“Service? Mercy no! I wouldn’t think they’d have the face to have a service after what he has done! Nobody’ll come. I certainly wouldn’t want George Ransom to have that much satisfaction out of me. Let him understand that he had disgraced the family!”
“Oh, do you really think it would give him satisfaction? Now?”
The sharp-tongued Maria looked at her intently, suspecting that she was being made fun of, but Aunt Patty’s tone was quite quiet and sweet. “It seems to me he is wiser than to care for such things now, even if he ever did.”
“You surely don’t thing George Ransom has gone to heaven, do you?” said Cousin Maria excitedly. “You can’t think he was saved, surely?”
“The thief on the cross was saved,” reminded Aunt Patty gently. “You and I are not his judges.”
“Are you upholding bootlegging?” Cousin Maria’s voice was almost a scream.
“Not consciously,” said Aunt Patty. “Can I give you another cup of tea? I’m afraid you’ll be late getting home.”
“I expected to have to sacrifice something. What makes you so sure Romayne won’t come to us? I’m sure I don’t see where she can go. She hasn’t any property, has she? The paper said she hadn’t a cent. It would be tainted money if she had.”
“I’m sure I didn’t enquire,” said Aunt Patty. “But Romayne has no idea of being dependent on anyone, and if she had, she has plenty of places to go. She certainly is not coming to you, although I am sure if she were able just now to speak for herself, she would thank you for offering.”
“Well, she’s going to have a chance to speak for herself in about a minute,” said Cousin Maria, swallowing the last of her tea and reaching for another piece of cinnamon toast, “for I’m going up to see her! It’s ridiculous, babying her like this! She’s got her own way to make in the world, and she’ll have to stand on her own feet!”
She had risen while she was speaking and walked toward the door, but Aunt Patty had risen also and taken up the telephone, speaking into it quietly under the rattle of Cousin Maria’s threats.
“Is Mr. Hollister there? This is Miss Sherwood. Will you please send him around to Ransom’s at once with a taxi for duty?”
She hung up the receiver and followed the visitor into the hall. It had all been done so casually that Cousin Maria had not realized.
“You have been in close touch with Romayne and her mother and father during the years, I suppose?” asked Aunt Patty, pausing in the hall and stooping to straighten a rug, as if she were merely making polite talk.
“No,” said Maria, caught by the bait of a bit of gossip, “my mother never approved of Cousin Caroline’s marriage into the Ransom family. George’s brother used to go with me for a while, but Mother broke it right off and sent me away to school! And afterward he jilted the loveliest girl, from New York! She died of consumption. They were all alike, those Ransoms, not a good one among them! Handsome and wicked! All they could do was spend money they hadn’t earned! Well, I suppose I might as well go look at him, now I’m here. Mother will want to hear all about it. Which room is he in?”
“No,” said Aunt Patty firmly. “I don’t think Romayne would care to have you go, feeling as you do about him. Romayne loved her father tenderly.”
“How could she!” exclaimed the visitor angrily. “That’s just what I said when Mother suggested my coming after her. ‘Mother,’ I said, ‘they’re all tarred with the same pitch, those Ransoms! Romayne will be just like them. Why, how could a good respectable girl love a man like that? But she’d have to give them all up if she came to us!”
The door opened suddenly, and Chris Hollister in full uniform appeared for duty, his hat in his hand, a respectful look upon his nice young face. Cousin Maria turned a sharp look of curiosity toward him, but Aunt Patty forestalled anything she might have said by giving her directions.
“Mr. Hollister, you will please take Miss Forbes to her train at once. She will tell you which station.”
“But I’m not going, I tell you, till I’ve seen Romayne!” blazed Cousin Maria. “And I’m going to see George Ransom, too. I always do my duty by the dead, even if they are criminals!”
“I’m sorry,” said Aunt Patty firmly, “but you’ll have to go at once. Mr. Hollister is in charge of this house this afternoon, and he has order to see that Romayne is not disturbed. Anything you wish to say to her you can write. The undertaker has the key to the room where Mr. Ransom is lying. I will bid you good afternoon, Miss Forbes,” and Aunt Patty, with a meaningful look at Chris, swept softly up the stairs, a lady to the top.
“I’ll see that you pay for this,” screamed Cousin Maria, white with rage and starting to follow up the stairs, but somehow Chris stepped between her and the stairs.
“Just step this way, Miss Forbes. The taxi is right outside,” he said in his deep bass voice.
Cousin Maria looked at the solid young giant before her with his Sam Brown belt and pistols and paused.
“Step right this way!” repeated Chris once more with his best football roar.
And Cousin Maria stepped.
Chapter 16
Aunt Patty came up to Romayne’s room several hours later with a tempting tray, and to say that Chris Hollister was downstairs with a request from the officers who had been stationed in the house during Mr. Ransom’s illness. They wanted to know if it would trouble Miss Ransom if they attended the service in a group. They all felt deeply sympathetic with her in this most trying situation, but they were afraid that perhaps their presence might be unpleasant to her.
Romayne lay still for a moment thinking about it, and then she said, “No, it wouldn’t trouble me, I’d like them to come! I want them to know, somehow, that he was forgiven.” She paused a moment and then looked up earnestly. “I would like them all to come.…” And Aunt Patty folded that look away to tell Evan about it.
The service was in the evening after it was quite dark.
It was held down in the office where the tragedy had begun. Aunt Patty, prompted by Evan, suggested otherwise, but Romayne shook her head.
“No, I’d like it to be there. It seems as if he would want it to be there—where”—she hesitated—“where the other thing had gone on. It seems as if it was the only way it could be wiped out. I don’t suppose you will understand—”
But Aunt Patty brushed the bright tears away from her eyes and said, “Yes, child, I understand.”
For to Aunt Patty Romayne had confided the story of her father’s last moments.
So the big desk was rolled to the back of the room, the heavy silk curtains drawn, and the alabaster vases filled with roses that the officers who had guarded the house brought.
There were other flowers, an overwhelming amount of them, great pillows and wreaths and costly sprays, sent by Judge Freeman, the Worrells, and members of the “gang” at sea. The fact that they knew to a minute what had happened and when to send flowers, and that the flowers came in such profusion, made the display offensive to Romayne. She had them all put in the hall, and only the roses of the officers were near the coffin.
She bought no flowers herself and would not allow Aunt Patty to bring any.
There was one other magnificent spray of roses and lilies bearing the card of Kearney Krupper. Romayne had asked Aunt Patty to call him on the telephone the night before and ask him to inform her brother, if he knew where he was, that his father was dead. The flowers had arrived early the next morning.
Romayne regarded the flowers mournfully as she came down the stairs for the service. She shunned touching them as she passed into the front room. It seemed to her they represented her father’s shame.
The officers were lined up in the front of the room, gloved and uniformed, looking dependable and uncomfortable.
At the last minute, as Dr. Stephens was opening his Bible to begin the service, a stranger arrived. He was a young man flashily attired, and he stood in the hall looking at Romayne with hard, interested eyes as the minister read the service. Th
e flowers were banked behind him, and he seemed a part of them. Romayne did not look at him after the first glance. It annoyed her that a stranger should be present. She wondered why he had come and if he were another of the “business associates.”
Romayne sat with Aunt Patty near the casket and listened to the words of the burial service. It seemed so strange that these words were being spoken there in their home, for the father who had, but a few short days before, been going about well and strong. The words seemed to give her the vista of the desolate future more distinctly than she had yet seen it. Down through the years, separated from her father by this burial service, she must walk alone to the end! The triumph was still in her heart when she thought of the end and the glory of it, but the years between loomed dark and long.
But when the minister came to the verses she had selected and began to read them, she lifted her head and took courage. Now was her father being made right before the representatives of his world here in this room where he had sinned.
“These verses,” said the minister, “were read and re-read many times to Mr. Ransom during his last illness. It is perhaps not known by all present that he aroused, at the end, and spoke; and that the one word that he uttered was forgiven! Let us pray!”
It was a tender enfolding prayer that followed, and Romayne felt as if it brought the promises of God right up to the throne and used them as a plea.
During the little hush when the prayer was over, after the undertaker had announced that the burial would be private, Romayne still sat apart, a look of peace on her white face. She lifted her eyes once and saw across the hall the honest, troubled face of Chris Hollister beaded with perspiration, uncomfortable in his dress uniform, trying to do all he could, and somehow it came to her that it was not all for his own sake he was doing it. His chief’s orders were behind all this quiet helpfulness and decorum.
Then the flashily dressed stranger came over to speak to her, and she shrank back and wished she had gone upstairs at once.
“I’m Kearney Krupper,” announced the young man in an undertone. “Is there any place where I could speak to you in private?”
“Oh no! It isn’t necessary, is it?” said Romayne, shrinking back. She could not bear the intrusion just then, and it would be about Lawrence. Oh, she couldn’t talk about Lawrence now!
“Well, perhaps not,” said the young man, squaring his back impolitely to Miss Sherwood and encompassing Romayne by seeming to spread himself widely and shut her off from the others in the room. “So sorry I couldn’t have come to you right away last evening, but I had a date, you know. Glad to do anything I can for you!”
Romayne lifted her eyes to his face and gave him a perfunctory “Thank you,” wishing he would go away quickly.
The young man was studying the delicate features, the clear eyes, the exquisite curves of cheek and brow and lip, the fine texture of the white skin. Such things were his specialties. He was always collecting new specimens.
“So sorry you had to go through all this!” He waved his hand effusively toward the casket. “But of course you know it’s much better so. Saves a lot of trouble for everybody.”
Romayne cast a startled glance at him and turned coldly away, answering nothing. She had a strong desire in her heart to strike him. There was something offensive in his voice.
“I sent your message,” went on the unpleasant voice nothing daunted. “Of course your friend—you understand what I mean?—your friend—expected this before he left. He fully agreed with me that it was the best thing that could happen—”
Romayne felt that she was going to scream if this went on, and she turned sharply away once more and found to her relief that Chris Hollister stood formidable and glowering by her side.
“Oh Chris,” she said appealingly, “can’t you get me out of here—upstairs? I—can’t stand any more!”
Chris gave her his arm and led her proudly toward the stairs, and Romayne never knew that by that small appeal to his chivalry she had soothed many hurts that she had given him on the day the house was raided.
But a man like Kearney Krupper was not to be shaken off so easily. He was at the stairs as Romayne put her foot upon the first step.
“By the way, what time in the interment? Virginia, I understand. I’ll be there—”
“Oh no! Please!” said Romayne. “No one is going. It is to be private—”
“But I represent your—ah ‘friend,’ you know, Miss Romayne. He would wish it, I’m sure. Good night! I’ll be there tomorrow. Let me know if there is anything I can do in the meantime.”
If Chris hadn’t been absorbed in the act of assisting the lady up the stairs, it is very possible he might have forgotten himself and knocked Kearney Krupper down right then and there. As it was, his honest face got fairly black with rage, and he looked toward the door threateningly. If he could have hoped that he would ever again have the privilege of escorting Romayne Ransom anywhere, he would have followed the cad into the street and had it out with him, but he hesitated, looking from the lady to the enemy and back again, and went on up the stairs with Romayne.
“Thank you, Chris,” said Romayne earnestly. “Oh, I wish that man wouldn’t go with us tomorrow! I wish he couldn’t! There isn’t any way to stop him, is there?”
“Yes,” said Chris. “Don’t you worry, Romayne, he sha’n’t go!”
Romayne thanked him again, and Chris went downstairs to find Aunt Patty, feeling as if he had just been handed a wreath of olive leaves for his brow.
It was Chris who found another earlier train on another road and told Miss Patty and the undertaker about Romayne’s wish; and Chris who took the flowers from the hall in a big car at Romayne’s request and distributed them among the children in a hospital down near the slums.
So the funeral procession started from the house very early in the morning, before the residents of the street were up, and with only the officers’ roses lying on the casket.
It was Chris again who put Romayne and Aunt Patty into their chairs in the parlor car, gave Aunt Patty the tickets, touched his hat, and left them just as the rain started, leaving Romayne with a curious sense of loneliness to know that he was gone. His kind, perspiring face had been always there, ready to respond to her slightest wish, during the last two days, and it had comforted her not a little.
But when the train drew into the little station in the Virginia town that was their destination and Romayne and Aunt Patty arose to get out, it was Chris again who appeared as naturally as if he had been there all the time, Chris in his Sunday-best citizen’s clothes, ready to pick up the small handbag they had brought and put them into an automobile.
And when they came to the quiet cemetery on a hilltop above the town and got out to walk to the newly dug grave, there at its head in a body, grave and kind and impressive, in citizen’s clothing and no hint of “officers” about them, stood the entire force who had guarded the house during George Ransom’s illness.
There were a few old friends there, too, Virginia friends of the family. It had been several years since Romayne had seen them, and she scarcely recognized some of them. She was grateful to them, of course, for coming to do honor to her father, or to the family, though she could not help being conscious of all they must have read in the papers. But she felt a warm glow of gratitude toward that body of splendid strong-faced men with Chris at their head, who had come all the way from the city with her, riding in another car, and coming as friends and citizens rather than as officers. They were giving her father the honor of their respect and showing the people in the old hometown that he still had some friends to follow him to his grave.
The old minister was there, too, and as Romayne stood on the hilltop in the morning sunlight watching the play of light and shadow over the grassy mound where her mother’s body lay buried, looking up to the sky with its cloudless blue, with the birds in the trees singing their spring songs, she could not help a little feeling of triumph. Her father, too, had gone home, forgiven! And
what a place for resurrection day, if such things mattered then!
It was when they were seated in the returning train at noon, and just as they were pulling out, that the later train from the city came in and halted at the station in full sight of Romayne’s window. There had been a freight off the track, and it was two hours late.
Kearney Krupper hopped blithely off and looked around him. It is possible, if the train to the city had not at that moment begun to move pretty rapidly, that it would not have carried Chris Hollister back with it, for he spied his flashy enemy just a moment too late, and he would have loved to have taken him away off in the fields and given him a good lesson. But he reflected as the train got into full motion and rounded a curve, giving a last glimpse of the indomitable Kearney, that perhaps to spend a few hours searching for a funeral that was already over would be as good a lesson as any that he could teach.
Late in the afternoon they got back to the house, and Aunt Patty tucked Romayne into bed and made her promise to go to sleep a little while. Then she made sure that the cook was in the kitchen and a tempting little dinner well underway, before she hurried off to her neglected nephew, intending to be back to eat dinner with Romayne.
But instead of eating dinner with Romayne at half past six, as she had planned, Aunt Patty was sitting in a parlor car, rushing on her way to New Hampshire.
She had found a telegram at her nephew’s apartment saying that Aunt Martha had been taken suddenly seriously ill and she must come immediately.
“You’ll have to go at once, of course, Aunt Patty,” said Evan anxiously. “It’s ridiculous for you to think you have to stay with me! I shall be out on the street in a few days more.”
“Yes, that’s just what I’m afraid of,” said Aunt Patty, wiping away a furtive tear. “You’ve had me out on duty so much I haven’t been able to do anything for you, but I had counted on helping you convalesce and seeing that you did it gradually.”
“Well, I’ll promise to be good if you’ll promise to come back again as soon as you can.”