The Girl from Sunset Ranch Part 19

But now she closed her door, locked it carefully, hung her jacket over the k.n.o.b that she should be sure she was not spied upon, and sat down beside the bed.

She was not a girl who cried often. She had wept sincere tears the evening before when she learned that Aunt Eunice was dead. But she could not weep now.

Her emotion was emphatically wrathful. Without cause--that she could see--these city relatives had maligned her--had maligned her father's memory--and had cruelly shown her, a stranger, how they thoroughly hated her presence.

She had come away from Sunset Ranch with two well-devised ideas in her mind. First of all, she hoped to clear her father's name of that old smirch upon it. Secondly, he had wished her to live with her relatives if possible, that she might become used to the refinements and circ.u.mstances of a more civilized life.

Refinements! Why, these cousins of hers hadn't the decencies of red Indians!

On impulse Helen had taken the tone she had with them--had showed them in "that cowgirl" just what they had expected to find. She would be bluff and rude and ungrammatical and ill-bred. Perhaps the spirit in which Helen did this was not to be commended; but she had begun it on the impulse of the moment and she felt she must keep it up during her stay in the Starkweather house.

How long that would be Helen was not prepared to say now. It was in her heart one moment not to unpack her trunk at all. She could go to a hotel--the best in New York, if she so desired. How amazed her cousins would be if they knew that she was at this moment carrying more than eight hundred dollars in cash on her person? And suppose they learned that she owned thousands upon thousands of acres of grazing land in her own right, on which roamed unnumbered cattle and horses?

Suppose they found out that she had been schooled in a first-cla.s.s inst.i.tution in Denver--probably as well schooled as they themselves? What would they say? How would they feel should they suddenly make these discoveries?

But, while she sat there and studied the problem out, Helen came to at least one determination: While she remained in the Starkweather house she would keep from her uncle and cousins the knowledge of these facts.

She would not reveal her real character to them. She would continue to parade before them and before their friends the very rudeness and ignorance that they had expected her to betray.

"They are ashamed of me--let them be ashamed," she said, to herself, bitterly. "They hate me--I'll give them no reason for loving me, I promise you! They think me a pauper--I'll _be_ a pauper. Until I get ready to leave here, at least. Then I can settle with Uncle Starkweather in one lump for all the expense to which he may be put for me.

"I'll buy no nice dresses--or hats--or anything else. They sha'n't know I have a penny to spend. If they want to treat me like a poor relation, let them. I'll _be_ a poor relation.

"I must learn the truth about poor dad's trouble," she told herself again.

"Uncle Starkweather must know something about it. I want to question him.

He may be able to help me. I may get on the track of that bookkeeper. And he can tell me, surely, where to find Fenwick Grimes, father's old partner.

"No. They shall serve me without knowing it. I will be beholden to them for my bread and b.u.t.ter and shelter--for a time. Let them hate and despise me. What I have to do I will do. Then I'll 'pay the shot,' as Big Hen would say, and walk out and leave them."

It was a bold determination, but not one that is to be praised. Yet, Helen had provocation for the course she proposed to pursue.

She finally unlocked her trunk and hung up the common dresses and other garments she had brought with her. She had intended to ask her cousins to take her shopping right away, and she, like any other girl of her age, longed for new frocks and pretty hats.

But there was a lot of force in Helen's character. She would go without anything pretty unless her cousins offered to buy it themselves. She would bide her time.

One thing she hid far back in her closet under the other things--her riding habit. She knew it would give the lie to her supposed poverty. She had sent to Chicago for that, and it had cost a hundred dollars.

"But I don't suppose there'd be a chance to ride in this big town," she thought, with a sigh. "Unless it is hobby-horses in the park. Well! I can get on for a time without the Rose pony, or any other critter on four legs, to love me."

But she was hungry for the companions.h.i.+p of the animals whom she had seen daily on the ranch.

"Why, even the yip of a coyote would be sweet," she mused, putting her head out of the window and scanning nothing but chimneys and tin roofs, with bare little yards far below.

Finally she heard a j.a.panese gong's mellow note, and presumed it must announce luncheon. It was already two o'clock. People who breakfasted at nine or ten, of course did not need a midday meal.

"I expect they don't have supper till bedtime," thought Helen.

First she hid her wallet in the bottom of her trunk, locked the trunk and set it up on end in the closet. Then she locked the closet door and took out the key, hiding the latter under the edge of the carpet.

"I'm getting as bad as the rest of 'em," she muttered. "I won't trust anybody, either. Now for meeting my dear cousins at lunch."

She had slipped into one of the simple house dresses she had worn at the ranch. She had noticed that forenoon that both Belle and Hortense Starkweather were dressed in the most modish of gowns--as elaborate as those of fas.h.i.+onable ladies. With no mother to say them nay, these young girls aped every new fas.h.i.+on as they pleased.

Helen started downstairs at first with her usual light step. Then she bethought herself, stumbled on a stair, slipped part of the way, and continued to the very bottom of the last flight with a noise and clatter which must have announced her coming long in advance of her actual presence.

"I don't want to play eavesdropper again," she told herself, grimly. "I always understood that listeners hear no good of themselves, and now I know it to be a fact."

Gregson stood at the bottom of the last flight. His face was as wooden as ever, but he managed to open his lips far enough to observe:

"Luncheon is served in the breakfast room, Miss."

A sweep of his arm pointed the way. Then she saw old Lawdor pottering in and out of a room into which she had not yet looked.

It proved to be a sunny, small dining-room. When alone the family usually ate here, Helen discovered. The real dining-room was big enough for a dancing floor, with an enormous table, preposterously heavy furniture all around the four sides of the room, and an air of gloom that would have removed, before the food appeared, even, all trace of a healthy appet.i.te.

When Helen entered the brighter apartment her three cousins were already before her. The noise she made coming along the hall, despite the heavy carpets, had quite prepared them for her appearance.

Belle and Hortense met her with covert smiles. And they watched their younger sister to see what impression the girl from Sunset Ranch made upon Flossie.

"And this is Flossie; is it?" cried Helen, going boisterously into the room and heading full tilt around the table for the amazed Flossie. "Why, you look like a smart young'un! And you're only fourteen? Well, I never!"

She seized Flossie by both hands, in spite of that young lady's desire to keep them free.

"Goodness me! Keep your paws off--do!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Flossie, in great disgust. "And let me tell you, if I _am_ only fourteen I'm 'most as big as you are and I know a whole lot more."

"Why, Floss!" exclaimed Hortense, but unable to hide her amus.e.m.e.nt.

The girl from Sunset Ranch took it all with apparent good nature, however.

"I reckon you _do_ know a lot. You've had advantages, you see. Girls out my way don't have much chance, and that's a fact. But if I stay here, don't you reckon I'll learn?"

The Starkweather girls exchanged glances of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I do not think," said Belle, calmly, "that you would better think of remaining with us for long. It would be rather bad for you, I am sure, and inconvenient for us."

"How's that?" demanded Helen, looking at her blankly. "Inconvenient--and with all this big house?"

"Ahem!" began Belle, copying her father. "The house is not always as free of visitors as it is now. And of course, a girl who has no means and must earn her living, should not live in luxury."

"Why not?" asked Helen, quickly.

"Why--er--well, it would not be nice to have a working girl go in and out of our house."

"And you think I shall have to go to work?"

"Why, of course, you may remain here--father says--until you can place yourself. But he does not believe in fostering idleness. He often says so," said Belle, heaping it all on "poor Pa."

Helen had taken her seat at the table and Gregson was serving. It mattered nothing to these ill-bred Starkweather girls that the serving people heard how they treated this "poor relation."