Fran Part 8

Grace looked at Mr. Gregory and nothing could have exceeded the saintliness of her expression. Insulted, she was enjoying to the full her pious satisfaction of martyrdom.

"Dear Mrs. Gregory," said Fran kindly, "I'm sorry to have to do this, but it isn't as if you were adopting a penniless orphan. I'm adopting a home. I want to belong to somebody, and I want people to feel that they have something when they have me."

"I reckon they'll know they've got something," remarked Simon Jefferson, shooting a dissatisfied glance at Fran from under bushy brows.

Fran laughed outright. "I'm going to like _you_, all right," she declared. "You are so human."

It is exceedingly difficult to maintain satisfaction in silent martyrdom. Grace was obliged to speak, lest any one think that she acquiesced in evil. "Is it customary for little girls to roam the streets at night, wandering about the world alone, adopting homes according to their whims?"

"I really don't think it customary," Fran replied politely, "but I'm not a customary girl." At that moment she caught the old lady's eye.

It was sparkling with eloquent satisfaction; Mrs. Jefferson supposed terms of service were under discussion. Fran laughed, grabbed the ear- trumpet and called, "h.e.l.lo. How are you?"

When an unknown voice entered the large end of the tube, half its meaning was usually strained away before the rest reached the yearning ear. Mrs. Jefferson responded eagerly, "And will you wheel me around the garden at least twice a day?"

Fran patted the thin old arm with her thin young hand, as she shouted, "I'll wheel you twenty times a day, if you say so!"

"But I do _not_ see-saw," retorted the old lady with spirit.

"This is going to agitate my heart," interposed Simon Jefferson, as there came a louder dash of rain against the windows. "I ought to be getting the benefits of this soothing sound, in my bed. When is this company going to break up?"

Gregory, finding Grace's eyes fixed on him searchingly, felt himself pushed to the wall. "Of course," he said coldly, "it is understood that the daughter of--er--my friend, comes here as a--as an equal." As he found himself forced into definite opposition to his secretary, his manner grew more a.s.sured. Suddenly it occurred to him that he was, in a way, atoning for the past.

"As an equal, yes!" exclaimed his wife, again embracing Fran. "How else could it be?"

"This is going to be a good thing for you, if you only knew it," Fran said, looking into her face with loving eyes.

Hamilton Gregory was almost able to persuade himself that he had received the orphan of his own free choice, thus to make reparation.

"It is my duty," he said; "and I always try to do my duty, as I see it."

"Would you like to know more about me?" Fran asked confidentially of Mrs. Gregory.

Gregory turned pale. "I don't think it is neces--"

"Do tell me!" exclaimed his wife.

"Oh, Lord!" murmured Simon Jefferson, sinking back into the hall chair.

"Father and mother married secretly," Fran said, solely addressing Mrs. Gregory, but occasionally sending a furtive glance at her husband. "He was a college-student, boarding with his cousin, who was one of the professors. Mother was an orphan and lived with her half- uncle,--a mighty crusty old man, Uncle Ephraim was, who didn't have one _bit_ of use for people getting married in secret. Father and mother agreed not to mention their marriage till after his graduation; then he'd go to _his_ father and make everything easy, and come for mother. So he went and told him--father's father was a millionaire on Wall Street. Mother's uncle was pretty well fixed, too, but he didn't enjoy anything except religion. When he wasn't at church--he went 'most all the time--he was reading about it. Mother said he was most religious in Hebrew, but he enjoyed his Greek verbs awfully."

Grace Noir asked remotely, "Did you say that your parents eloped?"

"They didn't run far," Fran explained; "they were married in the county, not far from Springfield--"

"I thought you said," Grace interrupted, "that they were in New York."

"Did you?" said Fran politely. "So father graduated, and went away to tell his father all about being married to Josephine Derry. I don't know what happened then, as he didn't come back to tell. My mother waited and waited--and I was born--and then Uncle Ephraim drove mother out of his house with her tiny baby--that's me--and I grew to be--as old as you see me now. We were always hunting father. We went all over the United States, first and last--it looked like the son of a millionaire ought to be easy to find. But he kept himself close, and there was never a clue. Then mother died. Sometimes she used to tell me that she believed him dead, that if he'd been alive he'd have come for her, because she loved him with all her soul, and wrecked her whole life because of him. She was happiest when she thought he was dead, so I wouldn't say anything, but I was sure he was alive, all right, as big and strong as you please. Oh, _I_ know his kind. I've had lots of experience."

"So I'd suppose," said Grace Noir quietly. "May I ask--if you don't mind--if this traveling about the United States didn't take a great deal of money?"

"Oh, we had all the money we wanted," Fran returned easily.

"Indeed? And did you become reconciled to your mother's uncle?"

"Yes--after he was dead. He didn't leave a will, and there wasn't anybody else, and as mother had just been taken from me, the money just naturally came in my hands. But I didn't need it, particularly."

"But before that," Grace persisted; "before, when your mother was first disinherited, how could she make her living?"

"Mother was like me. She didn't stand around folding her hands and crossing her feet--she used 'em. Bless you, I could get along wherever you'd drop me. Success isn't in the world, it's in me, and that's a good thing to know--it saves hunting."

"Do you consider yourself a 'success'?" inquired the secretary with a chilly smile.

"I had everything I wanted except a home," Fran responded with charming good-humor, "and now I've got that. In a New York paper, I found a picture of Hamilton Gregory, and it told about all his charities. It said he had millions, and was giving away everything. I said to myself, 'I'll go there and have him give me a home'--you see, I'd often heard mother speak of him--and I said other things to myself--and then, as I generally do what I tell myself to do--it keeps up confidence in the general manager--I came."

"Dear child," said Mrs. Gregory, stroking her hair, "your mother dead, your father--that kind of a man--you shall indeed find a home with us, for life. And so your father was Mr. Gregory's friend. It seems-- strange."

"My father," said Fran, looking at Mr. Gregory inscrutably, "was the best friend you ever had, wasn't he? You loved him better than anybody else in the world, didn't you?"

"I--I--yes," the other stammered, looking at her wildly, and pa.s.sing his agitated hand across his eyes, as if to shut out some terrible vision, "yes, I--I was--er--fond of--him."

"I guess you were," Fran cried emphatically. "You'd have done anything for him."

"I have this to say," remarked Simon Jefferson, "that I may not come up to the mark in all particulars, and I reckon I have my weaknesses; but I wouldn't own a friend that proved himself the miserable scoundrel, the weak cur, that this child's father proved himself!"

"And I agree with you," declared Grace, who seldom agreed with him in anything. How Mr. Gregory, the best man she had ever known, could be fond of Fran's father, was incomprehensible. Ever since Fran had come knocking at the door, Grace's exalted faith in Mr. Gregory had been perplexed by the foreboding that he was not altogether what she had imagined.

Hamilton Gregory felt the change in her att.i.tude. "That friend," he said quickly, "was not altogether to be censured. At least, he meant to do right. He wanted to do right. With all the strength of his nature, he strove to do right."

"Then why didn't he _do_ right?" snapped Simon Jefferson. "Why didn't he go back after that young woman, and take care of her? Huh? What was holding him?"

"He did go back," exclaimed Gregory. "Well--not at first, but afterward. He went to tell his father, and his father showed him that it would never do, that the girl--his wife--wasn't of their sphere, their life, that he couldn't have made her happy--that it wouldn't-- that it just wouldn't do. For three years he stayed in the mountains of Germany, the most miserable man in the world. But his conscience wouldn't let him rest. It told him he should acknowledge his wife. So he went back--but she'd disappeared--he couldn't find her--and he'd never heard--he'd never dreamed of the birth of a--of the--of this girl. He never knew that he had a daughter. Never!"

"Well," said Simon Jefferson, "he's dead now, and that's one comfort.

Good thing he's not alive; I'd always be afraid I might come up with him and then, afterward, that I might not get my sentence commuted to life-imprisonment."

"Who is exciting my son?" demanded the old lady from her wheel-chair.

Simon Jefferson's red face and starting eyes told plainly that his spirit was up. There was silence out of respect for his weak heart, but there was a general feeling of surprise that Gregory should so determinedly defend his friend.

"After all," said Fran cheerfully, "we are here, and needn't bother about what's past. My mother wasn't given her chance, but she's dead now, blessed soul--and my father had his chance, but it wasn't in him to be a man. Let's forget him as much as we can, and let's have nothing but sweet and peaceful thoughts about mother. That's all over, and I'm here to take my chance with the rest of you. We're the world, while our day lasts."

"What a remarkable child!" murmured Grace Noir, as they prepared to separate. "Quite a philosopher in short dresses."

"They used to call me a prodigy," murmured Fran, as she obeyed Mrs.

Gregory's gesture inviting her to follow up-stairs. "Now it's stopped raining," Simon Jefferson complained, as he wheeled his mother toward the back hall.

"That's a good omen," said Fran, pressing Mrs. Gregory's hand. "The moonlight was beautiful when I was on the bridge--when I first came here."

"But we need rain," said Grace Noir reprovingly. Her voice was that of one familiar with the designs of Providence. As usual, she and Hamilton Gregory were about to be left alone.