A Daughter of the Forest by Evelyn Raymond (best classic novels txt) 📖

consulted a big book which was chained to a desk in one corner, the matron came forward, smiling.

“I’ve found the name, miss. Spelled just as you gave it to me. The number is away up town, in Harlem. But I’ll ring her up and see.”

Again the matron crossed the room, toward a queer looking arrangement on the wall; but, a new train arriving, the room so filled with women and children that she had no more leisure to attend to Margot. However, she managed to tell her:

“Don’t worry. I’ll be free soon again, for a minute. And I’ll tell that Indian to sit just outside the door, if you wish. You can sit there with him, too, if it makes you feel more at home. You’re all right now, and will not faint again.”

“No, indeed. I never did before nor shall again, I hope.”

Yet Margot was very thankful when she and Joe were once more side by side, and now amused herself in studying the crowds about her.

“Oh! Joe, there are more ‘types’ here in a minute than one could see at home in years. Look. That’s a Swede. I know by the shape of his face, and his coloring. Though I never saw a live Swede before.”

“Wonder if she ever saw a dead one!” said a voice in passing, and Margot knew she had been ridiculed, yet not why. Then, too, she saw that many glances were turned upon the bench where she and Joe sat, apart from the crowd and, for almost the first time, became conscious that in some way she looked not as other people. However, she was neither over-sensitive nor given to self-contemplation and she had perfect faith in her uncle’s judgment. He had lived in this great city, he knew what was correct. He had told her to ask the widow to supply her with anything that was needed. She had nothing to do now but wait till the widow was found, and then she could go on about the more important business which had brought her hither.

As she remembered that business, her impatience rose. She was now, she must be, not only within a few miles of her unknown father, but of the man who had wronged him, whom she was to compel to right that wrong. She sprang to her feet. The crowd that had filled the waiting-room was again thinning, for a time, and the matron should be free. Would she never come?

“Then I’ll go to her! Stay right here, Joe. Don’t leave this place a minute now till I get back. Then we’ll not lose each other. I’ll come for you as soon as I can.”

Joe grunted his assent and closed his eyes. He, too, was conscious of staring eyes and indignant at them. Had nobody ever seen an Indian before? Were not these clothes that he was wearing the Master’s gift and of the same sort all these other men wore? Let them gaze, if that suited the simple creatures. As for him he was comfortable. The bench was no harder than the ground. Not much harder. He would sleep. He did.

But Margot found the matron doing a strange thing. She had a long pipe running from a box on the wall, and sometimes she was calling into it, or a hole beside it, in the most absurd way: “Hello! Hello, Central!” or else she was holding the tube to her ear and listening.

“What is it? What are you doing?”

“The telephone. I’m ringing up your friend. I’ll tell you what I hear, soon.”

Even the matron rather objected to having this oddly-dressed, inquisitive girl continually at hand, asking questions. She was busy and tired, and Margot understood that she was dismissed to her bench and Joe.

There she settled herself to think. It was time she did. If this friendly widow, whom her family had always known, could not be found, where should she go? To some hotel she supposed, and wondered which and where.

She was still deep in her musings when the matron touched her arm.

“I got an answer. The number is all right. It is the lady’s home when she is in town, but she has been in the country all summer. The boarding-house—it’s that—is closed except for the janitor, and he doesn’t know where she has gone. That’s all.”

It might be “all,” but it made the woodlander’s heart sink. Then she looked up and saw a vaguely familiar profile, yet she knew nobody, had seen nobody at home, and not even on her journey, whom she could remember to have been just like this.

It was the face of a young man, who was dressed like all these other city men about her, though with a something different and finer in the fit and finish of the light gray suit he wore. A slight moustache darkened his upper lip, and he fingered this lovingly, as one might a new possession. A gray haired lady leaned lightly on his arm and he carried her wraps upon his other. Suddenly she spoke to him, as they moved outward toward a suburban train, and he smiled down upon her. It was the smile that revealed him—Adrian.

“Why, how could I fail to know him! Adrian—then all is right!”

She forgot Joe and all else save that retreating figure which she must overtake, and dashed across the room regardless of the people who hindered her progress, and among whom she darted with lightning-like speed.

“Adrian! Adrian! Adrian!”

Their train was late, the lady had been helped to the last platform, and the young man sprang after her just as it was moving out. He heard his own name and turned, wondering and startled, to see a light-haired girl fiercely protesting against a blue-coated official, who firmly barred her passage beyond the stile into the dangerous region of a hundred moving cars.

“Your ticket, miss! Your train—which is it?”

“Ticket! It’s Adrian I want. Adrian, who has just gone on that car—oh, so fast, so fast! Adrian!”

“Too bad, miss, and too late. Sorry. The next train out will not be many minutes. Likely your friends will wait for you at your station. Which is it?”

“My friends? Oh! I don’t know. I guess—I guess I haven’t any.”

She turned away slowly, her heart too heavy for further speech, even had there been any speech possible; and there was Joe, the faithful and silent, laying his hand on her shoulder and guiding her back to their own bench.

“One girl runs away, get lost. Joe go home no more.”

“Poor Joe, dear Joe. I had no idea of running away. But I saw somebody, that boy who was at the island this summer, and I tried to make him see me. Too late, as the man said. He has gone, and now we, too, must go somewhere. I’ll ask that nice woman. She’ll tell us, I think,” and she again sought the matron.

“Yes. I do know a good place for you, if—they’ll take you in. Meaning no harm miss, but you see, you aren’t fixed just the same, and the Indian——”

“Is it a question of clothes? It’s not the clothing makes the character, my uncle says.”

“No, miss, I suppose not. All the same they go a mighty long way toward making friends, leastways in this big city. And Indians——”

“Joe Wills is just as noble and as honest as any white man ever lived!”

“Maybe so. Indeed, I’m not denying it, but Indians are Indians, and some landladies might think of tomahawks.”

Margot’s laugh rang out and the other smiled in sympathy.

“Joe, Joe! Would you scalp anybody?”

Then, indeed, was the red man’s impassivity broken by a grin, which happily relieved the situation, fast becoming tragic.

“Well, I’m not wise in city ways but I know that I can find a safe shelter somewhere. I’m going to ask that policeman, yonder, to find us a place.”

“That’s sensible, and I’ll talk with him myself. If he isn’t on duty likely he’ll take you to my friend’s himself. By the way, who was that you ran after and called to so loud? You shouldn’t do that in a big, strange station, you know.”

“I suppose not; yet I needed him so, and it was Adrian, who’s been at my own home all summer. If he’d heard, or seen me, he would have taken all the care, because this is where he’s always lived. The same familiar spot that—that dear Peace Island is to Joe and me,” she said, with a catch in her voice and laying her hand affectionately upon his sleeve.

“Adrian? A Mr. Adrian?”

“Why, no. He is a Wadislaw. His father’s name is Malachi Wadislaw, and my business here is with him.”

“Wadislaw, the banker? Why then, of course, it’s all right. Officer, please call a cab and take them to Number — West Twenty-fifth Street. That’s my friend’s; and say I sent them.”

CHAPTER XXII NUMBER 526

“Mother, that was Margot!”

Mrs. Wadislaw heard but did not comprehend what Adrian was saying. She was flushed and panting from her rush after the retreating train and her nerves were excited.

“I’ll never, never—run—for any car—in this world, again!” she gasped. “It’s dangerous, and—so—so uncomfortable. My heart——”

“Poor mother! I’m sorry. I’ll get you some water.”

The young fellow was excited himself but on quite a different matter; yet he knew that nothing could be done for the present and that the disturbed lady would take no interest in anything until her own agitation was calmed.

“No, no. Don’t you leave me. Touch the button. Let the porter attend—I—I am so shaken. I’ll never, never do it again.”

He obeyed her and sat down in the easy-chair beside her. She had been compelled to run else they had been left behind, and she had been hurried from the platform of that last car through the long train to their own reserved seats in the drawing-room car.

“It was foolish; doubly so, because trains are so frequent. There was no need for haste, anyway, was there?”

“Only this need: that when anybody accepts a dinner invitation one should never keep a hostess waiting.”

“But when the hostess is only your own sister, and daughter?”

“One should be most punctilious in one’s own family. Oh, yes. It is no laughing matter, my son, and since you have come home and regained your common sense, you must regard all these seeming trifles. Half the disagreements and discomforts of life are due to the fact that even well-bred people treat their own households with a rudeness they would not dare show strangers. Now that you have given up your careless habits I shall take care to remind you of all these details, and expect to see you a finished society man within a twelvemonth.”

“No, indeed!”

“Adrian! How can you trifle so? Now when you’ve so lately been restored to me?”

“Dearest mother, I am not trifling. I should be, though, if I meant to shine nowhere else than at a fashionable dinner-table. There, don’t look worried. I’ll try not to disgrace you, yet—— Well, I’ve learned a higher view of life than that. But can you hear me now? That was Margot—woodland Margot—who saved my life!”

“Nonsense. It couldn’t be.”

“It surely was; and I’m going to ask you to excuse me from this one visit so that I can go back and find her.”

“Find her? If it were she, and I’m positive you are mistaken, of course she is not in the city alone. Her uncle must be with her, and your sister will be deeply hurt if you fail her this first time. At a dinner, you know, there are a certain and limited number of guests. The failure of one leaves his or her partner in an awkward position. You