The Beloved Cinderella
By Mary Imlay Taylor
Chapter 5
Stargrass, the lovely girl grown from the deserted baby the Binneys had found and loved as their own, was not theirs any more — she was the daughter of rich Mr. Blanchard. Pap Binney, broken-hearted, felt that something was wrong — Mrs. Binney, weeping, comforted Pap by telling him that Star would be happy there in the big house — would have all the beautiful things every girl wanted.
But at the big house things seemed strange to Star — everything was so cold and unfriendly. Even the friendship of John Nelson, Blanchard’ s secretary, could not counteract the sinister familiarity of James Carr and Etta, niece of Mr. Blanchard. It was fun to have clothes and all that, but Star’s heart ached at the thought of leaving the Binneys, and somehow the future filled her with chill foreboding. What was wrong? Read the rest of the story and find out.
Mrs. Binney, having lit the lamp, set it on the table; she had already laid out Pap’s evening paper and she puttered about too obviously for him to forget her. She wanted to hear more about Windymere and Star.
“Did you say she had pearls, ‘Lisha?”
Pap looked over the top of his paper. “Big as beans — a string of ‘em.”
‘T v/ant to know! I don’t believe they’re real — that size!” Mrs. Binney’s eyes were eager for confirmation of this news.
“I reckon they be, money’s kinder lyin’ round there. Star’s got everything— so she says!” he added, and his wide old mouth shut suddenly.
His wife edged nearer, tracing the leaf pattern on the old red cloth with her short fat finger.
“What d’you think of him, Pap?” she whispered, leaning toward him.
Mr. Binney rustled his paper. Out of the tail of his eye he saw the lamplight flaring on his wife’s round face. In some way, why, he did not know, it reminded him of a troubled moon looking out of gathering clouds.
“Drat him!” he shifted his paper, “I reckon you know what he is, don’t you? You told him first. I s’pose he’s just, an’, maybe, he means well, but he — “ the old man choked and coughed violently — “he’s got th’ high hat! Ma, I — I kinder hate to think he’s little Star’s father.”
“That so?” her face fell. “But he’s so rich, he’ll make her a great heiress,” she said tremulously; “seems like you couldn’t want anything better for your own child, Pap!”
Pap stared off into space thoughtfully. “I don’t know as money’s everything,” he said at last.
“It’s most everything in this world, ‘Lisha,” his wife cried, “most everything — I always said so. And if Blanchard’s goin’ to give Star all his money, why — ”
“Oh, drat it!” cried Pap suddenly and violently, “I don’t want to hear about him! I — I’m readin’ th’ paper!”
His wife stared at him a moment in silence, but he only buried himself more thoroughly in the news-sheet, and, after a moment, she turned resolutely and began to put on her hat. She was searching for her mitts and her handkerchief when Mr. Binney looked up again.
“Where you goin’?” he asked sharply.
Mrs. Binney stopped, with her hand on the door.
“Just down th’ road a-piece. I ain’t a-goin’ to sit here while you’re chewin’ rag! I don’t care if Blanchard was rude to you — you ain’t got any call to take it out of me!”
“Look here, Ma — “ Pap was ready to talk now, his troubled face smoothing out a little when he saw how she felt.
“I’m goin’ — “ she flung back at him from the door, her brown clad shoulders set stubbornly — “maybe I’ll be late gettin’ back. I may stop an’ see old Mrs. Little, she’s got sciatica again. Anyway, you can go_ to bed, if you’ve a mind to; it won’t make a mite of difference to me!” she ended, as she slammed the door behind her.
Pap stared after her, and then, secure in being alone, he dropped the paper on his knee and fell to rubbing his chin. His eyes were vacant in their absorbed stare and once or twice, his chin shook.
“I kinder miss her a’ready,” he mused. “She was always ‘round liere somewheres — seems as if she was only knee-high yesterday, a cute little thing, little Stargrass!”
He lifted his eyes to peer over his spectacles toward the window. It was open upon the soft darkness of a cloudy night, but he thought he had heard something out there.
He did not hear it again, for Mrs. Binney, who had stopped to sob a little herself, had gone on. She was walking down the back road now hurriedly. It was a dark night but lights glowed here and there, rimmed with little rainbows in the sea-mist. Mrs. Binney shied away from these friendly circles of illumination; for one so chubby and reliable, it might almost be said that she lurked in shadows. She did not stop at Mrs. Little’s, she passed with a feeling of fresh iniquity, and padded on along the macadam road. Once or twice she jumped violently when a twig snapped or a bat wheeled past. Then her eye caught the steady glare of the lamps at the white gate-posts and she made for them, panting.
There was no one about and, feeling like a highwayman. Ma made her way across the lawn. If she hid here, in the shadow of this dense shrubbery, she could see the terrace in the wide streams of light from the windows. She dropped into an odd brown indistinguishable heap and waited, her heart thumping heavily. She wanted to see Star there — rich, happy, a great heiress! The old woman’s short fat fingers clutched deep into the grass and pulled out tufts of it; she was shaking all over, she had never felt so guilty in her life. Then she saw figures moving about inside the house. Occasionally one came to a window, and Mrs. Binney blinked, straining her eyes in the darkness, trying to distinguish them. There was a mother hunger in her heart and a great fear. But if only Star had everything — .
The night was not silent; it was full of sounds, the faint rustling of leaves, the hum of insect life, the far-off reedy piping of frogs in the old millpond. Mrs. Binney, unaccustomed to sneaking around forbidden places and hiding in wet shrubbery at night, began to shiver; premonitory twinges of rheumatism pierced her.
“I guess I ought t’have stayed at home!” she muttered to herself.
Then a girl came out of the long window and walked across the terrace in the wide swath of light from the room behind her. Transformed as she was by her dress, the young figure could not be mistaken by the fond eyes that watched for it! Ma Binney half rose. She had almost whispered the girl’s name the next moment she shrank back into the shrubbery, felt a shower of water from the leaves run down her back, and drew the foliage close about her. Star had been almost immediately followed by a young man, not Nelson — Mrs. Binney knew him; — this was a taller, rather slighter figure.
The two were talking, but were too far off for the words to be distinguishable. Something in the man’s manner, however, spoke a language so universal that even the middle-aged watcher could not mistake it. The two stood for awhile, clearly outlined, leaning against the marble balustrade. Once the man, leaning toward the girl, put his hand over hers. Mrs. Binney thrilled with excited interest, but Star sharply withdrew it and, turning away from Carr, descended the short flight of steps into the garden. She turned, as chance or fate would have it, toward the shadowy clump of shrubbery, and he came quickly after her.
“Mary Agnes!” he called to her, and his voice had a note of laughter in it.
Star stood still.
“I didn’t tell you to call me that!” she said, with a wonderful imitation of Etta’s hauteur.
“No, but I couldn’t help it!” he answered quickly.
He had caught up with her, was bending toward her, self assured, confident. “Would you rather — “ his voice had the ripple of hidden meaning in it — “would you rather I called you ‘Star’?”
“No!” she cried sharply.
He laughed outright. “Stargrass!” he teased.
“Don’t!” the girl cried again.
“Oh, I see! You like queening it here, instead, don’t you? What is it like — the change?”
Star was standing by the fountain and she stooped and dipped her fingers in the clear cool water.
“It’s wonderful!” she answered softly, after a pause.
He drew nearer again, trying to see her face in the uncertain light.
“What would you do if something happened? If something took it all away again — overnight?” he asked her.
The girl lifted startled eyes. “But it couldn’t!” she cried.
He mocked her laughingly. “Oh, couldn’t it?”
She turned around, facing him. “What do you mean, Mr. Carr?”
He did not answer for a moment. A shaft of light from the house had lifted her young face out of the night; its purity, the dewy beauty of eyes and lips, the nimbus of bright hair, held him.
“She’s worth it, worth the deal!” he thought, and then aloud: “It won’t happen, Mary Agnes, I won’t let it!”
Star stood a moment looking at him, then she laughed, something of the old gay, rippling laugh.
“As if you had anything to do with it!”
He caught her hand. “I don’t want to frighten you,” he said in a low voice, “but I have a lot to do with it! It wouldn’t pay to quarrel with me; let’s kiss and make friends.”
Star thought he was jesting and laughed. “You’re threatening me!”
“Yes and no!” he whispered daringly. “Kiss me. Star!”
His face was close to hers before she knew he meant it. Suddenly she broke away from him, a sob of dismay in her throat.
“What do you mean? What do you think of me. How — how dare you? I don’t allow men to kiss me!”
He laughed. He would have answered her in his own way by catching her and kissing her, had he not seen Blanchard and Nelson coming out on the terrace. He could see their figures plainly. He tried to soothe the angry girl.
“You’ll have to forgive me, Mary Agnes,” he said lightly; “you forget you turn a fellow’s head — out here in the night, enchantress!”
Star made no answer. In the shadow now he could not see her eyes, but he ventured further.
“Oh, you’ve bowled me over — suppose we bank it,” he gave an odd laugh, “and go into partnership — for life, you know?”
He was aware of something in the girl he could not understand; he thought he had fathomed her, but even in the darkness now he perceived some change in her. She did not answer him. Suddenly, without a word, she turned and fled lightly toward the terrace. Taken by surprise, he heard her voice answering Blanchard’s.
“Yes, I’m going in now. Father.”
“Where’s Carr? Etta wanted him just now; something about cards —”
“Coming!” Carr answered below the terrace. He had followed Star, and she caught the mocking laughter in his eyes as she fled past him into the house.
“You’ll find Etta waiting,”
Blanchard said; “she’s set on bridge for tomorrow night. Going in, Jimmy? Nelson and I are going down through the grounds; I’ve got a problem to solve yet,” he added, twisting his head backward toward the house and smiling.
Carr’s eyes flashed. “I’d like to join you, but I fancy I’ve got to make peace with these young ladies!” he laughed.
Blanchard smiled. “You’ll find them a handful,” he observed, as he descended the steps. “Got your torch with you, John?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Yes; want it?” Nelson was close behind him.
“Not now; I can see the way here plain enough. The wind’s changed; it’s a bit chilly for this time of year, isn’t it?”
Blanchard turned into the driveway. The shadows about them were dense, an immovable darkness that escaped the lanterns at the gate.
“Nice place,” Blanchard remarked after a silence. “I had an idea I’d buy it, but — well, it won’t do now.”
Nelson gave him a quick look, but in the dark he made out nothing.
“May I ask why, sir?”
“Obvious, isn’t it? I’ve got my girl back, but she’s been brought up here — over a grocery store. She’ll never shake that! Besides, you saw that old fellow in the road? Pap, she calls him. Of course he’ll hang around. I’m going to take her to Europe for a couple of years, get her polished up and launch her in society. Her mother would want me to do that; I’ve got to break up these ties here.”
“I don’t think the old people at the shop will trouble you, Mr. Blanchard,” Nelson replied slowly. “I’ve seen the old man two or three times; he’s a character, honest and sincere.”
“No doubt; looks it,” Blanchard retorted dryly. “I’d be glad to pay them something handsome, more than the reward, for all they’ve done for my daughter, but — “ he growled angrily — “they’re playing some kind of a hand. I don’t get it — they won’t take a cent!”
“Binney’s too sturdy a character to take money for a labor of — of love,” said John with sudden feeling, “Anyone can see he loves Miss Blanchard as he might his own child. I — the fact is, sir, I esteem him highly for his stand in the matter. I talked with him — because you asked it — but I hated to do it. There’s no price for such a thing!”
Blanchard grunted. “You’re young. Nelson, and sentimental. There’s a mighty little in this world for which there isn’t a price — it has only to be big enough. I’m figuring that the price I’ve offered so far is too small, that’s all.”
John’s lips flattened at the corners. “I disagree with you, sir, as far as it refers to Pap Binney.”
Mr. Blanchard strode awhile in silence, then he turned and looked back. Behind them the long driveway turned a sharp curve and disappeared under shadowing trees.
“By Jove, it’s a peach of a place, isn’t it? he exclaimed, and then, sharply: “What’s that? There’s someone sneaking in the shrubbery!”
John felt, rather than saw, his hand go to his hip pocket; like many rich men Blanchard had a keen nervous perception of danger.
“Got your torch handy? Flash it on that place — “ he pointed — “over there!”
John obeyed, playing his torch on a group of blossoming rhododendrons and revealing the huddled brown figure of a stout old woman, her hat on one side and her eyes blinking in the light.
“Why, Mrs. Binney!” he cried involuntarily.
Mrs, Binney gasped. “I ain’t hidin’ here!” she cried tremulously, “an’ I don’t want anything — no, I don’t! I was just tryin’ to find th’ gate.”
Blanchard reached out a hand and took the torch from John, holding its powerful light full on poor Mrs. Binney’s shamed, frightened face.
“May I ask what you were here for, madam?” he demanded sternly.
She gasped, and both he and John saw the hands that clasped her old black bag tremble violently.
“I — “ she blinked away from the light and then something, anger or outraged pride, roused her. “I ain’t a thief!” she cried. “My soul, don’t look at me like that! I don’t want your old money, I — I only wanted to see if Star was happy! You needn’t be afraid, I — I ain’t goin’ to stop, I — “ she choked — “I bid you goodnight, sir!”
“Wait a moment.” Blanchard tried to detain her. “I’m ready to pay anything just my good woman, for your care of my daughter. I’ve said so. I’d only make it a condition that you stay away.”
Mrs. Binney’s chin was shaking now as much with rage as with fright. “I don’t want your old money!” she cried hotly. “I won’t touch a dratted cent of it, as Pap says. Just you make Star happy, that’s all I want!” And suddenly, without warning, she burst into tears, fumbled for her handkerchief and fled, stumbling, into the darkness. They could hear her feet padding heavily on the road outside, until finally even those sounds died away in the darkness.
Blanchard stood still, listening. He switched off the torch and held it out to John.
“There! You see? Didn’t I tell you?” he said at last, grimly. “That settles it; I don’t buy this place, and I take my girl away from here tomorrow!”
(To be continued)