Hidden Creek | Page 3

black brows.
Sheila lifted this strange, romantic face on its long, romantic throat and looked at Hudson. Then she got to her feet. She was soft and silken, smooth and tender, gleaming white of skin. She had put on an old black dress, just a scrap of a flimsy, little worn-out gown. A certain slim, crushable quality of her body was accentuated by this flimsiness of covering. She looked as though she could be drawn through a ring--as though, between your hands, you could fold her to nothing. A thin little kitten of silky fur and small bones might have the same feel as Sheila.
She stood up now and looked tragically and helplessly at Hudson and tried to speak.
He backed away from the bed, beckoned to her, and met her in the other half of the room so that the leather screen stood between them and the dead man. They spoke in hushed voices.
"I had no notion, Miss Arundel, that--that--of--this," Hudson began in a dry, jerky whisper. "Believe me, I wouldn't 'a' thought of intrudin'. I ordered the picture there from your father a fortnight ago, and this was the day I was to come and give it a last looking-over before I came through with the cash, see? I hadn't heard he was sick even, much less"--he cleared his throat--"gone beyond," he ended, quoting from the "Millings Gazette" obituary column. "You get me?"
"Yes," said Sheila, in her voice that in some mysterious way was another expression of the clear mistiness of her eyes and the suppleness of her body. "You are Mr. Hudson." She twisted her hands together behind her back. She was shivering with cold and nervousness. "It's done, you see. Father finished it."
Hudson gave the canvas an absent glance and motioned Sheila to a chair with a stiff gesture of his arm.
"You set down," he said.
She obeyed, and he walked to and fro before her.
"Say, now," he said, "I'll take the picture all right. But I'd like to know, Miss Arundel, if you'll excuse me, how you're fixed?"
"Fixed?" Sheila faltered.
"Why, yes, ma'am--as to finances, I mean. You've got some funds, or some relations or some friends to call upon--?"
Sheila drew up her head a trifle, lowered her eyes, and began to plait her thin skirt across her knee with small, delicate fingers. Hudson stopped in his walk to watch this mechanical occupation. She struggled dumbly with her emotion and managed to answer him at last.
"No, Mr. Hudson. Father is very poor. I haven't any relations. We have no friends here nor anywhere near. We lived in Europe till quite lately--a fishing village in Normandy. I--I shall have to get some work."
"Say!" It was an ejaculation of pity, but there was a note of triumph in it, too; perhaps the joy of the gratified philanthropist.
"Now, look-a-here, little girl, the price of that picture will just about cover your expenses, eh?--board and--er--funeral?"
Sheila nodded, her throat working, her lids pressing down tears.
"Well, now, look-a-here. I've got a missus at home."
Sheila looked up and the tears fell. She brushed them from her cheeks. "A missus?"
"Yes'm--my wife. And a couple of gels about your age. Well, say, we've got a job for you."
Sheila put her hand to her head as though she would stop a whirling sensation there.
"You mean you have some work for me in your home?"
"You've got it first time. Yes, _ma'am_. Sure thing. At Millings, finest city in the world. After you're through here, you pack up your duds and you come West with me. Make a fresh start, eh? Why, it'll make me plumb cheerful to have a gel with me on that journey ... seem like I'd Girlie or Babe along. They just cried to come, but, say, Noo York's no place for the young."
"But, Mr. Hudson, my ticket? I'm sure I won't have the money--?"
"Advance it to you on your pay, Miss Arundel."
"But what is the work?" Sheila still held her hand against her forehead.
Hudson laughed his short, cracked cackle. "Jest old-fashioned house-work, dish-washing and such. 'Help' can't be had in Millings, and Girlie and Babe kick like steers when Momma leads 'em to the dish-pan. Not that you'd have to do it all, you know, just lend a hand to Momma. Maybe you're too fine for that?"
"Oh, no. I have done all the work here. I'd be glad. Only--"
He came closer to her and held up a long, threatening forefinger. It was a playful gesture, but Sheila had a distinct little tremor of fear. She looked up into his small, brown, pensive eyes, and her own were held as though their look had been fastened to his with rivets.
"Now, look-a-here, Miss Arundel, don't you say 'only' to me. Nor 'but.' Nor 'if.' Nary one of those words, if you please. Say, I've got daughters of my