Ellis Butler - In Pawn

“Hah! I can do that!” scoffed Lem.

“You’re both of you wicked men, then,” said Gay, but lightly.

Lorna took Lem’s hand.

“Come around the house with me,” she said. “I want you to help me pick a lot of syringas for Gay,” and she dragged Lem away. Freeman seated himself beside Gay.

Freeman Todder was not twenty-five, but something hard in his face and eyes made him look older at times. His face was thin and his mouth like a healed wound, so thin were his lips. He did not have much chin. He did not look wholesome. He looked unsafe and cruel.

“L-i-q-u-o-r,” he spelled, and looked at Gay and laughed. “C-a-r-d-s. Also d-i-c-e. I’m a regular Satan, ain’t I?”

“Oh, Freeman!” she said reproachfully. “Don’t be sarcastic. We were only – ”

“Only talking me over. Well, that’s something, anyway. That’s a sort of flattery.”

He laid his cane across his knees.

“You have been drinking, Freeman,” Gay said.

“Yes. I’ve had a couple too many. Do you know how I feel? Like this – whoops!” He flung his hat off to the left on the lawn. “Whoops!” He threw his cane to the right.

“Ah!” exclaimed Gay, as if he had intentionally hurt her. “Why do you?”

Freeman spread out his hand on his knee and looked at his fingers one by one, raising each in turn. On one finger he wore a large, flashy ring. He moved the finger so that the light flashed from the facets of the stone. Suddenly he looked into the girl’s eyes.

“Keep away from me, Gay,” he said seriously. “I’m no good. I’m warning you, understand? Don’t have anything to do with me. I’m bad business. I like you, but I ‘m bad business.”

“But, Freeman – ”

“Not yet. You can ‘but Freeman’ me all you like when I get through, but this is my hiss, this is the rattle of my snake buttons. You keep away from me. I’m bad for you, and I’m saying so now because after this I won’t care a damn. This is my warning. After this you’ll have to look out for yourself. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes, but you don’t really mean it.”

“I do mean it. I’m warning you. If you know what is good for you, you’ll never speak to me, or let me speak to you again: Once! Twice! Third and last warning! Warned!”

He waited a moment. When he spoke it was no longer seriously, but in his usual flippant tone. “Who is the Lem kid?” he asked.

“Miss Redding’s nephew. His father left him here awhile ago. And – what do you think? Henrietta’s Bill has set the wedding day. I’m so glad for Henrietta. She has been so sweet about waiting.”

It was evident that Gay had not taken Freeman’s warning as seriously as she might have taken it. Freeman raised his eyebrows with an effect like that of shrugging one’s shoulders. He had warned her, and seriously, and that was more than he need have done.

“That so?” he said indifferently, referring to Henrietta. “Henrietta and her Bill give me a pain.”

“Why? Do you know anything about them?” asked Gay eagerly.

“I? No. Why should I?”

“Haven’t you suspected anything?” asked Gay.

Freeman turned and looked in her eyes.

“What do you suspect?” he asked as if the whole matter interested him little.

“Well, we may be doing her the most awful injustice,” Gay said, “but Lorna and I have been wondering if there is a Bill. We wonder if Henrietta is n’t just pretending there is a Billy Vane – and all.”

Freeman seemed more bored than interested.

“Why should she pretend a thing like that – a crazy thing like that?” he asked indifferently.

“Don’t you know how girls love to wear rings on their engagement fingers?” asked Gay. “It’s that sort of thing, Lorna and I think. It gives her a romantic hue. She thinks it makes us feel she is fortunate. Is n’t it killing!”

Freeman looked at the ants scurrying across the walk at his feet.

“I don’t know anything about it,” he said. “You girls may have seen a lot I never saw. You would n’t think of such a thing unless you had some reason. How about all the presents she says he sends her?”

“We think she buys them herself,” Gay said. Freeman turned his hand and looked at his long, well-kept nails.

“Can you keep a secret?” he asked.

“Indeed, yes!”

“Do you remember the silver-backed hand mirror Billy Vane sent her? With her monogram engraved on it?”

“Yes.”

“All right! Johnnie Alberson ordered that for her from Chicago. I saw it when it came and I saw her when she came into the store to pay the bill.”

“Why, Freeman Todder! And you just this minute said you didn’t know anything about it!”

“About there being no Billy Vane,” he explained. “There might be a Billy Vane who did not do his duty in the way of presents. He might be a close-fist. Your Henrietta might be afraid you would think he was a cheap skate if presents did not come along regularly.”

Gay considered this.

“Yes,” she said, after a moment, “that might be, but we suspected there was no Billy before we thought of the presents at all. Of course, the presents she has to buy explain why she never has any money – why she is always borrowing – but that is not all. You won’t say a word, will you, Freeman?”

“No. It don’t interest me at all,” he said. Miss Redding, rosy-cheeked, came to the door then, and tinkled a small supper-bell. Gay, with an exclamation, jumped up and went to find Lem and Lorna and the promised flowers, and Freeman Todder picked up his hat and cane. He hung the hat on the rack in the hall and stood his cane in the umbrella jar and then climbed the stairs. As he reached the top Henrietta Bates’s door opened and she came out. They met just outside her door and she slipped something into his hand.

“There’s twenty dollars,” she said in a whisper. “It is all I could get. And I can’t borrow any more. They are suspicious now.”

“But, my God, Et,” whispered Freeman Todder angrily. “Twenty dollars is n’t going to do me any good.”

“All I could get,” said Henrietta shortly, and she hurried down the stairs to greet Lorna and Lem with the smiling face of a woman whose lover has just set the happy day.

The next morning Miss Redding held a brief conversation at the breakfast table regarding Lem’s immediate future, the important question being whether Lem should be sent to school. With two school teachers at the table Susan felt she was sure to receive good advice. To Lem’s delight the unanimous opinion was that it was hardly worth while for him to go to school during the brief tag end of the term remaining. When Henrietta Bates said this, Miss Redding had no further doubts, for she had a very high opinion of Miss Bates. There was something safe and solid about Miss Bates that gave weight to her opinion.

Henrietta Bates had made an excellent impression on Miss Redding. Henrietta was one of half a dozen out-of-town teachers who had hastened to Riverbank at the time when, following the trouble over a certain Mrs. Helmuth’s case, the school board had arbitrarily decreed that never again should a married woman teach in Riverbank’s schools. The “foreigners,” as the intruding teachers were called, had immediately become the subject of some of the most ardent hatred and abuse, and some of them had made replies that made them exceedingly unpopular, but Miss Bates had, by good-natured diplomacy, avoided all this. The others had been sent packing as soon as local talent was available to supplant them, but Henrietta had not only remained, but had been rapidly promoted, and was a real favorite with all.

“She’s the kindest and affectionatest woman I ever knew in all my born days,” Miss Susan often said. “Just look how she does for Mr. Todder. It’s like he was her son. She sews on his buttons and mends his socks, and never a sign of flirting with him or anything. I do admire Henrietta Bates highly, and that’s a fact.”