Rosemary Part 16

"I don't care if she doesn't," insisted Rosemary. "You lost it, and we have to get another one for her; that's all there is to it."

The next afternoon Doctor Hugh repeated his request that Rosemary should stay with Sarah and Shirley till Aunt Trudy came home on the 5:46 train. Then he left on a long round of calls and Rosemary, not without many regrets and a thrill of fear when she thought what her brother would say if he found her out, sped up the street to the pleasant house where Mrs. Hepburn, hatted and gloved eagerly waited her coming.

"I was so afraid you wouldn't come," she greeted the little girl.

"Baby is asleep, and I want to get away before he wakes up and sees me go. I'll be back at half-past five, sharp, but of course you won't go till I come. You mustn't leave Baby alone in the house."

As luck would have it, Aunt Trudy decided to come home on an earlier train and found herself in the midst of bundle-laden Eastsh.o.r.e shoppers who had spent the day in the city and were returning with their spoils. Motherly Mrs. Dunning occupied a seat with Aunt Trudy and what more natural than that she should speak of how much help Rosemary had been to her that summer? The wonder was that Aunt Trudy had so long escaped hearing but she went about very little in the town and had met comparatively few of the neighbors even those living on her own street.

"Yes indeed I've been able to go away an afternoon or two a week,"

babbled Mrs. Dunning, "something I haven't done since Baby came.

Your niece is such a nice child and so reliable. I wanted her this afternoon, but Mrs. Hepburn had engaged her first."

"My niece? Mrs. Hepburn engaged her?" repeated Aunt Trudy faintly.

Mrs. Dunning explained and Aunt Trudy managed to keep from fainting though as she told Doctor Hugh afterward, she would never know how the strength was given her. She looked nearer to apoplexy than fainting when she walked into the house a half hour later and, purple-faced and choking, demanded to be told the instant the doctor came in.

Doctor Hugh and his car rolled up a few moments later and Aunt Trudy sobbed out the "miserable story" as she characterized it.

"To think of Rosemary, acting as a nurse-maid, and we never knew it!" she wailed. "What would her mother say? What must the neighbors think?"

"Bother the neighbors!" said Doctor Hugh testily. "When Rosemary comes home tell her I want to see her."

Though his aunt did not suspect it, he had seldom been as angry in his life. Not only had Rosemary deliberately defied him and gone off that afternoon, but she had most certainly furnished topic for gossip in Eastsh.o.r.e for it was not possible in so small a town that her occupation had been unnoticed. And Doctor Hugh was very proud of his pretty sister. What could have possessed the child to do such a wild thing?

He had himself in hand by the time Rosemary came running in, late, for Mrs. Hepburn had been delayed and nothing could have induced the young worker to desert her charge.

"Your brother wants you--he's in the office," said Aunt Trudy stiffly.

And as soon as she saw Hugh the most awful sinking sensation went through Rosemary. He had found out, how, she could not guess, but somehow, that was plain.

CHAPTER XIII

JACK STRAIGHTENS THINGS OUT

"You--you wanted to see me Hugh?" Rosemary faltered.

"Please come in and close the door," he said quietly. Then as she obeyed, "Now what is this Mrs. Dunning has been telling Aunt Trudy, Rosemary? Have you been taking care of babies in the neighborhood for fifteen cents an hour?"

Rosemary nodded.

"How long has this been going on?" asked her brother.

"A--a couple of weeks," answered Rosemary faintly.

"What was the idea?"

Rosemary said nothing.

"I asked you a question, Rosemary. Please answer me. What made you do a thing like this without consulting some one? Did Winnie know?"

"No," said Rosemary reluctantly, "Winnie didn't know. No one did. I wanted to earn some money, Hugh."

Then came the question she had been dreading.

"What for?"

Rosemary nervously knotted and unknotted her handkerchief. Her blue eyes roved around the familiar room and came back to the grim face and the dark eyes which watched her relentlessly.

"Oh, Hugh!" she cried desperately, "PLEASE!"

Her brother picked up a paper weight and studied it intently.

"Look here, Rosemary," he began more gently, "you deliberately disobeyed this afternoon when I asked you to stay in the house--"

"Because I had absolutely promised Mrs. Hepburn, Hugh," Rosemary broke in eagerly. "I'd _promised_! She was depending on me and I had to go."

"Very well, a promise is a promise," admitted the doctor, "though when wrongly given sometimes they must be broken. We'll set aside the fact that you disobeyed and consider only this wild scheme apparently undertaken because you wanted to earn money. I want you to tell me why you thought you needed money and why you couldn't come to me and ask for it."

"Because," whispered Rosemary unhappily, "Because."

"That's no reason," said the doctor brusquely. "Come, 'fess up, Rosemary, and I'll help you out of the sc.r.a.pe, whatever it is. My dear little girl, you can't go around among the neighbors like this--families help each other and stand by each other. I don't care a hoot what other people may think--as Aunt Trudy seems to believe I should--but I care a great deal that my little sister should go to outsiders instead of coming to me."

Rosemary touched his sleeve timidly. She longed to throw herself in his arms, cry that she was tired of taking care of silly, uninteresting babies (though as a matter of fact when she wasn't tired she loved them all, the cross as well as the good-natured ones), and tell him the whole story about the lost ring. But there was her promise to Sarah. A promise was a promise--Hugh himself had said so. And families were to stand by each other, and she must stand by Sarah and Shirley.

"I can't tell you, Hugh," said Rosemary earnestly. "I just can't."

"You mean you won't," said the doctor sternly. "Well, go up and bring me down this bank--I suppose that was the one you and Sarah were quarreling over the other night? And you put the money you earned in that? I thought so; bring it down to me."

Wondering what he meant to do, Rosemary went up to her room and returned with the bank. Doctor Hugh dropped it into one of the lower drawers of his desk and turned the key.

"I want you to bring me a list of the women for whom you have taken care of children," he said, pushing a block of paper and a pencil toward Rosemary, "and, as nearly as you can remember, the number of hours you worked for each. Then we'll count out this money and you will have to return it. I want that list by to-morrow night."

Winnie sounded the dinner gong just then and Rosemary went silently to the table. Aunt Trudy's eyes were red from crying and Sarah and Shirley looked frightened. Their aunt had told them the "awful thing" Rosemary had been doing and Sarah was in terror lest Hugh already knew her part in it. But dinner, uncomfortable meal as it was, rea.s.sured Sarah. Hugh would not have allowed her to leave the table without a word if he had known about the ring.

Rosemary went to her room directly after dinner and Sarah and Shirley followed.

"Was he mad?" asked Shirley, her eyes round with excitement.

"Aunt Trudy was crying and wringing her hands," volunteered Sarah.

"She says the family is disgraced and Hugh will be ashamed to show his face in Eastsh.o.r.e."

"What a silly thing to say!" cried Rosemary. "Thank goodness, Hugh is no sn.o.b. But he is furious because I can't tell him why I wanted the money. And, oh, girls, I have to take it all back. How can I ever buy the ring now, and what will the people say when I bring back the money they paid me?"

She hurriedly outlined what Doctor Hugh had said, and Sarah immediately suggested that they get hold of the bank and bury it.