bank, and in it she would put her small hoard of money for safekeeping, and would also rent a safety deposit box and put those notes of the book safely away in it where they would be safer than anywhere else she could hide them. Then let Dawson do what he pleased. He could not hurt her. Besides, she had God, and the publisher and Mrs. Scott. They would all help her.

So she washed her face again with the cold, cold water, and felt refreshed, and then she set about making plans for the day.

It was early. It was only half past seven. She would dress at once and get out of the house before Dawson was awake. She knew his habits at sea had been late. He would hardly expect her to be about so early.

She took the book notes with her, stowed flatly in a manila envelope, and carefully pinned inside her coat. When she went out of the house a half hour later, moving quietly, cautiously down the stairs, she did not appear to have anything with her but her small handbag containing her purse.