CHAPTER XIII

BERNADETTE’S TEMPERAMENT DELAYS THE SCENARIO, AND MRS. VERNON MAKES TWO CHILDREN HAPPY

It was Monday, the day on which Mr. Joseph Heneman had counted to finish all that part of the picture in which the four children were to appear. And it looked, in the morning, as though he would be right in his reckoning. But in the closing scene, the scene in which Bobby was to surpass himself, there came an unexpected hitch, and no other than our friend, Miss Bernadette Vivian, was the cause.

Like most rising artists, Bernadette was temperamental, which, in other words, signifies that she was too easily swayed by her feelings. Now it had happened that on the previous evening she had met a most pleasing and engaging young man; and with the two it was a case of love at first sight. On this day, therefore, her shapely head was filled with visions of orange blossoms, bridal veils and a teasing wonder as to what kind of engagement ring he would select. With all these matters on her mind, is it at all surprising that she was in no mood to represent a mother meeting her lost children?

She was, in this particular scene, to register the agony of separation, the ecstasy of meeting, and the tears of joy, all of which things Miss Bernadette signally failed to accomplish. The only thing that could have brought comfort to her soul and any expression of joy to her face would be her young man advancing smilingly upon her, holding in his dear hand a diamond engagement ring. In vain did Heneman expostulate with her; in vain did Compton remonstrate. In vain, too, did the four children, whom she really loved, cast upon her glances of friendly reproach. Nothing could arouse her from “love’s young dream,” than which, we are credibly informed by a poet, “there’s nothing half so sweet in life.”

Up to this day Bernadette had been ambitious. She was a star in embryo, and her laurels were in the winning. But the young man whose bright smile still haunted her was very wealthy. Upon marrying him she would retire at once.

If Mr. Heneman said things that any proper censor would properly delete, let it be said in his defense that he said them under his breath; for the director, as no doubt four guardian angels urged in his behalf at heaven’s chancery, ever cherished the highest reverence for children.

By four o’clock of that evening the director was unnerved, Compton almost frantic, the children in ill humor. They were all worn out. And if the four youthful thespians did quarrel a little and sulk for almost ten minutes, let it be said in their behalf that before going home they all abjectly apologized one to the other, and proved once more the truth of Tennyson’s lines:

_Oh, blessings on the falling-out_ _Which all the more endears!_

During all this Miss Bernadette, happily seated and with crossed legs, powdered her nose, consulted her hand mirror and, for the nonce an unmitigated flapper, gazed heavenward with a smile that would have been absolutely idiotic on a young lady less favored of feature. The distress of all her friends impressed her not in the least. In fact, it never dawned upon her consciousness that anybody was distressed. Truly, love is blind.

“Attention, please!” called Heneman when it was nearing five o’clock. “The weather is rather close and it has been a trying day. Perhaps that’s the reason we can’t get this reuniting business over. I’m sorry, but we’ll have to try it over to-morrow at ten. The play is going to be a big thing, and so far you’ve made it a big thing. But we don’t want an anti-climax to spoil it all.”

“What kind of an aunty is that?” asked Bobby.

This remark sent them all off in good humor.

Bobby went to confession before going to the suite. He confessed, by the way, every week, and went with Peggy to communion every morning. Also, he lingered to make a special and earnest prayer for that falling star, Bernadette, and I fear that if Bernadette, in the light of what happened that evening, were to have learned the import of that prayer, she would have waylaid Bobby and given him a sound spanking.

“O good Lord”—such was the import of Bobby’s prayer—“bring that nice young lady, Bernadette Vivian, to her senses; and do it in a hurry so that to-morrow we can shoot that scene the way it ought to be shot, and be done with it.”

That night the lovers met and there were five minutes of unbroken bliss. In these five minutes they plighted their troth over and over. Nothing in the heavens above or the earth beneath or the waters under the earth could ever dissever their souls. In the next five minutes there arose a slight difference about the style of the engagement ring; and before the quarter was quite ended both were in a towering rage and vowed repeatedly never, never to look upon each other’s face again. Then the idol of her heart went out and got drunk—a weakness of his of which Bernadette was entirely ignorant—and left his fond one bathed in tears.

It was a bad night for Bobby, too. An inconsiderate friend of Compton’s, Benny Burnside, meeting Bobby as he returned from confession, asked the boy whether it was true that his mother was dead.

“Of course she is not dead,” answered Bobby resolutely.

“Oh, I’m so glad to hear it! So that woman they found dead in the woods at San Luis Obispo was not your mother after all,” continued the admired one of every flapper in the land. It was he who had said that Compton was a gay Lothario.

Bobby’s lips quivered.

Thereupon Mr. Benny Burnside told him, not without some embroidery to make the story more convincing, of the reports of the detective agency on the case. If Mr. Burnside did not fully convince the lad of his mother’s death, it was not due to any lack of effort on his part.

Bobby, on retiring, had several sleepless hours. Faith struggled with alleged fact, and the struggle brought with it agony and tears. But the boy was not alone in the fight. To his aid he summoned the Mother of God, his guardian angel, his patron saint. Before midnight confidence returned; and Bobby, his face still wet with tears, fell into a dreamless sleep.

On that same day, in the morning hours, Mrs. Barbara Vernon, seated on the ranchman’s front porch, a deep peace upon her face, touched once more with the glow of health, looked out calmly upon a world made strangely beautiful through the magic given only to the eye of the convalescent. Never, even in the first blush of maidenhood, had she looked more beautiful. Sickness had etherealized her beauty. Upon her features was the resignation which, falling short of joy, gives contentment touched with melancholy.

“Oh, Mrs. Vernon!” cried two eager voices, their owners rushing through the front door in a race to reach her first. Agnes and Louis were flushed with unusual excitement. Something big had come into their lives.

“What is it, my dears? Good news?”

In answer to which, Louis, raising his voice to a shrill pipe, poured forth a volume of sound as intelligible as though his mouth were cluttered with pins.

“But what is it?” asked Barbara, breaking into a smile. “I can’t make out a word you say.”

“Let me talk, Louis,” said Agnes, making sure of the success of this request by clapping her hand over the excited youth’s mouth, and keeping it there. “Mrs. Vernon, there’s a matinee at the moving-picture house of San Luis Obispo this afternoon, and—and—” Here Agnes manifested her excitement by losing her breath, taking advantage of which, Louis, very much handicapped by the restraining hand still held over his mouth, made an effort to say, “Won’t you come?” giving the effect, however, of a bulldog’s growl.

“And,” continued Agnes, “it’s a swell show. And, oh, Mrs. Vernon, wouldn’t you like to come with us?”

“I don’t think,” Barbara made answer, “that I am in a mood just yet for anything like that. I am sure you can go by yourselves.”

The hand of Agnes dropped, as did her jaw. Louis dug his fists into his eyes. The girl’s lips quivered.

“But if you would like to have me,” amended the convalescent, reading sympathetically the signs of woe in the children, “why, of course—”

“Whoop-la!” yelled Louis, running at breakneck speed towards the door and yelling in his flight. “Hey, dad! she’s going to go.”

“Oh, you are so kind, Mrs. Vernon!” cried Agnes. “Just now papa got a long-distance telephone call from San Luis Obispo. There’s a friend of his there who went to the picture show last night, and he called dad up to tell him what a nice, clean picture it was. He says that it’s a first-run picture. The proprietor of the movie house there generally uses older runs, but there’s some kind of convention in the town this week, and so he engaged this new picture and raised the admission price from twenty to forty cents, and added three matinees. And the man said that if dad wanted to go he would hold five tickets for us. And dad said he would go and take ma and us children, provided you would go. Oh, isn’t that a treat? We’ll start in an hour. Dad thinks that the ride and a picture like that will do you a lot of good.”

“Why didn’t you let me know at first that you couldn’t go unless I went? Indeed I’m sure it will make me happy, if for nothing else than that it will give joy to two of the dearest little children I have ever met.”

And so fifteen minutes later Barbara, Mr. and Mrs. Regan, and the happy children were speeding onward to San Luis Obispo.