Concerning Sally Part 59

"That's so," Mrs. Upjohn agreed. "I guess I'll tell Patty. I have a pretty good idea where Charlie's money came from. Patty won't thank me, but somebody ought to open her eyes. I'll go out there to-morrow.

I wonder if I couldn't find somebody who's going out. You look around, early to-morrow, before school, and see if you can't find somebody that's going and send him up here. There's no need to hire a horse, for that."

Accordingly the grocer's delivery wagon stopped at the house the next forenoon, and the boy asked for Mrs. Upjohn. That lady came to the door, looking a little puzzled. It seemed that John had--

Mrs. Upjohn laughed. "And he's gone to school," she said. "I didn't mean that he should ask you." She laughed again. "But I don't know why I shouldn't go in a grocery wagon. It's perfectly respectable."

"Yes, ma'am," the boy replied, grinning. "And it's a very nice wagon, almost new, and it's very comfortable."

Patty was sitting at her window when the grocer's wagon stopped at the door and Mrs. Upjohn got out.

"Mercy on us!" Patty exclaimed. "If there isn't Alicia Upjohn! She'll break her neck. Come in a grocer's wagon! Alicia was always queer, but there is a point beyond which--yes, there _is_ a point beyond which she should not allow herself to go." And Miss Patty gasped faintly and leaned back, and in a few minutes she heard Mrs. Upjohn at her door.

That interview was painful to Patty, at least. Mrs. Upjohn was rather pressed for time, as the grocer's boy could not wait more than fifteen minutes. It is a little difficult to break unwelcome news gently in fifteen minutes. It might have been difficult to break this particular news, which was very unwelcome, even if there had been no time limit set by a grocer's boy. But within ten minutes Mrs. Upjohn had Patty in tears and protesting her belief in Charlie's innocence and exhibiting all her characteristic obstinacy in the face of proof. Had not Charlie been there that very morning to see her? He had just left, indeed, and he had been as loving as the most exacting of doting aunts could wish.

Didn't Alicia suppose that she, Patty, would be able to detect any signs of wrong-doing on his part? At which Alicia smiled and made a reply which made Patty almost frantic and within the five minutes which remained Patty had told Alicia that she would do well to mind her own business and she wished she would go and never come near her again. So, the fifteen minutes being almost up, Alicia went, with what dignity she could summon. She met Doctor Beatty in the lower hall and told him that he had better see to Patty, who seemed beside herself. He went at once; and Mrs. Upjohn seized that opportunity to climb into her seat beside the grocer's boy.

Doctor Beatty was with Patty a long time and used every art he had--he hadn't many, but he used all he had with a degree of patience that was surprising--to quiet Patty, who needed quieting if ever anybody did.

He was more alarmed by that disturbance of Patty's than he would have acknowledged; more than he had expected, he found, although he had been in daily expectation of something of the kind.

He found her muttering to herself and exclaiming brokenly. She looked at him with wild eyes. "Go away!" she cried as he entered. "He's not, I tell you. He never did!"

"No," Doctor Beatty agreed calmly. "Certainly not. But there! You don't want me to go away, Patty." He pulled up a chair and sat down.

"Not that chair!" she cried. "Not that chair! That's the chair she sat in--Alicia Upjohn. If you sit in it you'll say so, too. Take any other, but not that one."

"Oh, very well," he said. And he drew up another chair and sat down.

"Now, tell me what's the matter."

At this Patty began to weep violently. Her sentences were broken, and now and then she gave a loud cry that seemed to be wrung from her heart.

"Alicia oughtn't to have said it. She might have known how--that I--how I would f-f--Oh!" She could not speak for a moment. "She just wanted me to think that that was where my money went. She's a spiteful thing. Oh, how could she? How could she? Cruel! Cruel!" Patty fell to weeping again. She seemed to lose all control over herself. She rocked to and fro and leaned so far over, in her new fit of crying, that Doctor Beatty put out his hand to save her from falling. He was glad to have her cry so.

She seized his hand and pressed it and looked up at him appealingly, her eyes raining tears. "Oh, Meriwether," she sobbed, "you don't think he does, do you? Tell me that you don't."

He looked down into those faded eyes. "Certainly I don't, Patty," he answered gently. Out of the pity which he felt for her, he may have pressed her hand a little. He had but the faintest idea what she was talking about.

Patty flushed and relaxed her hold upon his hand. "You are a c-c-comfort, Meriwether," she said more calmly. "It is a great deal to know that I have one friend, at least, who understands me. I--I--have so few, Meriwether!" She began to sob again. "S-so f-f-few, and I used to have so so many!"

"Cry quietly as much as you like, Patty. It will do you good."

He made a slight movement, at which Patty cried out.

"Don't go! Don't go yet!" She put out her hand blindly, as if to stop him.

"I'll stay until you are yourself again. Never fear." He sighed faintly.

It was a new role for Doctor Beatty, but he played it better than would have been expected. Patty turned to the window and he heard the sound of sobbing steadily for some time. At last the sound ceased. She was sitting with her chin resting on her hand, which held her wet handkerchief crumpled up into a tight ball; and she was looking out through her tears, but seeing nothing, and she seemed to have difficulty in breathing.

"He's such a good boy--to me!" she said, without turning. "Such a good boy! I am so fond of him that it almost breaks my heart to have anybody say--say such things. How can they? How can they have the heart?" She gave a single sob.

CHAPTER XXI

Sally sat by her window in the office of John Hazen, Inc., looking absently out of it. Doctor Beatty was talking to her earnestly, in low tones, and she was serious and sober, listening intently.

"Mrs. Upjohn," he was saying,--"thrifty soul!--came out to Sanderson's this morning with the grocer's boy"--Sally chuckled suddenly, in spite of her seriousness, but stopped as suddenly--"and went up to see Patty. I'd like," he interrupted himself to say emphatically, "to see every visitor of suspicious character required to show cause for seeing the patients. Yes," he nodded in reply to a questioning look of Sally's, "Patty is a patient. There's no doubt about that, I'm afraid.

And Mrs. Upjohn is a suspicious character. There is no doubt about that either. Oh, yes, well-meaning, perhaps; even probably. But she should not have been allowed to see Patty. I consider Patty's condition--er--ticklish. Distinctly ticklish."

Sally was surprised. "What do you mean? How is her condition ticklish?"

"Mentally," he replied.

Sally turned to Doctor Beatty with a start and looked him straight in the eyes. She wanted to see just what he meant. Then she shuddered.

"I hope not," she said.

"Well, we won't think of it. We are doing our best. But Mrs. Upjohn succeeded in upsetting her completely in a very few minutes. I was afraid, at first, that the mischief was done. Oh, it wasn't. She came back all right. I couldn't make her tell me what Mrs. Upjohn had said, but, picking up a thread here and there, I judged that Charlie had been misbehaving himself somehow. I couldn't find out just how. I am sorry to add another log to your load, Sally, but I thought that you would be glad to be told of what seems to be common report. I know that I would."

"I am," she said. "I'm glad and sorry, too. But I'm greatly obliged to you." She was silent for some little time, looking out and thinking hard. "Do you know what kind of misbehavior it is?" she asked. "I'm pretty familiar with several kinds," she added, with a hard little laugh. "Don't be afraid to tell me the truth if you know it."

Doctor Beatty shook his head. "I don't know it. It seems to be connected with Patty's money."

"I have been afraid of it, but it has been impossible to get hold of anything definite," replied Sally gravely. "Even you aren't telling me anything definite, although I believe you would if you knew it."

He nodded. "You may be sure I would, Sally."

"It is really curious how hard it is for people to find out what concerns them most nearly," she continued. "Everybody is most considerate of one's feelings." She gave another hard little laugh.

"I've not much doubt that almost everybody in town, excepting Charlie's relatives and near friends,--if he has any,--has known of this for a long time. It would have been the part of kindness to tell me."

"If it had been more than mere rumor," Doctor Beatty agreed, "it would have been. I understand," he went on with a quiet smile, "that that was Mrs. Upjohn's idea in telling Patty. She considered the rumor verified. Her motive seems to have been good, but the method adopted was bad; very bad. It's difficult, at best."

Sally was silent again for some time. "Poor Patty!" she murmured.

"It's hard on her. If she has lost money in that way I must pay her back."

Doctor Beatty made no reply. Sally had not said it to him.

"I believe," she said, turning to him, "that I know how I can find out all about it--from a trustworthy source," she added, smiling gravely, "as Miss Lambkin would put it."

The doctor muttered impatiently under his breath. Letty Lambkin! But he had done his errand, for which service Sally thanked him again.

Doctor Beatty had been gone but a few minutes when Horry Carling came in. He nodded pleasantly to Sally and was taking off his overcoat.

"Horry," said Sally suddenly, "what has Charlie been doing?"

Horry stopped, his coat hanging by the arms and his mouth open, and looked at her. He was very much startled.

"Wh--wh--what?" he asked at last.