Her Father's Daughter Part 31

I sincerely apologize for having waited so long before writing you of the very exceptional reception which your articles have had. I think one half their attraction has been the exquisite and appealing pictures you have sent for their ill.u.s.tration. At the present minute they are forming what I consider the most unique feature in the magazine. I am enclosing you a cheque for five hundred dollars as an initial payment on the series. Just what the completed series should be worth I am unable to say until you inform me how many months you can keep it up at the same grade of culinary and literary interest and attractive ill.u.s.tration; but I should say at a rough estimate that you would be safe in counting upon a repet.i.tion of this cheque for every three articles you send in. This of course includes payment for the pictures also, which are to me if anything more attractive than the recipes, since the local color and environment they add to the recipe and the word sketch are valuable in the extreme.

If you feel that you can continue this to the extent of even a small volume, I shall be delighted to send you a book contract. In considering this proposition, let me say that if you could not produce enough recipes to fill a book, you could piece it out to the necessary length most charmingly and attractively by lengthening the descriptions of the environment in which the particular fruits and vegetables you deal with are to be found; and in book form you might allow yourself much greater lat.i.tude in the instructions concerning the handling of the fruits and the preparation of the recipes. I think myself that a wonderfully attractive book could be made from this material, and hope that you will agree with me. Trusting that this will be satisfactory to you and that you will seriously consider the book proposition before you decline it, I remain, my dear madam, Very truly yours,

HUGH THOMPSON,

Editor, Everybody's Home.

Gripping the cheque and the letter, Linda lurched forward against the window cas.e.m.e.nt and shut her eyes tight, because she could feel big, nervous gulps of exultation and rejoicing swelling up in her throat. She shifted the papers to one hand and surrept.i.tiously slipped the other to her pocket. She tried to keep the papers before her and looked straight from the window to avoid attracting attention. The tumult of exultation in her heart was so wild that she did not surely know whether she wanted to sink to the floor, lay her face against the gla.s.s, and indulge in what for generations women have referred to as "a good cry," or whether she wanted to leap from the window and sport on the wind like a driven leaf.

Then she returned the letter and cheque to the envelope, and slipped it inside her blouse, and started on her way to school. She might as well have gone to Multiflores Canyon and pitted her strength against climbing its walls for the day, for all the good she did in her school work.

She heard no word of any recitation by her schoolmates. She had no word ready when called on for a recitation herself. She heard nothing that was said by any of the professors. On winged feet she was flying back and forth from the desert to the mountains, from the canyons to the sea.

She was raiding beds of ama.s.s and devising ways to roast the bulbs and make a new dish. She was compounding drinks from mescal and bisnaga. She was hunting desert pickles and trying to remember whether Indian rhubarb ever grew so far south. She was glad when the dismissal hour came that afternoon. With eager feet she went straight to the Consolidated Bank and there she asked again to be admitted to the office of the president.

Mr. Worthington rose as she came in.

"Am I wrong in my dates?" he inquired. "I was not expecting you until tomorrow."

"No, you're quite right," said Linda. "At this hour tomorrow. But, Mr.

Worthington, I am in trouble again."

Linda looked so distressed that the banker pushed a chair to the table's side for her, and when she had seated herself, he said quietly: "Tell me all about it, Linda. We must get life straightened out as best we can."

"I think I must tell you all about it," said Linda, "because I know just enough about banking to know that I have a proposition that I don't know how to handle. Are bankers like father confessors and doctors and lawyers?"

"I think they are even more so," laughed Mr. Worthington. "Perhaps the father confessor takes precedence, otherwise I believe people are quite as much interested in their financial secrets as in anything else in all this world. Have you a financial secret?"

"Yes," said Linda, "I have what is to me a big secret, and I don't in the least know how to handle it, so right away I thought about you and that you would be the one to tell me what I could do."

"Go ahead," said Mr. Worthington kindly. "I'll give you my word of honor to keep any secret you confide to me."

Linda produced her letter. She opened it and without any preliminaries handed it and the cheque to the banker. He looked at the cheque speculatively, and then laid it aside and read the letter. He gave every evidence of having read parts of it two or three times, then he examined the cheque again, and glanced at Linda.

"And just how did you come into possession of this, young lady?" he inquired. "And what is it that you want of me?"

"Why, don't you see?" said Linda. "It's my letter and my cheque; I'm 'Jane Meredith.' Now how am I going to get my money."

For one dazed moment Mr. Worthington studied Linda; then he threw back his head and laughed unrestrainedly. He came around the table and took both Linda's hands.

"Bully for you!" he cried exultantly. "How I wish your father could see the seed he has sown bearing its fruit. Isn't that fine? And do you want to go on with this anonymously?"

"I think I must," said Linda. "I have said in my heart that no j.a.p, male or female, young or old, shall take first honors in a cla.s.s from which I graduate; and you can see that if people generally knew this, it would make it awfully hard for me to go on with my studies, and I don't know that the editor who is accepting this work would take it if he knew it were sent him by a high-school Junior. You see the dignified way in which he addresses me as 'madam'?"

"I see," said Mr. Worthington reflectively.

"I'm sure," said Linda with demure lips, though the eyes above them were blazing and dancing at high tension, "I'm sure that the editor is attaching a husband, and a house having a well-ordered kitchen, and rather wide culinary experience to that 'dear madam.'"

"And what about this book proposition?" asked the banker gravely. "That would be a big thing for a girl of your age. Can you do it, and continue your school work?"

"With the background I have, with the unused material I have, and with vacation coming before long, I can do it easily," said Linda. "My school work is not difficult for me. It only requires concentration for about two hours in the preparation that each day brings. The remainder of the time I could give to amplifying and producing new recipes."

"I see," said the banker. "So you have resolved, Linda, that you don't want your editor to know your real name."

"Could scarcely be done," said Linda.

"But have you stopped to think," said the banker, "that you will be asked for personal history and about your residence, and no doubt a photograph of yourself. If you continue this work anonymously you're going to have trouble with more matters than cashing a cheque."

"But I am not going to have any trouble cashing a cheque," she said, "because I have come straight to the man whose business is cheques."

"True enough," he said; "I SHALL have to arrange the cheque; there's not a doubt about that; and as for your other bugbears."

"I refuse to be frightened by them," interposed Linda.

"Have you ever done any business at the bank?"

"No," said Linda.

"None of the clerks know you?"

"Not that I remember," said Linda. "I might possibly be acquainted with some of them. I have merely pa.s.sed through the bank on my way to your room twice."

"Then," said the banker, "we'll have to risk it. After this estate business is settled you will want to open an account in your name."

"Quite true," said Linda.

"Then I would advise you," said Mr. Worthington, "to open this account in your own name. Endorse this cheque 'Jane Meredith' and make it payable to me personally. Whenever one of these comes, bring it to me and I'll take care of it for you. One minute."

He left Linda sitting quietly reading and rereading her letter, and presently returned and laid a sheaf of paper money before her.

"Take it to the paying teller. Tell him that you wish to deposit it, and ask him to give you a bank book and a cheque book," he said. "Thank you very much for coming to me and for confiding in me."

Linda gathered up the money, and said good-bye to the banker. Just as she started forward she recognized Eileen at the window of the paying teller. It was an Eileen she never before had seen. Her face was strained to a ghastly gray. Her hat was not straight and her hands were shaking. Without realizing that she was doing it, Linda stepped behind one of the huge marble pillars supporting the ceiling and stood there breathlessly, watching Eileen. She could gather that she was discussing the bank ledger which lay before the teller and that he was refusing something that Eileen was imploring him to do. Linda thought she understood what it was. Then very clearly Eileen's voice, sharp and strained, reached her ears.

"You mean that you are refusing to pay me my deposits on my private account?" she cried; and Linda could also hear the response.

"I am very sorry if it annoys or inconveniences you, Miss Strong, but since the settlement of the estate takes place tomorrow, our orders are to pay out no funds in any way connected with the estate until after that settlement has been arranged."

"But this is my money, my own private affair," begged Eileen. "The estate has nothing to do with it."

"I am sorry," repeated the teller. "If that is the case, you will have no difficulty in establishing the fact in a few minutes' time."

Eileen turned and left the bank, and it seemed that she was almost swaying. Linda stood a second with narrowed eyes, in deep thought.

"I think," she said at last, deep down in her heart, "that it looks precious much as if there had been a bit of transgression in this affair. It looks, too, as if 'the way of the transgressor' were a darned hard way. Straight ahead open and aboveboard for you, my girl!"

Then she went quietly to the desk and transacted her own business; but her beautiful day was clouded. Her heart was no longer leaping exultantly. She was sickened and sorrowful over the evident nerve strain and discomfort which Eileen seemed to have brought upon herself. She dreaded meeting her at dinner that night, and she wondered all the way home where Eileen had gone from the bank and what she had been doing.

What she felt was a pale affair compared with what she would have felt if she could have seen Eileen leave the bank and enter a near-by store, go to a telephone booth and put in a long-distance call for San Francisco. Her eyes were brilliant, her cheeks by nature redder than the rouge she had used upon them. She squared her shoulders, lifted her head, as if she irrevocably had made a decision and would not be thwarted in acting upon it. While she waited she straightened her hat, and tucked up her pretty hair, once more evincing concern about her appearance. After a nervous wait she secured her party.

"Am I speaking with Mr. James Heitman?" she asked.