Partners (3 page)

Faced suddenly with this question, Reuben was at a loss what to say.

"Why--I--I wasn't quite sure about the whole of the time," he said hesitantly. "There are several places I want to go, and people I have to see."

"Well, you can just call them all up and tell them you're not coming, because
I
want you!" she announced, as if that settled the question.

"
You want me?
" said Reuben, dumbfounded. Was he not to have a vacation after all? Did this pampered daughter of his boss think she could absorb his vacation and make him work at something for her? What was the idea? He frowned and lifted his chin a bit haughtily, with a memory of the old Remington self-respect and pride in his glance.

"Yes," said the girl. "I've planned it all out. I'm having a house party down at the shore, Glindenwold, out on our island, you know. You've heard of it, of course. It's going to be all kinds of a fabulous time, and I want you for one of our houseguests. I've got it all planned and you simply can't get out of it, even if you want to, for you would just upset everything. And besides, when you see Glindenwold, you wouldn't want to, for it's swell. I know you'll be crazy about it. We have our own swimming pool and our own little theater, and all kinds of sports! There isn't a thing you can name we haven't got!" she declared proudly. "And we're going to put on some thrilling plays this summer. Amateur, you know, and that's where you come in. I want you to take the part of the hero in the next play, opposite me. I know you'll be great! I want you to come right down and start rehearsing. We've got a professional coach, of course, but you're just the type I want. I thought we could get a start before anybody else comes around."

Reuben grinned.

"A play! Me? Oh, no! Not me!" said Reuben decidedly, and then he laughed.

The girl looked bewildered.

"Now, listen!" she said, and then she dropped into the chair his secretary had vacated just before she came in.

Reuben listened, and studied her. This was an entirely new experience for him. His had been a simple Christian home. Except for occasional high-class patrons whom he had to confer with when the manager was out, he did not know this kind of human being at all. And even with patrons he was in a position to feel confident; with them he could almost dictate about matters that were altogether familiar to him, and not so familiar to them. Now the order was reversed. He was dealing with matters about which he literally knew nothing except by hearsay. He grinned. And when at last after a voluble plea she came to a momentary pause, he shook his head.

"No!" he said decidedly. "I couldn't! I wouldn't belong."

"But you have to," she said with an engaging earnestness, "because I
want
it!" There was a childlike naïveté about her that was hard to deny. Was it genuine simplicity? He studied her, perplexed for an instant, but shook his head again.

"Impossible!" he said, smiling. "I tell you I wouldn't belong in an atmosphere like that"--and there was a ring of positiveness about his voice that annoyed her, for she drew her imperious eyebrows down.

"Now, what nonsense!" she said haughtily. "You mean clothes, of course, but you wouldn't need to worry about that. I have two brothers about your size. They will lend you anything you need. They have slews of garments down there of any style you could possibly demand. And--besides--if
I
ask you, you
do
belong!"

He looked at her for a moment with an impersonal smile and then suddenly grew grave.

"I'm sorry," he said pleasantly. "It's not a matter of clothes. But the whole thing is quite out of the question."

A man arrived by appointment just then and she had to leave him, but that was not the end. For the rest of the day she had appeared unexpectedly a number of times and renewed the subject, until finally she just took it for granted that he was coming, no matter how often he declined, and went on with her plans, telling him what to do and where to meet her; telling him who would be there that he ought to meet for the sake of business, even if not for his own sake, until like the continual dropping that wears the stone, he actually found himself considering the possibility of going.

What if she was right and he ought to get out and get acquainted with other kinds of people? What would his family have said to that?

Long ago, when he was a little boy, his mother used to have a question she would put to him when they were considering a perplexity. She would say, "What do you think God would say if you were to ask His advice?" And that somehow always settled the matter the way his own conscience had already tentatively settled it. But since he had been out in the world, his mother gone and no one to suggest submitting a matter to God--a God that so many people nowadays didn't seem to believe in--Reuben had gotten in the habit instead of saying, "I wonder what Dad and Mother would say about it?" Because it had been a settled fact in his mind that Dad and Mother used always to think what God would think. And he was pretty well decided that neither God nor his mother would pick out this special girl to conduct his venture into an alien world.

And yet, he wasn't a kid any longer, and he could surely stand a few hours of contact with a world that wasn't his own. And it wasn't as if he couldn't leave when he chose, always provided he didn't accept a part in that fool play. And
of course
he
wouldn't
do that! And then, quite the most important of all the phases of the matter was that this was his boss's daughter who was asking him, and he wasn't all sure but it might affect his job if he didn't go--at least for a short time.

So he had almost decided he would take in a brief stay at Glindenwold. Well, anyway, he would go long enough to look over the land and see how it lay.

And now, how was this affair of the moment going to fit in?

He couldn't, of course, get through this in time to go to Glindenwold tonight. That was what Anise Glinden had wanted. She was planning to have the first rehearsal of the play tonight. She had told him he might watch it the first night and be all ready to get to work on it for the next day. She would have a young actor come out to take the part she wanted him to take, just for the one night, and let him see how simple and easy it was.

Perhaps it was just as well that he shouldn't be able to go tonight, then they would start without him and she wouldn't be harping on his taking part. Besides, he needed to see just what this was and not get tied up to something that he would hate.

He couldn't go tonight, even though she had suggested driving by his boarding place and picking him up in her car. This girl in the ambulance would not be out of the hospital in time for him to go, and he had promised to take care of the kid. What could he do but telephone Miss Glinden that he wouldn't be down until tomorrow?

Then the ambulance whirled skillfully around the corner into a side street and brought up before a large, gloomy tenement, which bore the sign in one dreary window D
ay
N
ursery
, and the driver stopped his car.

"Make it snappy!" he said to Reuben as he swung down to the irregular old brick sidewalk.

Reuben nodded and hurried up the wooden steps. He didn't care much about this part of his job, but he had promised, and he could still see the anguish in the eyes of the sick girl.

He glanced nervously back toward the ambulance, wondering if she could see out, but he saw she could not. As he hastily turned back, he caught a glimpse of a quickly gathering group of neighborhood children, assembling in a semicircle in various stages of dirt and squalor, staring eagerly to see who was inside the ambulance or who was going to be taken away from their vicinity.

Then the door was opened by a large woman with a sullen mouth, a frown on her brow, and a cross, sick baby in her arms. She eyed the ambulance with irritation and brought her insolent eyes to bear on the intruder. Reuben stepped within and closed the door behind him. He didn't wish any more witnesses to this incident than was necessary.

 

Reuben had a glimpse of large, gloomy double rooms, absolutely bare except for a row of dilapidated iron cribs, a few chairs that didn't match, and a couple of low tables at the far end.

As he told the matron what he wanted, he stepped within the front room and was instantly aware of eyes, baby eyes, staring at him, and wailing young voices crying out with disappointment. Their mothers had not come, and they were weary to death of this dreary place and this desolate woman who had charge. It struck a pang to Reuben's heart. He didn't analyze it at the time, but afterward the scene hung like a pall over the day. How he would have liked to set all those babies free and put them into a big meadow with daisies and buttercups, and butterflies, and birds singing high in the trees, and make the little hearts happy.

His eyes quickly searched the rooms, and then he saw the boy Noel!

He was sitting at one of the low tables with a box of crayons before him and a small sheet of paper on which he had been drawing. He had large dark eyes that instantly reminded him of the girl out in the ambulance. They had the same quality of hopelessness and helplessness.

"I have come after Noel Guthrie," he said, raising his voice a trifle, and the boy at the little table instantly arose, his eyes wide with question, fear trembling behind the whiteness of his face.

The large woman stepped closer and spoke arrogantly.

"Well, I can't letcha have him without a written order from his sister. She wouldn't leave him be here onlyless I should promus that," she said. "It's a lotta fool nonsense, o' course, b'cause who would wantta steal a young one from a place like this? But I gave my word, an' I gotta keep it! B'sides, she ain't paid her quarter fer today. He general'y brings his quarter every morning, but he didn't have none taday, 'r else he lost it!"

The boy gave a look of protest, but Reuben handed out the quarter he held in his hand.

"Here's the quarter," he said, "and if you want to see his sister, you'll have to step outside and speak to her. She's in the ambulance and isn't able to get up and come in. She was taken sick while she was working."

There was dignity about Reuben's voice that somewhat awed the woman, but she gave a twist to her mouth and there was a canniness in her eyes.

"Well, I gotta go out and see ef she's thar first," she said, and turning toward a crib that already held an occupant asleep, she thumped the sick baby down from her arms, who promptly began to protest in loud screams of anger. The other baby woke up and added his voice to the song, and over the duet the woman shouted to Noel, who was standing there clasping and unclasping his hands in agitated excitement.

"Noll, you stay right where you are, d'ya year? Don'tcha dare stir till I get back!"

"But I must go to my sister!" said the boy in a low, firm tone. "She wants me!" And he walked forward determinedly.

The woman strode over to him and jerked him back by the shoulder, setting him down hard on the chair from which he had arisen and adding a stinging slap on his cheek.

"Now, you
set there
! D'ya
hear
? An' don'tcha stir till I come back, ur I'll smack ya good, an' you know what that means!"

The boy quivered and turned white, and two large tears rolled down his cheeks, but he sat still, one great look of anguish turned upon Reuben as he followed the woman.

"I'll be right back for you, kid," said Reuben and stepped outside.

The woman had already gone to the door at the back of the ambulance and demanded entrance, and the intern, seeing how things were, flung the door open for an instant. The matron assumed an attitude of investigation, with three neighbors nearby getting a front seat at the show.

"Yes, that's her all righty!" she said, nodding back at Reuben. "I'd know her anywhere, even without her hat. Aw, ain't it awful! How white she looks! What's the matter of her? Ya think she's goin' ta die, do ya?" She cast an eye at the glaring doctor. "Now, ain't that a pity!"

"That'll be all!" said the doctor, getting out of the ambulance and taking the woman with a firm grip by the arm. "You get in your house there and send that child out at once, or we'll have a policeman here in short order."

"Oh, ya don't say so!" said the woman. "Who crowned you, I'd like to know? Quit shovin' me! I gotta find out what she wants I should do with the kid. She made me promus I wouldn't give him ta nobody. Say, Miss Gutry, don'tcha want I should keep Nollie till ya git well an' cum back? I won't charge ya but fifty cents extra fer day an' night, an' then ya ken hev yer mind at rest. The gentlmon give me the quarter, so it'll be siventy-five per day from now on."

"No!" she said excitedly. "Bring my brother here right away! I want to see him at once!" And then she dropped back on the pillow and her breath was almost gone.

"Here he is!" said Reuben quietly. "Say hello to your sister, Noel!" For Reuben had gone back with three strides to the house, had gathered the boy up in his arms, and now brought him out and held him up for the sister to see.

"I'm here, Gillian!" called Noel. "Hello, Gillian. I'm all right! Don't be sick, Gillian! I'm here, and I'll take care of you! Gillian----!"

But everything had faded out and turned black for Gillian, and she didn't answer.

"Let's go!" said the doctor. He shoved the big woman aside, slid into his place, and closed the door. Reuben, with the boy still in his arms, swung up into the front seat. The bell clanged; the children and neighborhood people scattered hastily while the great white wagon rolled down the street around the corner and out of sight.

But inside the doctor and nurse were working hard.

"I guess we shouldn't have risked that," said the doctor under his breath.

Reuben on the front seat with the small, frightened boy in his lap held him close because he was trembling like a leaf. Presently he lifted a scared little face and asked in a shaky voice, "Is--my--sister--going--ta die, man?"

"Oh, no," said Reuben with a confidence he was far from feeling. "She's going to the hospital to get well."