Chapter 7

ALIEN KIN

Mr. Mason North's elation at the culmination of his protracted search gave way to vague but undeniable misgiving before the end of the return journey. Miss Murdaugh was utterly unlike anything he could have preconceived. His trained legal mind, unburdened with imagination, had nevertheless presented possibilities, during the two years of his previous investigation, from which his fastidious soul shrank. What could a creature brought up by a wandering card-sharp in mining-camps and frontier towns offer for rescue and redemption?

His fears had vanished at first sight of her, however, Here was a girl, untutored and unconventional, to be sure, but singularly free from any corruption and with distinct social possibilities.

He patronized her in bland condescension at their journey's start and found her gratifyingly amenable, but they had scarcely crossed the border, before he found to his stupefaction that he was confronted by a will as serenely implacable as his own.

Willa listened to his didactic suggestions with an open mind and a direct unwavering gaze which he found mildly disconcerting, but she acted upon them only after due and independent consideration and those that did not meet with her approval she rejected in a quiet finality of manner which, while it left their surface cordiality undisturbed, nevertheless brooked no further argument.

His idea of engaging a maid or chaperon for the trip she had vetoed promptly.

"I've always looked out for myself, and I reckon I can now, so long as you're around to see that the train don't get uncoupled while you're in the smoker or I'm in the observation car," she informed him. "I have to kind of get on to myself, after all that's been happening to me, and I couldn't with some nosey Jane at my heels every minute. I suppose there will have to be someone to shine up my nails and fix my hair and cinch my clothes on me, but that can wait till Mrs. Halstead picks one out."

Mr. North shrank from such unfeminine candor, but he made no further reference to a duenna, although as the journey progressed he regretted his weakness. Willa had an inexplicable penchant for disappearing at intervals, suddenly and without warning. Where she could get to on a train or station platform, from under his very eyes, and what errand prompted her were beyond his comprehension; but she eluded him with the utmost ease and sang-froid whenever the spirit moved her, and her matter-of-fact explanations when she returned were obviously and designedly open to question.

He could feel himself aging beneath the strain and he heartily wished his charge in Mrs. Halstead's capable hands. His wife had been dead so long that the paths of feminine idiosyncrasies were an untrodden maze to him, and his condescension turned to consternation and an awed respect.

In spite of his anxiety, the girl proved a fascinating study. She showed no interest in the outside world and rarely glanced from the car window, but her naïve curiosity concerning their fellow passengers and friendly familiarity toward them kept him constantly on the qui vive.

It was only when at last their journey drew to a close that she evinced the slightest desire for information concerning the family of which she was to be a member.

"Mrs. Halstead is my father's cousin, isn't she?" she asked. "Has she any children?"

"A son and daughter." Mr. North laid aside the newspaper from behind which he had been furtively watching her. "Vernon is twenty-three, and a friend of my boy, Winthrop. Angelica is two years his junior, a most accomplished young woman and quite a leader in the more youthful set. You will be able to learn a great deal from her."

Willa pondered this in silence for a minute or two.

"What does she do?" she queried, finally.

"Why--ah, she drives her own car, and goes in for all the latest fads and diversions. I am not familiar with them myself. She sings and dances----"

"My mother did that," Willa remarked, with a quizzical glance at him.

Mr. North reddened.

"Oh, not----not in that fashion! I mean for charity; war relief and that sort of thing. Quite respectable and praiseworthy."

"I see," said Willa slowly. "It's only proper when you do it for nothing, just because you like it. If it's work, it isn't nice."

Her interlocutor writhed, but cannily forbore argument. He had learned more valuable pointers in the past few days on the matter of rebuttal than Blackstone ever revealed to him.

"And the boy, Vernon. What does he do?" Willa resumed.

"He motors and plays golf and tennis." Mr. North cast wildly about in his mind for an inspiration. What did the young beggar do, anyway, that would meet with the approval of this socialistic Amazon? "Cards, too. He's an inveterate--I mean, enthusiastic, card-player."

Willa rewarded his efforts with a wriggle of interest.

"Monte, stud or blackjack?" she demanded. "What's his limit? Good loser?"

"Very!" The family lawyer was on solid ground here. "In fact I may say the best and most consistent loser I have knowledge of. It has not been decided yet what--ah, field of industry he will enter. He is just out of the university."

"There's a Mr. Halstead, I suppose?"

"Yes, of course. He is the first vice-president of the Vitality and Casualty Insurance Company, and director in several banks and corporations. A very busy man and an important, influential one."

"What does he do that he likes?" Willa persisted, unimpressed.

"Bless me, I haven't an idea! I've known him for a quarter of a century, but I've never heard him discuss anything except finance."

"And Mrs. Halstead?"

"Ah, my dear, there is a character for you!" Mr. North beamed. "She's chairman of a dozen charity organizations, leader in every new movement that appears, and manages to find ample time for her social duties, besides. A wonderful woman! You are fortunate in having her for your sponsor and mentor, and I--ah, I trust that you will follow her directions in all things. You must show your appreciation of her kindness in taking you into her home and making you one of themselves by obeying her without question. Her experience and knowledge of the world will be invaluable to you."

The swift roar of the train into the tunnel precluded comment from his charge, and in the vast station she vanished once more. This time she remained absent for so long that the distracted attorney was on the point of despatching a battalion of porters to search for her when she reappeared, slightly flushed but serene.

"In heaven's name, where have you been?" Mr. North demanded testily. "How many times have I instructed you to remain close at my side when we alight!"

"I knew where you were, you see," she exclaimed calmly. "There was something I had to attend to."

"Telegrams to your friends? Surely they might have waited until a more suitable time! You have caused me great anxiety----"

"I'm sorry if I worried you, Mr. North." Her tone was chastened, but there was an undernote of warning. "I've been free so long that I kind of forget I'm under extradition."

A wave of contrition swept over his ill-humor as her slim-clad figure preceded him out to the waiting motor. She had been coolly insubordinate, of course, but she was young and very much alone in a strange environment. She could be led, perhaps, but she would never be driven.

Cesare, the Halsteads' chauffeur, touched the brim of his cap smartly, and Willa bestowed upon him a dazzling smile. Only the snap of the limousine door prevented her shaking hands.

"He looks like a right-nice boy," she remarked naïvely. "Do you suppose he'll teach me how to drive a car of my own?"

"If he is told to do so," Mr. North replied with dignity, "and it is decided that you are to have a car."

She darted an appraising glance at him, but he vaguely felt a certain ambiguous quality in the silence which followed, and congratulated himself that they had reached their journey's end.

Mrs. Ripley Halstead awaited them in the drawing-room. She was a tall, commanding woman in the indefinite forties, with a high, thin nose and cold, slightly protruding eyes. Her dark hair, still untouched by gray, was arranged in a modishly severe fashion and her smile extended no farther than her straight lips.

"So this is our little cousin?" She brushed the girl's cheek with a light kiss. "My dear Willa, words cannot express our pleasure that you have been found at last, we have doubted and feared for so long. I hope that you will be very happy here with us, and I am sure that we shall all manage famously."

"Thank you," Willa murmured, through stiffened lips. "This situation has been kind of thrust on both of us, but I reckon we can make the best of it."

The lady gasped and turned to the attorney, who was watching with a gleam of speculation in his eye.

"Mason, we have much to thank you for in restoring our young relative to us, but I must defer that now. You will dine with us?"

"Thank you, no." He bowed over her hand. "To tell you the truth, I am rather fagged out from my trip, and I am anxious to get on up-town. Please, tell Ripley that I will see him to-morrow, and transfer the necessary papers to him.--Au revoir, my dear. Try to remember what I have told you."

Willa stared with dazed eyes about the pretty room to which she was ushered. The furniture was of ivory and dull gold, the walls, draperies and floor a soft French blue, and delicate rose-shaded lights glowed delicately in many brackets.

The drawing-room she had taken as a matter of course; it impressed her as being not unlike that of the big hotel at Tampico, but to be expected to live and move around and sleep in this fragile, stifling, cluttered doll's house of a room was unthinkable. It was hers, the maid had said so; therefore, she would make the best of it, in her own fashion.

A half-hour later the house-maid presented herself at Mrs. Halstead's door in a state bordering on hysteria.

"If you please, Madame, the young lady, Miss Murdaugh, has taken her room all to pieces. The draperies' are down from the windows and piled in a corner with the cushions from the chaise longue, and the bed is moved over to the windows and stripped down to the blanket. All the rose shades are off the lights and the furniture is pushed back against the wall. Miss Murdaugh rang for me just now to take all the drapery and things out of the room, and I thought I had better come to you."

Mrs. Halstead stepped forward, but stopped with a slight compression of her lips.

"Very well, Katie. You may remove them, for the time being. I will see Miss Murdaugh about it later."

When the housemaid had withdrawn, her mistress dropped rather than seated herself in the nearest chair. The mechanical smile had vanished and her eyes narrowed. She foresaw friction ahead.

Willa, serenely unconscious that she had offended, slipped into the one thin black gown which she possessed, a mail-order purchase which had given her immense satisfaction, but when dinner was announced and she descended the stairs, she paused aghast at the splendor before her.

A girl stood in the drawing-room door in a marvelous creation which seemed made of diamond-tipped, rainbow-tinted mist. From it her youthful shoulders and slim neck rose creamily, surmounted by a small head banded boyishly with golden hair. Her wide eyes were china blue, her nose piquantly retroussé and she was as vacuously pretty as a wax doll.

"How do you do?" She came forward with a graceful fluttering movement. "You are Willa, aren't you? I hope we are going to be terribly good friends. I'm your cousin, Angelica."

"Named after a dessert." A languid, teasing voice came from behind her. "Welcome to our city, my dear cousin! Hope you won't find us too peaceable after Mexico."

"No fear!" The doll-like eyes snapped dangerously. "This is my brother Vernon, Willa. Mother will be down in a moment."

Willa had suffered herself to be pecked at by the other girl's perfumed lips, and now she took the hand of the dapper youth who confronted her. He was fair like his sister, but the resemblance ended there. His nose was long and sharp, his forehead slanting, his close-set eyes a greenish-gray. She wondered how anything human could look so like a fox, as she returned his quizzical stare with a direct, level one, and relinquished his hand.

"I'm pleased to meet you," she remarked simply, and noted the quick flash of amusement which passed from brother to sister. "I reckon I can stand a little peace and quiet, after what I've been through lately. I don't hardly know where I'm at, yet."

Vernon's mouth twisted suddenly as he turned away, and Angelica responded in obvious haste.

"Yes, I imagine you do feel rather upset. Mr. North must have seemed like a fairy godfather when he appeared with his astounding news for you."

"A fairy godfather? He's kind of a hefty one, isn't he?" Willa smiled, adding quickly: "He was real kind on the trip coming up; didn't seem like he could do enough for me, but I reckon he was glad to get me here at last."

"As we are to have you, my dear." A mild, genial voice sounded from the stairs' foot, and the three young people turned. "Let me welcome you to your home. We hope to make up to you for being exiled for so long from it."

A tall, iron-gray head bent, and Willa found herself gazing into keen, kindly eyes. Her own blurred as her hand rested between those of Ripley Halstead and something seemed to grip her by the throat. Gentleman Geoff's face swam for a moment before her in a mist of tears.

She essayed an unintelligible phrase, and perceiving her emotion, he tactfully covered it.

"You must be starved; I know we are. Children, where's your mother? After dinner we must have a little talk, eh? There will be so much for you to do and see that we shall have to plan out a sort of campaign.--Oh, there you are, Irene!"

Willa's secret anxiety as to forks being allayed by the discovery that service was laid for but one course at a time, she was able to give herself up during the meal to a frank study of her new-found relatives. She was going to like Ripley Halstead; already liked him, and each passing moment confirmed her first opinion. Concerning the others, she was not so sure. There was a mental reservation behind Mrs. Halstead's surface cordiality, and the bewitching Angelica seemed too seraphically sweet and gentle to ring quite true. Vernon was a type with which in a more crude stratum of humanity she had become familiar in the gaming-rooms of the Blue Chip. Weak without being absolutely vicious, crafty without initiative, he would be a mere tool in dominant unscrupulous hands or an average, decent fellow if his better instincts were aroused.

Dinner over, they repaired to the drawing-room, but the little family gathering soon disintegrated, to Willa's profound relief.

Angelica flitted away to a dance, Vernon betook himself to his club and Mr. Halstead, forgetting his expressed intention of a talk with her, shut himself in his study. When she found herself alone with her hostess, Willa mentally braced her nerves for a cross-examination, but the ordeal was deferred.

"My dear, you must be quite worn out. We have much to talk over, for we must all readjust ourselves, and become really acquainted, but you must rest first, and accustom yourself to your new surroundings." Mrs. Halstead smiled. "I am sorry you did not like your room! I had planned it very carefully for you."

"Oh!" Willa cried, in quick dismay. "I didn't know! It was awfully pretty, but I'm used to air and space and I didn't feel like I could breathe in it. I'll put them back to-morrow, and try it, all those hangings and things, if you say so."

"No, you shall have your own room arranged as you please. You will soon grow accustomed to pretty things. We must get rid of that somber mourning at once, and plan a suitable wardrobe."

"But----" Willa paused in dismay. "Maybe Mr. North didn't tell you. I--I have lost someone who was all the world to me! I feel somehow that I couldn't give up the black, not yet anyway. It would look as if I wanted folks to think I'd forgotten----"

"I understand. You refer to your former guardian? But, my dear, that life is behind you now, and you must put everything from your thoughts but the future and what we are all going to help you make of it."

Willa rose.

"You are all very kind," she said in a stifled voice. "I'm bound to be a heap of nuisance to you, I'm afraid, though I made up my mind not to buck the game strong till I'd learned the rules. But don't ask me to be a piker and forget Dad! You don't know what he was to me! I appreciate what you-all are trying to do, Mrs. Halstead, and I sympathize with you, for it's going to be a tough job all around, no matter how I try to follow your lead, but don't stack the cards on the first deal, please. All I've got in the world now is my memory of the best friend that ever lived!"

"Your loyalty is very touching, dear child, and I would be the last to impugn it." Mrs. Halstead put two rigid dutiful arms about her. "Your clothes are a mere detail which we will take up later. You must go to bed now, and sleep."

Willa stumbled from the room with a sense of baffled defeat as if she had incontinently butted against a wall of granite. Her aching heart cried out for familiar things and faces, but she steeled herself valiantly. She must play the game!