DUSKIN Read online

  “It would be better for you to go outside and wait in the other room,” she said to them coldly. “The doctor will want quiet in here. I will let you know later if Mr. Fawcett will be able to see you.”

  She stepped to the door and swung it open.

  They hesitated.

  “We’re here by appointment!” the tall man said with an ugly look like the snarl of a dog that had been denied a bone.

  Carol, haughty in her consciousness of what she had just heard him say, pointed briefly.

  “You can wait out there on that bench!”

  Reluctantly, the two obeyed her, but as the elevator clashed its door open and the men from the general office came slowly bringing their burden between them, she saw the two visitors approach the aisle down which the little procession must come and stretch their necks to see. Carol felt like telephoning for the police and having them removed, only that there was no time now to bother with mere criminals. There was need for her instant ministrations.

  The president of the Fawcett Construction Company had fainted with the pain of being carried into his office. His gray hair fell back from his furrowed forehead, and the sour lines of his lips sagged wearily. One big-knuckled hand that had always been so vigorous in its impatient gestures hung limply down at his side as they carried him.

  Carol was efficiency itself. She sent the office boy flying down to the drugstore for smelling salts; she brought water from the cooler and produced a clean, folded handkerchief to bathe his face and lips. She adjusted the pillows and started the electric fan.

  The doctor came almost immediately, but the injured man’s eyes had opened wonderingly, just before he came, and looked around the office uncomprehendingly and then intelligently.

  “I’m quite all right!” he snapped. “I’ve got to go in a few minutes. Have you got those letters done, Miss Berkley? If you’ll bring them I can sign them while I lie here and rest a minute. It was that cursed car ran into us. I’ll be all right in a minute.”

  His voice tailed off weakly and he almost faded out again, but the doctor knelt by his side and wafted something pungent before his face.

  “You’re all right, Mr. Fawcett,” he said in his cool voice. “Steady, there, steady! I wouldn’t sign any letters just now. Let them wait a bit till I see what you’ve done to yourself.”

  “But I’ve got to!” demanded Fawcett excitedly, trying to raise his head and failing miserably. “I’m going to leave on the six o’clock train, and those letters must be signed!”

  “Steady there, my dear fellow! There’s plenty of time. And you’re not going to leave on any train, not today. I’m sorry, but you’ve got a little vacation coming to you, friend, and I’m afraid you’ve got to take it in bed this time.”

  “But I can’t, Doctor, I tell you I can’t! I’m in a position of trust, you know; this whole company depends on me, and it will mean heavy loss—irretrievable loss—if I don’t go at once and straighten things out.”

  “I’m sorry, old fellow, but I’ll have to tell you the truth. You’ve broken the fibula near your knee and you’re very badly bruised, perhaps internally. It might mean the loss of your leg if you attempted to take a journey now, even if it were possible for you to get around on it.”

  “Then I can get a wooden leg!” snapped Fawcett impatiently. “Leg or no leg, I’ve got to go.”

  “It might even mean the loss of your life, Fawcett,” said the doctor more gravely now.

  “Then at least I’d die honorably. Let me up! There are no bones broken. I know. I stood up by myself for a whole minute after the car was righted. I couldn’t have done that if my leg was broken. I’m going to get up right now. Please, all of you get out of my office; I’ve got work to do! Miss Berkley, have you brought those letters?”

  He attempted to sit up and sank back suddenly with a moan. The doctor laid a firm hand on his patient.

  “Now see here, sir!” he said in a tone which people did not lightly disobey. “I’m in command here. You’re my patient and I’m going to be obeyed. Miss Berkley, will you telephone Mrs. Fawcett? This man should be in the hospital right now. He’ll be getting a fever.”

  “No! No! Don’t call my wife!” said Fawcett weakly. “I tell you I’ve got to go! The devil will be to pay—it is now—somebody’s got to get out there and stop it. Nobody else understands it.”

  “That’s all right!” soothed the doctor, taking out a little vial and dropping some dark liquid into the glass of water that Carol brought. “I guess we’ll find somebody else to send. You can give them careful directions. We’ll see that everything is attended to all right, my dear fellow. There’ll be somebody—”

  “There’s nobody!” thundered the injured man. “Nobody knows anything about it but myself! Miss Berkley, you tell him. Make him understand that it is imperative for me to go. Tell him nobody knows the situation.”

  “Oh, you can easily explain the situation,” said the doctor lightly. “I’m sure I can find a dozen people willing to help you out just now, and when you get nicely settled in the hospital and feeling comfortable and have had a little nap and a little nourishment you can have a brief talk and give all directions.”

  “But I don’t want anybody to know. I couldn’t possibly explain the situation—OH—h—h!”

  The helpless, angry tears were beginning to course down the strong old bear’s cheeks. He was actually looking at his pretty, young secretary as if he was a troubled little boy and Carol Berkley was his mother.

  What was it in his look that suddenly made summer breezes and rocks and sand and excellent hotels recede entirely from the picture and gave Carol Berkley strength for a sudden resolve? Something in the pleading, angry eyes of her impatient old tyrant had actually tugged at her heartstrings—or was it that she was possessed of knowledge that he did not have and which would have made him all the more troubled and anxious to go himself? She did not stop to consider. She stepped forward.

  “Mr. Fawcett,” she said in a cool little voice that surprised herself, for every nerve was throbbing with a particular jangle of its own and her head felt light and whirly, “Mr. Fawcett—I know all about things! Couldn’t I go out there and do what you want done? I think I understand everything.”

  He turned from his boyish tears and became a man again, a bitter, old, cross tyrant.

  “You!” he said, contemptuously. “How could a woman possibly do what I have to do?”

  Carol laughed.

  “I’ll go,” she said, still calmly. “I think I know what’s to be done. If I can’t make that man hurry up and do his work in time, I’ll fire him and get another engineer.”

  He stared at her blankly, the actual practicality of her words bringing him to see that she was not altogether devoid of sense.

  “But we have a contract with him—” he objected, his brow drawing again into its accustomed frown.

  “I know,” she said, “but if he hasn’t kept his part of that—”

  A twinge of pain brought a sudden ghastly whiteness.

  “Now, look here,” said the doctor fiercely, “this thing has to stop! Whether this young woman goes or whether she doesn’t go doesn’t matter to me. This man has got to get quiet or he’ll have a fever before I can do anything for him. Young woman, if there’s anything you think ought to be done, do it, and say no more about it. Get ready to go, and when Mr. Fawcett feels better perhaps he can talk with you for five minutes—”

  “Oh,” broke in the impatient patient, “I’ve got to go myself!”

  “Now look here, Caleb,” broke in a calm, commanding voice, as Mrs. Fawcett suddenly loomed up beside the couch, a comfortably stout little woman with a face that had been pretty once and a mouth grown gentle by long practice of living with a pettish tyrant, “you know that’s nonsense. You know you’re not fit to go anywhere, and what’s the use of pretending any longer that you are? You’ve got to the point at last where you have to lie still and take orders, and you might as well do it pleasantly. Doctor,
what hospital is it you want him to go to?”

  Like magic, things fell into order. The quiet, stout little woman with the placid mouth took command, and Caleb like a lamb protested no more.

  When the doctor had completed his examination and given his verdict, Carol was called once more to the couch to confer with her boss. Before she came, however, she beckoned to the doctor and asked him a question privately.

  “Doctor, something has come to my knowledge since Mr. Fawcett left the office this morning which quite materially changes some aspects of the business. Would it be right to tell him this? Or mustn’t he be disturbed?”

  “Are they of a disturbing nature?”

  “I’m afraid they are.” Carol looked troubled.

  “Is there anybody else in the firm in whom you could confide?”

  “Only Mr. Edgar Fawcett, his brother, and he is in Europe this summer.”

  “Do you think you could cope with the situation yourself? Do you know all there is to know about it?”

  “I think so… .” Carol hesitated. “I’ve written all the letters; still, there will be great loss to the business involved if—”

  “The business be hanged! Excuse me, Miss Berkley, but my patient has had a great shock. I doubt if the fracture he has sustained is the worst of his troubles. If he has anything more to worry about than he has now I can’t answer for his life. You’ll have to do the best you can and let it go at that. But mind you, you make him think everything’s going fine!”

  “But those letters—” Fawcett was protesting faintly as Carol came back to the office. “They’ve got to be signed!”

  “That’s all right,” said Carol brightly. “I’ll type them all with the company’s signature and put your name under, as president. I’ll fix that up. Nobody will notice it isn’t as usual. I suppose, though, you’ll have to give me power to act in your stead. I’ve written this. I think it’s what you wrote for me once before when you were away in Maine.”

  She handed him a paper, neatly typed, which would answer as her credential, and put his fountain pen in his hand.

  He seemed somehow to take heart at the sight of the businesslike sentences. After all, he had trained her, and she was an unusually good secretary. But how would she do when she was on her own? He drew a long sigh that seemed to be rent from the depths of his soul. How could a mere slip of a woman take his place?

  “The papers are there in the top of my bag.” He motioned toward the corner where she had put his things. “You’ll find my wallet in the safe with money and tickets. I have reservations for the six o’clock train. Can you make it?”

  “Yes of course,” she said crisply. “My bag is all packed, you know.” She smiled, and he suddenly remembered, and his face went blank. Perhaps he was not such a heartless old bear after all.

  “Your vacation!” he said. “You can’t go! You mustn’t go of course! I had forgotten.”

  “Nonsense!” said Carol with a quick gulp of renunciation in her throat. “What’s a mere vacation? One can have that any time.”

  As if she hadn’t been waiting for hers a whole lifetime! For the rocks and the sand and the excellent hotel and her pretty new clothes—faultless they were, for she had been working on them all winter—and the two friends— But what folly!

  “You want me to go straight to the building itself and find out with my own eyes just how far things have progressed?” she said in a businesslike voice. “And this Mr. Duskin—why shouldn’t I carry this letter to him instead and tell him you sent me? Of course, I know you were intending to stop over in Chicago and expected the letter to get there ahead of you, but that won’t be necessary now, will it? I can wire the Chicago people to meet me at the station with the papers and ask those questions you had me write out. That will save a whole day.”

  He looked at her wonderingly. She did know what she was doing even if she was only a woman, and a young, pretty one at that.

  After all he found he needed to give her very few directions. Armed with money, tickets, reservations, and the other necessary papers, she stood aside as the orderlies from the ambulance came to take her employer downstairs, and her eyes filled with unaccountable tears.

  “Good-bye!” said Fawcett, suddenly rousing and putting out his hand quite humanly. “I know it’s a raw deal for you. It’s pretty nervy of you to offer to go, but I suppose really the game’s up!” He dropped back with a strange hopeless expression as if the worst had come.

  “Oh, no!” cried Carol brightly, suddenly anxious to lift that burden from his tired face. “The game’s not up at all. I’m in it to win! You’ll see me coming back with flying colors to help you get well!”

  He cast a sudden, unexpected smile up at her, strangely sweet on the harsh old face that was gray with pain now, as if he had cast away all pretenses.

  “Good-bye, little girl,” he said gently. “Thank you!”

  They carried him out on a stretcher to the elevator. The doctor lingered an instant.

  “You’re a good little sport!” he said. “Keep the wires hot with comforting messages home and we’ll pull him through. Let me know if you have any difficulties, and if you need to ask him any questions, wire them to me, not to him! I can keep my mouth shut as well as the next one, so you needn’t be afraid.”

  They were off, and suddenly Carol felt very old and sorry, as if she were going to cry, and very much weighted down with care and responsibility. Here but an hour before she had been reviling Mr. Fawcett for being cross and bearish and hard, though all the time she knew he was carrying an immense burden, and now here she was with the tables turned, her vacation gone, and in its place Mr. Fawcett’s burden thrust without warning upon her young shoulders. And besides that burden, she carried new knowledge that she had overheard from the two men. Then suddenly she remembered them and looked around for them, but the office boy said they were gone.

  As Carol turned to go back to her inner office, she heard the elevator stop on its way up, but she did not turn back to see who was getting off.

  Later, when she came out with a sheaf of papers for the treasurer, she had a vague impression of two figures, one tall and one short, moving along in the far end of the big room, but when she passed her hand over her eyes wearily and looked again there was no one in the room but the regular men at their desks, hard at work as usual.

  If there were only someone to whom she might turn now for a strong word of guidance and encouragement before she went out alone on this strange, wild errand! Or, perhaps if she knew God, the way her mother did, it might help. She felt strangely alone.

  Chapter 2

  Somehow all the things got done, and Carol found herself seated in the sleeper car with a whole three minutes to spare before the train left.

  She was breathless and throbbing with excitement. She felt as if she had been running a race with time and was wound up so tight that it hurt her heart to stop.

  Her mother and her fourteen-year-old sister had come down to see her off, and they lingered, wistful and apprehensive, loath to have her go. There had been so little time to explain to them, and they were still indignant over the idea of her giving up her beautiful vacation for this wild business trip into an unknown West filled with no telling what awful possibilities.

  “Is he paying you extra for this?” asked Betty sternly, fixing her sister with a pair of very young, very modern blue eyes. “Because if he isn’t I shouldn’t go a step, even now!”

  “Betty, you don’t understand,” said Carol. “It wasn’t a time for talking about pay. I tell you Mr. Fawcett was hurt. He was very ill! The doctor felt it might be quite serious. He will pay me of course.”

  “Well, I should sue him if he didn’t,” asserted Betty indignantly. “Your lovely vacation!”

  “Oh, I may get a vacation later,” said Carol carelessly. Although the thought of her postponed vacation still hurt terribly.

  “Yes, a vacation after everybody has left and you’re the only pebble on the beach, the last rose
of summer! I declare I think it’s the limit!”

  “Don’t make it any harder than it is, Betty dear!” pleaded Carol. “Come, perk up. I may be home before long.”

  “Yes, Betty, don’t waste time blaming Carol,” said the mother. “We must go in a minute, and there are so many things I wanted to say. You will be careful, won’t you? Going off into the wilds—”

  “Oh, Mother! It can’t be very wild where they are putting up an eleven-story building!”

  “Well, I suppose that is so,” said the troubled mother. “But you—a young woman alone! And you’re so good looking, Carol. Going among a lot of strange men!”

  “They won’t be any different from the men in our office, Mother. They’re just men, you know. And I’ll wear a veil if you like, or dye my cheeks with iodine, if you say so!” Carol tried to summon a mischievous grin, in spite of the sudden misgivings that had come to her as she entered the sleeper and realized that she was really going.

  “Now, Carol, do be serious!” pleaded her mother. “This is a dreadful world—”

  “Oh, no, Mother! It’s a pretty good world! Wait till I get back and tell you all the wonders of the wild and woolly West beginning with Chicago. Just think of it! I have to meet the Chicago representative and talk turkey to him! I telegraphed him in Mr. Fawcett’s name, ‘Accident prevents my coming. Meet my representative, C. W. Berkley, tomorrow on train No. 10 and give her all details of situation.’ Why, Mother, I expect to be carried around on a throne!”

  “Mercy!” said her mother apprehensively. “To think you’re grown up and have to do things like that! I don’t know what your father would have said to me if he had known I would let you go off alone like this. You’ve always been sheltered.”

  “Exactly, little mother!” said Carol with a firm set of her lips. “I have! But the time has come when I’ve got to take care of myself for a while. It does come, you know, no matter how long you try to hold it off. I’m not a baby, and you know you really don’t believe that I can’t take care of myself after all these years you’ve spent on bringing me up. Isn’t it almost time I had a chance to try myself out? Come now, wipe away those tears, little mother, and forget it. I’m going to have the time of my life out there! It’s going to be different from anything I ever did, and I’m going to make a story out of it to write to you. There may not be any sand, but I’ll warrant there’s a decent hotel, and very likely I’ll meet up with plenty of rocks of one sort or another before I get done. It’s really going to be fabulous when I get going, so don’t have any more worries about it.”