Children of the Whirlwind, Leroy Scott [read full novel txt] 📗

"And you, Brainard," he said, rather grudgingly, "I guess you needn't worry any about that charge against you. It'll be dropped."

And with that Barlow followed his men and his prisoners out of the room.

Then for a moment there was silence. As Larry saw and felt that moment, it was a moment so large that words would only make a faltering failure in trying to express it. He himself was suddenly free of all clouds and all dangers. He had succeeded in what he had been trying to do with Maggie. A father and a daughter were meeting, with each knowing their relationship, for the first time. There was so much to be said, among all of them, that could only be said as souls relaxed and got acquainted with each other.

It was so strained, so stupendous a moment that it would quickly have become awkward and anti-climacteric but for the tact of Miss Sherwood.

"Mr. Brainard," she began, in her smiling, direct manner, with a touch of brisk commonplace in it which helped relieve the tension, "I want to apologize to you for the way I treated you late this afternoon. As I said, I've just had a talk with Dick and he's told me everything - except some things we may all have to tell each other later. I was entirely in the wrong, and you were entirely in the right. And the way you've handled things seems to have given Dick just that shock which you said he needed to awaken him to be the man it's in him to be. I'm sure we all congratulate you."

She gave Larry no chance to respond. She knew the danger, in such an emotional crisis as this, of any let-up. So she went right on in her brisk tone of ingratiating authority.

"I guess we've all been through too much to talk. You are all coming right home with me. Mr. Brainard and Mr. Ellison live there, I'm their boss, and they've got to come. And you've got to come, Miss Ellison, if you don't want to offend me. I won't take 'no.' Besides, your place is near your father. Wear what you have on; in a half a minute you can put enough in a bag to last until to-morrow. To-morrow we'll send in for the rest of your things - whatever you want - and send a note to your Miss Grierson, paying her off. You and your father will have my car," she concluded, "Mr. Brainard and Dick will ride in Dick's car, and Mr. Hunt will take me."

And as she ordered, so was it.

For fifteen minutes - perhaps half an hour - after it rolled away from the Grantham Hotel there was absolute stillness in Miss Sherwood's limousine, which she had assigned to Maggie and her father. Maggie was near emotional collapse from what she had been through; and now she was sitting tight in one corner, away from the dark shadow in the other corner that was her newly discovered father who had cared for her so much that he had sought to erase from her mind all knowledge of his existence. She wanted to say something - do something; she was torn with a poignant hunger. But she was so filled with pulsing desires and fears that she was impotent to express any of the million things within her.

And so they rode on, dark shadows, almost half the width of the deeply cushioned seat between them. Thus they had ridden along Jackson Avenue, almost into Flushing, when the silence was broken by the first words of the journey. They were husky words, yearning and afraid of their own sound, and were spoken by Maggie's father.

"I - I don't know what to call you. Will - will Maggie do?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"I'm - I'm not much," the husky voice ventured on; "but what you said about going away - for my sake - do you think you need to do it?"

"I've made - such a mess of myself," she choked out.

"Other people were to blame," he said. "And out of it all, I think you're going to be what - what I dreamed you were. And - and - "

There was another stifling silence. "Yes?" she prompted.

"I wanted to keep out of your life - for your sake," he went on in his strained, suppressed voice. "But - but if you're not ashamed of me now that you know all" - in the darkness his groping hand closed upon hers - "I wish you wouldn't - go away from me, Maggie."

And then the surging, incoherent thing in her that bad been struggling to say itself this last half-hour, suddenly found its voice in a single word:

"Father!" she cried, and flung her arms around his neck.

"Maggie!" he sobbed, crushing her to him.

All the way to Cedar Crest they said not another word; just clung to each other in the darkness, sobbing - the first miraculous embrace of a father and daughter who had each found that which they had never expected to have.


CHAPTER XXXVII


It was ten the next morning at Cedar Crest, and Larry Brainard sat in his study mechanically going over his figures and plans for the Sherwood housing project.

For Larry the storms of the past few weeks, and the whirlwind of last night, had cleared away. There was quiet in the house, and through the open windows he could glimpse the broad lawn almost singing in its sun-gladdened greenness, and farther on he could glimpse the Sound gleaming placidly. Once for perhaps ten minutes he had seen the overalled and straw-hatted figure of Joe Ellison busy as usual among the flowers. He had strained his eyes for a glimpse of Maggie, but he had looked in vain.

Despite all that had come to pass at the Grantham the previous evening, Larry was just now feeling restless and rather forlorn. His breakfast had been brought to him in his room, and he had not seen a single member of last night's party at the Grantham since they had all divided up according to Miss Sherwood's orders and driven away; that is he had really seen no one except Dick.

Dick had gripped his hand when he had slipped in beside Dick in the low seat of the roadster. "You're all right, Captain Nemo! - only I'm going to be so brash as to call you Larry after this," Dick had said. "If you'll let me, you and I are going to be buddies."

He was all right, Dick was. Dick Sherwood was a thoroughbred.

And there was another matter which had pleased him. The Duchess had called him up that morning, had congratulated him in terms so brief that they sounded perfunctory, but which Larry realized had all his grandmother's heart in them, and had said she wanted him to take over the care of all her houses - those she had put up as bail for him. When could he come in to see her about this? . . . He understood this dusty-seeming, stooped, inarticulate grandmother of his as he had not before. Considering what her life had been, she also was a brick.

But notwithstanding all this, Larry was lonely - hungrily lonely - and was very much in doubt. Miss Sherwood had spoken to him fair enough the night before - yet he really did not know just how he stood with her. And then - Maggie. That was what meant most to him just now. True, Maggie had emerged safe through perils without and within; and to get her through to some such safety as now was hers had been his chief concern these many months. He wanted to see her, to speak to her. But he did not know what her attitude toward him would now be. He did not know how to go about finding her. He was not even certain where she had spent the night. He wanted to see her, yet was apulse with fear of seeing her. She would not be hostile, he knew that much; but she might not love him; and at the best a meeting would be awkward, with so wide a gap in their lives to be bridged. . . .

He was brooding thus when there was a loud knocking at his door. Without waiting for his invitation to enter, the door was flung open, and Hunt strode in leaving the door wide behind him. His face was just one great, excited grin. He gave Larry a thump upon the back, which almost knocked Larry over, and then pulled him back to equilibrium by seizing a hand in both of his, and then almost shook it off.

"Larry, my son," exploded the big painter, "I've just done it! And I did it just as you ordered me to! Forgot that Miss Sherwood and I had had a falling out, and as per your orders I walked straight up to her and asked her. And Larry, you son-of-a-gun, you were right! She said 'yes'!"

"You're lucky, old man!" exclaimed Larry, warmly returning the painter's grip.

"And, Larry, that's not all. You told me I had the clearness of vision of a cold boiled lobster - said I was the greatest fool that ever had brains enough not to paint with the wrong end of an umbrella. Paid me some little compliment like that."

"Something like that," Larry agreed.

"Well, Larry, old son, you were right again! I've been a worse fool than all you said. Been blinder than one of those varnished skulls some tough-stomached people use for paper-weights. After she'd said 'yes' she gave me the inside story of why we had fallen out. And guess why it was?"

"You don't want me to guess. You want to tell me. So go to it."

"Larry, we men will never know how clever women really are!" Hunt shook his head with impressive emphasis. "Nor how they understand our natures - the clever women - nor how well they know how to handle us. She confessed that our quarrel was, on her part, carefully planned from the beginning with a definite result in view. She told me she'd always believed me a great painter, if I'd only break loose from the pretty things people wanted and paid me so much for. The trouble, as she saw it, was to get me to cut loose from so much easy money and devote myself entirely to real stuff. The only way she could see was for her to tell me I couldn't paint anything worth while, and tell it so straight-out as to make me believe that she believed it - and thus make me so mad that I'd chuck everything and go off to prove to her that I damned well could paint! I certainly got sore - I ducked out of sight, swearing I'd show her - and, oh, well, you know the rest! Tell me now, can you think of anything cleverer than the way she handled me?"

"It's just about what I would expect of Miss Sherwood," Larry commented.

"Excuse me," said a voice behind them. "I found the door open; may I come in?"

Both men turned quickly. Entering was Miss Sherwood.

"Isabel!" exclaimed the happy painter. "I was just telling Larry here - you know!"

Miss Sherwood's tone tried to be severe, and she tried not to smile - and she succeeded in being just herself.

"I came to talk business with Mr. Brainard. And I'm going to stay to talk business with Mr. Brainard.