Hidden Creek Part 9

Sheila had let him put her into the big creaking leather chair. She sat with a handkerchief clenched in both her hands, upon which he, drawing up the other chair, now placed one of his. She kept her head down, for she was ashamed of the pale, stained, and distorted little face which she could not yet control.

"Now, then, girl ... Well, if you won't talk to me, I'll just light up and wait. I'm a patient man, I am. Don't hurry yourself any."

He withdrew his hand and took out a cigar. In a moment he was sitting on the middle of his spine, his long legs sprawled half across the room, his hands in his pockets, his head on the chair-back so that his chin pointed up to the ceiling. Smoke rose from him as from a volcano.

Sheila presently laughed uncertainly.

"That's better," he mumbled around his cigar.

"I've had a dreadful day," said Sheila.

"You won't have any more of them, my dear," Sylvester promised quietly.

She looked at him with faint hope.

"Yes'm, dish-was.h.i.+ng's dead."

"But what can I do, then?"

Hudson nodded his head slowly, or, rather, he sawed the air up and down with his chin. He was still looking at the ceiling so that Sheila could see only the triangle beneath his jaw and the dark, stringy neck above his collar.

"I've got a job for you, girl--a real one."

He pulled out his cigar and sat up. "You remember what I told you the other night?"

"About my being a--a--beacon?" Sheila's voice was delicately tinged with mockery. So was her doubtful smile.

"Yes'm," he said seriously. "Well, that's it."

"What does a beacon do?" she asked.

"It burns. It s.h.i.+nes. It looks bright. It wears the neatest little black dress with a frilly ap.r.o.n and deep frilly cuffs. Say, do you recollect something else I told you?"

"I remember everything you told me."

"Well, ma'am, I remember everything you told _me_. Somebody said she was grateful. Somebody said she'd do anything for Pap. Somebody said--'Try me.'"

"I meant it, Mr. Hudson. I did mean it."

"Do you mean it now?"

"Yes. I--I owe you so much. You're always so very kind to me. And I behave very badly. I was hateful to you this evening. And, when you came to my door, just now, I was--I was _scared_."

Pap opened his eyes at her, held his cigar away from him and laughed.

The laugh was both bitter and amused.

"Scared of Pap Hudson? _You_ scared? But, look-a-here, girl, what've I done to deserve that?"

He sat forward, rested his chin in his hand, supported by an elbow on his crossed knees and fixed her with gentle and reproachful eyes.

"Honest, you kind of make me feel bad, Miss Sheila."

"I am dreadfully sorry. It was horrid of me. I only told you because I wanted you to know that I'm not worth helping. I don't deserve you to be so kind to me. I--I must be disgustingly suspicious."

"Well!" Sylvester sighed. "Very few folks get me. I'm kind of mis-understood. I'm a real lonesome sort of man. But, honest, Miss Sheila, I thought you were my friend. I don't mind telling you, you've hurt my feelings. That shot kind of got me. It's stuck into me."

"I'm horrid!" Sheila's eyes were wounded with remorse.

"Oh, well, I'm not expecting understanding any more."

"Oh, but I do--I do understand!" she said eagerly and she put her hand shyly on his arm. "I think I do understand you. I'm very grateful. I'm very fond of you."

"Ah!" said Sylvester softly. "That's a good hearing!" He lifted his arm with Sheila's hand on it and touched it with his lips. "You got me plumb stirred up," he said with a certain huskiness. "Well!" She took away her hand and he made a great show of returning to common sense. "I reckon we are a pretty good pair of friends, after all. But you mustn't be scared of me, Miss Sheila. That does hurt. Let's forget you told me that."

"Yes--please!"

"Well, then--to get back to business. Do you recollect a story I told you?"

"A story? Oh, yes--about an Englishman--?"

"Yes, ma'am. That Englishman put his foot on the rail and stuck his gla.s.s in his eye and set his tumbler down empty. And he looked round that bar of mine, Miss Sheila. You savvy, he'd been all over the globe, that feller, and I should say his ex-perience of bars was--some--and he said, 'Hudson, it's all but perfect. It only needs one thing.'"

This time Sheila did not ask. She waited.

"'And that's something we have in our country,' said he." Hudson cleared his throat. He also moistened his lips. He was very apparently excited.

He leaned even farther forward, tilting on the front legs of his chair and thrusting his face close to Sheila's "'_A pretty barmaid_!' said he."

There was a profound silence in the small room. The runners of a sleigh sc.r.a.ped the icy street below, its horses' hoofs cracked noisily. The music of a fiddle sounded in the distance. Babe's voice humming a waltz tune rose from the second story.

"A barmaid?" asked Sheila breathlessly. She got up from her chair and walked over to the window. The moon was already high. Over there, beckoning, stood her mountain and her star. It was all so s.h.i.+ning and pure and still.

"That's what you want me to be--your barmaid?"

"Yes'm," said Sylvester humbly. "Don't make up your mind in a hurry, Miss Sheila. Wait till I tell you more about it. It's--it's a kind of dream of mine. I think it'd come close to breaking me up if you turned down the proposition. The Aura's not an ordin-ar-y bar and I'm not an ordin-ar-y man, and, say, Miss Sheila, you're not an ordin-ar-y girl."

"Is that why you want me to work in your saloon?" said Sheila, staring at the star.

"Yes'm. That's why. Let me tell you that I've searched this continent for a girl to fit my ideal. That's what it is, girl--my ideal. That bar of mine has got to be perfect. It's near to perfect now. I want when that Englishman comes back to Millings to hear him say, 'It's perfect' ... no 'all but,' you notice. Why, miss, I could 'a' got a hundred ordin-ar-y girls, lookers too. The world's full of lookers."

"Why didn't you offer your--'job' to Babe or Girlie?"

Sylvester laughed. "Well, girl, as a matter of fact, I did."

"You did?" Sheila turned back and faced him. There was plenty of color in her cheeks now. Her narrow eyes were widely opened. Astonis.h.i.+ngly large and clear they were, when she so opened them.

"Yes'm." Sylvester glanced aside for an instant.

"And what did they say?"