CHAPTER XII—REPUTATIONS AT STAKE
Dot Huntington, though fascinated with Longwell Seminary on the one hand, scorned it on the other. As an institution of learning she believed it quite perfect, all that could be desired; but she resented its strict discipline, those rigid rules which deprived her of certain privileges which she had, with parental consent, enjoyed all her life, chiefly, the right to come and go unchaperoned whenever she wished and to read any book that pleased her fancy.
However, a sudden overwhelming appetite for education seized her, and this very readily reconciled her to the loss of her personal liberty, for while she inherited none of her father’s passion for culture, her ambition and pride were such as to impel her to set for her goal those high honors for which the seminary was noted. So, brought face to face with tomes of fact and instruction, she threw herself whole-heartedly into the task of mastering them in order to attain that grade of erudition which her age and matureness of mind made necessary. In order to bring this last about, Lemuel had made special arrangements that she take instructions from a private teacher in order that she might go more rapidly forward.
Again, displeased as she was with the institution’s system of discipline, she was deeply interested in its student body. She had never known the companionship of girls of her age before, and here there were scores of them, and not a few daughters of the most prominent families of the West. Having a prepossessing personality that attracted people to her, she made friends; and these vivacious newfound companions, added to the fascination with which her studies gripped her, contributed greatly in causing her to put aside that one haunting worry that had periodically harrassed her ever since she left Geerusalem, for she was still the unwilling custodian of the white-elephant fortune in bills. Mrs. Liggs had not arrived, nor had she answered Lemuel’s telegram for that matter. Dot could not imagine what had happened to their little old friend, on whom she depended to solve the problem for her.
Three days after Lemuel had wired Mrs. Liggs, asking her to come to San Francisco, they had given up hope of hearing from her. Considerably mystified, they had been finally driven into visiting the manager of one of the big stores and confessing that Dot was going to attend a select seminary and needed a complete wardrobe. As a result, Dot was now the proud possessor of as dainty and chic a collection of gowns, expensive lingerie, hats and shoes, as had been displayed in Longwell’s in more than a decade.
However, Mrs. Liggs’ strange absence and silence remained a mystery; and, as a consequence, the twenty thousand dollars remained wrapped in the old silk shawl in Dot’s room, which she shared with the daughter of a shipbuilder of Portland, Oregon. Yet, let it not be assumed that Dot was for one moment unmindful of the ultimate disposition of this money. On the contrary, she was determined that it should eventually find its way back to its rightful owners. The thing is, that her first nervousness had left her. Constant reflection on a subject of fearful moment in due time robs that subject of its alarms.
She now calmly reasoned that since Mrs. Liggs had failed her she would simply abide the coming of that hour when she could get up sufficient courage to write to the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad Company, telling them she had Billy Gee’s loot and explaining the entire situation in such a way as to protect herself from the possibility of subsequent newspaper notoriety. This, she made up her mind to do; and then suddenly, a day or two after, she remembered with a thrill of joy, Bob Warburton, her father’s friend. Why had she not thought of Warburton before? He was the very man who could and would return this ill-gotten treasure to its owners and in all probability even go so far as to withhold her name in the case.
It was late one afternoon when the happy thought struck her. She was in her room and she immediately sat down and wrote out a telegram to Warburton, asking him to come to San Francisco at once, as she had something of the utmost importance to tell him.
Then she ran downstairs and stole away across the garden to a secluded arbor in the far corner of the seminary grounds. On a small ledge beneath one of the old rustic benches, among a mass of other clandestine correspondence, she placed the message and the money for the coachman—a sympathetic individual who, because of the handsome tips he enjoyed from his precluded side line, was a stanch advocate of drastic academic rules against letter writing.
Dot, having taken the first definite step to rid herself of the responsibility which had weighed her down since the morning she had opened her bureau drawer and discovered the prodigality of Billy Gee’s gratitude, hurried back through the garden. As she reached a point where she could command a view of the walk leading from the street to the seminary’s front door, she came to an abrupt halt. Slowly approaching along the walk came a familiar figure, that of a little old woman, dressed in a neat, correct street dress. One glance, and the girl gave a glad cry. It was Mrs. Liggs! Shrilling her name, Dot raced toward her.
“Mrs. Liggs! Mrs. Liggs! Where have you been? We waited so long. We didn’t know what—— You darling!” she cried. She caught the frail form in her strong young arms and hugged and kissed her until the pale-blue eyes glistened with joy.
Locked in each other’s arms they stood on the seminary’s steps for some minutes talking in a fury of happy excitement. It developed that Mrs. Liggs had come to the city a few days after she had received Lemuel’s telegram. She had not been able to meet them as she had intended because of a sudden change of plans, which had required her presence in the southern part of the State prior to journeying north. Inquiry at the Golden West Hotel on her arrival elicited the information that Dot’s trunks had been checked out to Longwell’s Seminary, but Mrs. Liggs had postponed her visit until she got settled in a quiet place, away from the nerve-racking noise of the city’s business district. She told the girl all this in a hesitant, wistful voice, much as if she were relating something that was not entirely to her liking.
Presently, Dot led the way inside and thence into one of the gloomy parlors, grim in its austere furnishings, high ceiling and scrupulous cleanliness. On one of the walls, in a plain black mahogany frame, the stern visage of one of the Longwell sisters glared icily down on them. Authorization to conduct the Longwell Seminary as an educational institution was strikingly displayed in a gold-bordered parchment, bearing the seal of the State of California, and a hundred words of beautiful handwriting painfully difficult to decipher under the most favorable conditions.
As they were about to seat themselves a maid attired in severe black made her noiseless appearance at the door and, with a cautious glance over her shoulder, motioned hurriedly to Dot.
“Something terrible has happened, Miss Huntington,” she whispered, when the girl joined her in the hall. “Miss Jessie Longwell phoned the trustees, and they’re holding a meeting in the office now, about——” She broke off, her eyes seeking the floor.
“Go on, Mary! They’re holding a meeting, you say, and it’s over me, isn’t it?” said Dot quietly.
The maid nodded. “They’re trying to decide whether to expel you or not.”
“Expel me? Why—why, you surely must be mistaken. I can’t imagine——”
“It’s something that’s in the afternoon papers. I haven’t been able to see it. I heard them talking about it. Miss Longwell’s taken all of them and given strict orders for us not to allow any more in the seminary until further notice from her.”
Bewilderment, then anxiety struggled in Dot’s face. Her thoughts flashed to her father.
“Are you sure, Mary? Did you hear what it was over? Was anything said?” she asked, trusting herself to speak finally.
“I only heard them mention your name, Miss Huntington, and—and something about disgrace,” said the maid. “I tried to catch what they accused you of, but Miss Longwell closed the door. I’m so sorry—if there’s any trouble.”
Dot thanked her and went back to Mrs. Liggs. The old lady studied her narrowly as she resumed her seat.
“It’s bad news, ain’t it, Dot? I can see it in your face, so don’t story to me, deary. And it’s about your father and—and Billy Gee, ain’t it?” She drew up her chair as she spoke, and took the girl’s hand affectionately in her own.
Dot told her what the maid had said, and Mrs. Liggs nodded comprehendingly.
“Well, that’s what it is—an account of Billy Gee and your dad, sweetheart,” she said. “The papers are full of it, and that’s why I come to-day to see you. I wanted you to know the truth.”
“But—but what has happened?” cried Dot, pale and starting to tremble.
“Nothing, honey, and that’s the worst of it. If it was true I wouldn’t care, ’cos it couldn’t be helped. It’s just a whole lot of rot that them reporters glory to write about.”
Thereupon, she gave the girl the details of a sensational first-page story telling of Billy Gee’s sudden reappearance at the Huntington ranch, after the authorities of San Buenaventura County had conclusively stated that he had perished on the desert following his escape from Warburton; how he had made away in the railroad detective’s automobile, and an account of Lemuel’s arrest on suspicion of having appropriated the stolen funds of the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad Company, and his subsequent release pending further investigation, as a result of the note written by the outlaw declaring that he had dug up and taken with him the twenty-thousand-dollar cache.
Dot listened attentively throughout that simple recital, an odd admiration she could not subdue dancing in her eyes at this latest of Billy Gee’s reckless exploits. Even while her little old friend was speaking, she understood the reason for this daring bandit’s action; her father had been suspected of the theft, and Billy Gee had lied to save him. Moreover, Billy Gee had lied to make wholly secure his twenty-thousand-dollar gift to her! Her heart beat fast; she could hear it pounding in her ears. Billy Gee had not forgotten, was not forgetting her. He was magnificent, romantically magnificent in his outlawry.
“And no matter how I’ve hated your dad, Dot, I know he never took that money,” resumed Mrs. Liggs, after a short pause. “He’s honest and wouldn’t do such a thing.”
“You’ve hated dad?” echoed the girl, staring incredulously at the bowed gray head.
She thought there was something infinitely pathetic in the appearance of that small figure before her, the droop of its narrow shoulders, the forlornness of its pose. This was not the sprightly, merry, little storekeeper she had known these last three years in far-off Geerusalem.
“I did, yes. But that’s all passed now. I’ve been happy to forget—and forgive, Dot.”
“Why, Mother Liggs! I won’t believe it. You and father have always been such good friends.”
The older woman nodded uncertainly at the carpet. She did not answer at once. The faint flush of excitement, which her cheeks had worn until now, vanished. Her gentle face was white and drawn; her lips were twitching.
“I’ve—I’ve come to tell you something, honey—not because I want to, but because he asked me to. I’m—I’m Billy Gee’s mother, Dot.” Her whisper, broken, scarcely audible, penetrated to the farthest recess of that cold, silent room.
She turned brimming eyes to the girl now, and there was an appeal in them that could not be misunderstood—a dumb, fearful eagerness, a hungry waiting for a word, a touch, a smile; a look like that of some wretched penitent craving mercy. A painful, tragic pause ensued.
“You’re his mother?” repeated Dot slowly at last. She gazed almost in ludicrous unbelief at the withered, wistful, old countenance raised to hers. Then suddenly an ineffable tenderness suffused the girl’s face, poured from her eyes. She fell on her knees beside Mrs. Liggs and gathered her close in her arms. “You’re a wonderful little mother, and I love you better for being his mother—because I know it,” she breathed, half sobbing, and kissed the aged cheeks again and again, and fondled the thin, tired hands against her bosom.
For the next quarter of an hour Mrs. Liggs opened her heart, laid it bare of its secrets—for the first time since the criminal career of her only child, Jerome, had darkened the future for her and filled her life with fears and heartaches. Weeping softly, she told that tragic story, from that awful morning in Marysville, three years before, when the police came to the Liggs home searching for Jerome—charged by City Treasurer Gene Miles with embezzlement of city funds—up to the day of his capture by Lemuel Huntington.
As any mother would, she tried to excuse her wayward boy for everything he had subsequently done in defiance of law, by pointing out that the criminal authorities had hounded him, made him a social outcast, thereby forcing him to pursue his desperate calling as a means of living. Nor was she wholly wrong in her accusation, as any ex-convict will straightway affirm. A penitentiary record—though Billy Gee had never known the interior of a prison cell—is a full brother to guilt forever after, in the eyes of the law’s bloodhounds.
Society seems to forget that the man who pays the debt it imposes on him regains, by every moral principle, his standing among the ranks of righteous humankind. Instead, breaking faith with the very justice it presumes to mete out, it claps the stigma of ignominy on the wrongdoer and never removes it; once a jailbird, always a jailbird, is the tenor of its smug opinion, and being itself ruthless in the exercise of its self-bestowed powers, it gives to men of the Coates and Tyler type authority to apprehend law-breakers. Incompetency and political patronage rule the system of law enforcement, making it a stupid, clumsy institution whose methods of operation serve rather to increase than decrease the commission of crime.
Mrs. Liggs was still speaking when a sharp rap sounded on the parlor door. It was the maid, coming to inform Dot that Miss Jessie Longwell, president of the seminary, wished to speak with her in the office. The girl thought for a moment; then, insisting that her little old friend accompany her, she escorted Mrs. Liggs out of the room and down the spacious hall to another apartment, fitted with correct businesslike furnishings, including a large flat-top oak desk before which sat the head of the school.
Miss Longwell was, at a glance, a most unattractive specimen of middle-aged person, haughty, self-contained, precision itself, and thin as a lath. She sat rigid as a steel spring in her straight-back chair, and let her stony, gimlet eyes back of their immense shell-rimmed glasses, rest icily on Dot; then she focused them inquiringly on Mrs. Liggs.
“Miss Huntington,” she began, in a quick, crisp voice, “I said, I believe, that I wished to speak with you privately.”
“This is Mrs. Liggs, Miss Longwell, a very dear friend of mine,” returned Dot, by way of explanation, at the same time going through the formalities of introduction. “Whatever must be said may be done so in her presence. I think I know the nature of the interview,” she added.
Miss Longwell’s lips tightened, then she got up very decidedly and closed the door. On her way back to her desk she halted before Dot.
“I regret very much, Miss Huntington,” she said, speaking in slow impressive tones, “that an unfortunate condition has arisen which makes it quite impossible for you to continue as a student of Longwell Seminary. Indeed, it distresses me greatly to have to make this fact known to you. Your conduct has been most exemplary in the short time you have been here, and as to your application and progress in the several lines of study you have taken up, you have exceeded our fullest expectations. But——”
“What is this condition you just mentioned, Miss Longwell?” broke in Dot.
“Why—er—it concerns your father. Now, while I have not the slightest doubt that the—er—thing is simply a newspaper canard, still the long-standing reputation of Longwell’s Seminary as an institution of high ideals cannot be placed in jeopardy under any circumstances. Why, your father, Miss Huntington, I am very grieved to state is accused of possible complicity in a—in a theft.”
Dot flushed angrily. The manner of the speaker as she pronounced the word was insulting, she thought.
“But you have met my father, Miss Longwell. Do you absolutely think he’s that kind of man?” she asked quietly.
“To be frank with you, I don’t. Still, as you must certainly realize, that does not alter the case. The mere accusation is so serious as to cause unfavorable comment, if not cast discredit on this institution, did we allow you to remain a member of our student body. This was the unanimous verdict of our board of trustees at a meeting which just now adjourned. Acting under its instruction, I am wiring your father. You will get your effects together, preparatory to leaving. I would add that I am extremely sorry, Miss Huntington——”
“I’m not!” interrupted Dot suddenly. She drew her slim figure up with queenly defiance, her eyes glittering dangerously. “And what is more, Miss Longwell, I do not want your sympathy. I am glad that I have at least found out just how really elevating a school of this kind is. You pride yourselves on building up character. You help ruin reputations as readily, I notice. By sending me home, you advertise to the world that Lemuel Huntington is a thief, that I, his daughter, am the child of a thief—a person too low to attend so pure and undefiled an institution as——”
“Oh, deary, you mustn’t say such awful things!” burst out Mrs. Liggs nervously.
“Miss Huntington, the interview is over,” snapped the preceptress, a flush mantling her prominent high cheek bones. “You will retire to your room, where you will await my orders.”
“Your orders?” cried Dot. “Madam, I’m serving notice on you that I’m leaving your spotless institution just as soon as I can pack my belongings! And you will please return me the balance of my tuition fee before I go.”
Reluctantly she allowed pacifying little Mrs. Liggs to lead her from the room and back into the parlor. Burning with shame and indignation, she paced the floor for some minutes, while the older woman talked, counseling her against the reënactment of the scene in the office when she applied to Miss Longwell for her money. Presently, they had arranged it between them that Dot was to stop with her friend until word could be got to Lemuel. Within the hour, they were descending the front steps, the tuition fee in Dot’s purse, the sympathetic maid instructed to send the girl’s baggage to Mrs. Liggs’ home.
As they took their seats in a taxi, and Dot kissed sprightly fingers at Longwell’s Seminary, another machine came to a stop on the opposite side of the street. The lone passenger, on the point of getting out, stopped and stared after the other cab now whirling rapidly away. It was Lex Sangerly. He had been told at the Golden West Hotel that Lemuel had departed for Geerusalem, after presumably having entered his daughter in Longwell Seminary. Whereupon, Lex had decided to visit the girl, introduce himself through the medium of Mrs. Liggs’ friendship, and question her in the hope that she might throw some light on the mysterious disappearance of the contents of Billy Gee’s saddlebags.
From this it may be deduced that Lex had not read the sensational newspaper story that day, incriminating Lemuel Huntington in the affair. Just now, he gazed in growing amazement at the taxi speeding down the street.
“By George! If that isn’t Mrs. Liggs, I’ll——” he burst out and ended by shouting hurried instructions to the chauffeur. The next moment he had started in pursuit of the cab.