Kerry Read online

  Suddenly Kerry realized what she must do. She must go back and get that reservation if it was still to be had!

  She turned so quickly that she almost knocked over a smaller person behind her, but when she had righted herself and apologized she fairly ran back the block to the steamship office, and hurried up to the desk.

  “I’ll take it!” she said, all out of breath, and waited anxiously watching a young man who was looking over the ship’s diagram.

  “Beg pardon,” said the clerk apologetically to the young man, “but this lady was here before! I don’t know just which of you—”

  The young man flashed a pair of coal-black eyes at Kerry and touched his hat politely.

  “That’s all right with me,” he said, “I’ll take that upper berth in the other stateroom.”

  Kerry thanked him and wondered why those black eyes seemed strangely familiar, as if she had seen them not long ago. But she was too engrossed in paying her money and getting the details of her passports and other arrangements settled to follow up the thought, and as soon as she could she hurried away to get herself and her baggage off to Liverpool.

  Kerry sat in the station all that night. She was afraid to hunt lodgings. She was afraid to go about at all. She kept herself hidden in a corner and pulled her hat well down over her face whenever people entered the room where she was sitting. She did not know Liverpool very well, having always been hurried through to a boat or a train when she came that way.

  As early as she dared in the morning she went to her boat, and hid herself in her cabin. She felt more and more nervous as the time for sailing drew near lest she might be caught even yet. Of course her mother would make a great fuss when she found the note, and she had probably wept a great deal and made a most unhappy time for her bridegroom. He would likely have started detectives on her track. Would her mother think of her sailing to America? She did not know. Isobel Kavanaugh had shown herself so little interested in the great book on which father and daughter had been counting so long, that they seldom talked about it before her. The matter of a publisher in America would not perhaps occur to her. She had always preferred Europe to America and sneered at her husband for calling himself American. She liked to have people think she belonged abroad. She would not have understood her husband’s earnest desire to have his book published in America because he wished what glory should come from it to reflect upon his native land.

  Still, though, she feared, and kept herself hidden.

  As the morning wore away, she reflected that a detective would not need to know about the book or an American publisher; he would search all possible outlets from the city of London, as well as London itself. And it would be an easy thing to find her, because her name would be on the passenger list. Oh, if she only might somehow have managed to get that other woman’s reservation without telling her own name!

  Trembling, she sat in the corner of her luxurious stateroom and stared at its appointments with unseeing eyes while time passed, and she was left unbothered. Now and again she would look down at her shabby garments—her threadbare coat and her scuffed shoes—and realize that these were not the garments that belonged in such a deluxe apartment as she was occupying. Of course she had no business there! But it came to her that the very cost of her refuge made her safe. Her mother would never imagine she had the money to pay for a passage on one of the better boats. Her mother would expect to find her serving in some humble position somewhere in London. She might be even now huddled in a corner of the hotel sofa prettily moaning her child’s “low-down” nature, which would prompt her to become a humble servitor rather than accept the bounty of a man to whom she had taken a dislike. Mrs. Kavanaugh had been wont to taunt her thus whenever Kerry tried to suggest any kind of economy.

  But in spite of her hopes, and of all the arguments in favor of her safe escape, Kerry sat in her stateroom anxiously as the minutes slipped away toward high noon.

  Breathless she listened to the call for all not sailing to leave the boat at once. She heard the sound of thronging feet along the decks, the chatter of eager voices in last farewells, the staccato of a sob here and there. She heard the long blast of the whistle, and felt the throb of the engine and the shudder that went through the big ship.

  Outside the wharf hands were shouting to one another. She stole to the porthole, keeping well out of sight, and peeked out. Snarls of colored paper ribbons were fluttering down across the opening. Others were unreeling from the dock now moving fast away from the side of the ship, and one little pink strand rasped out and whizzed past her face straight into her porthole, landing on the floor. She stepped back with her hand on her heart, her face white and startled. Then realizing that it was only a stray, meant for the deck above her, she stepped closer to the porthole and looked out again. Now that she could feel distinct motion under her, now that she had seen a narrow space of water between her and land, she took courage.

  The water was a several yards wide now, and growing wider. She drew a deep breath and came nearer, looking out, her eyes sweeping the dock. And suddenly she saw a bulky figure, head and shoulders above most of the throng, come elbowing through the crowd. The sun shone down upon his uncovered red head, and glinted on a red mustache, as he pushed the throng aside, elbowing his way to the front, and wildly waving his hat as if he expected the boat to stop for him. Could that be Sam Morgan? She got only that one glimpse of him, for a woman began to wave a handkerchief and it fluttered up and down between his face and Kerry’s vision. In her excitement she could not be sure.

  Kerry shrank back in new fright but could not keep from peering out, trying to see if her fears had real foundation. If that was Sam Morgan he had probably seen her name on the passenger list in London and followed her at once. Failing to reach the boat in time, he would probably send a message by wireless or radio to the captain of the boat, and she would be detained when they reached the other side. Would there be any way to get free again? What would be the law in the United States about the right of a mother and such a stepfather?

  Just then there came a sound at her stateroom door. The rattle of a turning key. She saw the door slowly open and a florist’s box was thrust in. Then the stewardess saw her cowering by the window, her eyes large with fright mingled with defiance.

  “I beg your pardon, Madam,” said the woman. “I thought you were on deck. I thought everybody was on deck. These flowers just arrived, as we started, and I wanted to make sure they wouldn’t get lost.”

  “Flowers?” said Kerry, trying to steady her voice. “But there must be some mistake. No one would send flowers here to me. My friends do not know what ship I am taking.”

  “The box has got your name all right, and the number of the stateroom,” affirmed the woman consulting the label. “Aren’t you Mrs. Winship?”

  “Oh no,” said Kerry with relief, and laughed a nervous little laugh. “That must be the lady who gave the stateroom up yesterday. I just got it at the last minute.”

  “Oh,” said the stewardess, “well, then you’d better take the flowers. It’s too late now to send them back. I’ll have the steward attend to sending word to the florist, but you might as well have the flowers as throw them into the ocean. Here, I’ll put them in water for you.”

  So, presently the small stateroom was filled with the splendor of orchids and gardenias, and Kerry was left to look around her and wonder. Kerry Kavanaugh with orchids. She almost laughed. Then she sobered and sat down to think.

  So then, the stewardess had not known about the change of name. Perhaps there was some chance that the change had not yet been made on the ship’s list, had not been sent down from London. Yet how would Sam Morgan have known to come to that dock if he had not seen the name on the list of passengers? Was it really Sam Morgan? Perhaps her eyes had deceived her. Well, she might be out on the ocean, but she was by no means sure that she was free from the man she dreaded.

  She breathed more freely as the afternoon wore on and no one came to bother her.
She had not gone down for lunch; she had the stewardess bring her a tray. Later in the afternoon she crept up on deck and went about a little, trying to find a secluded place where no one would see her, for even this much of a glimpse at her fellow passengers told her that her wardrobe was unfit for mingling with theirs. She resolved to keep utterly to herself, and to this end found a comparatively lonely spot where she might watch the gulls dip and sail, and look off at the horizon line, trying to feel that over there beyond all that water somewhere there would be a place for her, where she might work out her little drab life, and get to the end of it honorably. There were no dreams of gallant lovers within her young disillusioned mind. Her one ambition was to complete the work of her great father and see that he had his rightful share of glory. Beyond that, and keeping out of the reach of her undesirable stepfather, she had no present wish.

  It was the steward who presently sought her out, called her Mrs. Winship, desired to show her where her steamer chair was located and where he had placed her in the dining room. He was all deference.

  Kerry, aware of her own shabbiness, in spite of the new black funeral dress, shrank back and tried to explain that she was not the person he supposed her to be. She was just plain Miss Kavanaugh who had purchased the reservation that Mrs. Winship had given up.

  The steward eyed her glorious red-gold hair that had slipped from beneath the little black hat and was waving gorgeously around the girl’s delicate face. He decided it would be just as well to leave the arrangements as they were. Her name might not be Winship but she had the look of a perfect lady.

  So Kerry, having sat for a few minutes in her steamer chair and contemplated her shabby little shoes, decided to get herself back into shelter and see what she could do toward furbishing up her scanty wardrobe for the occasion. Her one evening dress was a dark green chiffon she herself had fashioned from an old gown of her mother’s, and there was a rip in it that needed attention.

  Kerry came shyly to the dining room that evening in her simple green chiffon, with a tiny string of pearl beads around her neck and her red-gold hair fastened with a little gold comb that had belonged to her great-grandmother. Three gorgeous golden-hearted orchids leaned from the mossy green of her dress. She found she was no longer “Mrs. Winship.” She had somehow blossomed into “Miss Kavanaugh,” the daughter of the great scientist of whom everybody in the scientific world had heard. She could not understand how they had learned who she was, and she trembled inwardly all through the meal, wondering if there had been a message about her sent to the captain by her stepfather, and if perhaps the captain already had orders from Sam Morgan to detain her when they reached the other side.

  On Kerry’s right there sat a tall young man with clear gray eyes and a nice voice. He reminded her vaguely of something pleasant, and he spoke to her as if he had met her before, though he did not explain why he was so friendly. He seemed to know all about her. He spoke of her father and of having heard him lecture once. It warmed the lonely girl’s heart to talk with one who held her father in such reverence and spoke of his mind and his work in such a tone of deep respect. She found his name was Graham McNair, and she heard the man across the table call him Doctor. She wondered if that stood for medicine or philosophy.

  There were several other women at the table, all older than Kerry, two of them wives of professors in American universities. Kerry was the only girl at the table.

  The women looked upon her with great favor. As she listened to them she perceived that somehow her father’s fame had preceded her and given her a prestige that her simple self and her shabby garments could never have claimed in such surroundings. It surprised her to know that her quiet, unassuming father had yet commanded so much enthusiasm from people of the world. She knew that among scientists he was beloved, but he had never sought wide popularity.

  She would not have been so much surprised at her reception if she could have heard Graham McNair before her arrival at the table. Her heart would have glowed at the wonderful things he told about her noted father—though she would still have wondered where he gained some of his information, unless she had happened to hear him mention the name of Peddington.

  “Peddington, you know, the old bookshop in London. He knows everything about the great men of today, especially the scientists, and he was a personal friend of Shannon Kavanaugh!”

  If she had heard that she would perhaps have remembered the clear gray eyes that had searched her as she passed him in the bookshop yesterday morning, and the nice kind voice that had given the information about the ship’s sailing. As it was her memory only hovered vaguely about something pleasant and indefinite, and she was glad to have such a friendly neighbor at the table.

  Across the table sat a young man with very black eyes and a sulky mouth who was introduced as Professor Henry Dawson. His eyes and the careless slump of his shoulders, as well as his halfdisgruntled expression, seemed strangely familiar, also, to Kerry.

  She would certainly have been amazed if she could have known that his presence at the table was due to the fact that he had professed to be an intimate friend and associate in the same line with her father, and that he had spent time trying to bribe the steward to seat him next to her.

  The steward had arranged that he should sit at the same table, but his own insight into character as well as his desire to please the owner of the clear gray eyes had stopped at that, and Henry Dawson, PhD, sat across the table, down a little way, not even exactly opposite to the daughter of the great man. Henry Dawson, PhD, might be the friend of Shannon Kavanaugh, and Shannon Kavanaugh’s daughter, all he liked, but he was not going to get the chance to monopolize the girl with the red-gold hair during that voyage, not at the table anyway!

  So Kerry Kavanaugh, shabby little daughter of a dear dead scientist, running away into the world to hide, found herself unexpectedly among friends. And many discriminating people in the dining room turned to look and ask: “Who is that girl with the red-gold hair? Isn’t she quaint? Quite a style of her own, hasn’t she? She’s so distinguished looking!”

  Chapter 4

  Sam Morgan was one of those who think they are possessed of all knowledge and can handle any problem with the greatest possible efficiency.

  Therefore, when Sam Morgan’s bride of a few hours descended upon him from the hotel room where she had gone to bring down the presumably repentant stepdaughter, and with open note and streaming eyes had proclaimed the flight of that daughter, he wasted no time in idle talk.

  “H’m! Gone, is she?” he said, his little slit eyes growing narrower. “Alrighty, you just run back up and stay there till I see what I can do. There, there, baby, don’t you cry! She’ll come back. You wait till I get after her. What’s that? Oh, no, she won’t drown herself. No, she won’t kill herself. She’s got too much sense! Besides, you see you went at this thing in the wrong way. I told you. But there’s no use crying over spilt milk. You get back up there, Isobel, and just be calm, in case she comes in.”

  “But suppose she doesn’t c–c–c–come!” wailed the mother, always a petted half-frightened child.

  “Well, never mind, you just be calm in case she does come, and leave this thing to me. Money’ll do anything! Money’ll find her alrighty. You leave this to me! Get a book and read a story and leave it all to me!”

  So Isobel, greatly relieved, went smiling back upstairs and settled down to a book, after having carefully gone over her own possessions to see if Kerry had taken any of them with her, and also ascertained what of Kerry’s belongings were missing.

  Yes, Kerry’s clothes were gone, and the little old school trunk was gone, and Shannon Kavanaugh’s papers and manuscripts were gone, and his books. How like Kerry to take those old books! Not worth carting around! Then the child had really intended her going to be something more than a mere gesture!

  The mother gazed around with troubled eyes, for she really was fond of Kerry. Kerry was a habit that she would not know how to do without. It half frightened he
r to think of getting along without Kerry.

  But when she noticed that her own lovely photograph in its silver frame was gone, too, the picture that Shannon had loved so much and upon which he had spent such an enormous sum even when they were poor, her eyes took on unwonted starriness. Ah! Kerry had taken her picture! Then Kerry still loved her and Kerry would come back, as Sam Morgan had said; Kerry would come back and they would all be happy. They would live in castles and yachts and travel a lot, and buy new clothes in Paris whenever they liked, and it would be heaven below!

  So Kerry’s mother sat down to finish the last three chapters of a most exciting novel.

  Sam Morgan took himself at once to his lawyer, whom he ordered to do something about his newly acquired stepdaughter of his.

  “And make it snappy!” he said as he rose to leave the office. “I’ve got my plans made to leave London, and I don’t want to be hung up around here waiting for a spoiled child, see? Get your best detectives on the job and make it snappy! She can’t have gone far. She hasn’t got a cent that I know of, or if she has it can’t be many. She’s likely sitting around in some park crying her eyes out for her mother by this time. She isn’t much more than a kid. But she’s a humdinger! Yes, I said it. She’s got the looks alrighty! Now get to work. Yes, you can leave a message at the usual address. If she’s roaming the streets put her up at some decent hotel till morning. The Missis and I are out on our honeymoon. See? And we don’t wantta be bothered. But you keep an eye on the young one. She’s a little bit slippery. Even if you have to put handcuffs on her, don’t let her give you the go-by. Because I wantta get out of this little old dirty town. Got my yacht waiting out in the harbor for a week, waiting for the Missis to make up her mind, see? And I don’t wantta wait a day longer. So, make it snappy!”