CHAPTER XXI
ADRIFT IN A STRANGE CITY
In spite of Dorothy’s courage, and her efforts to keep each of her troubles apart, that she might meet and cope with them singly, the time had now come when she found herself sorely puzzled.
How would she be able to reach Rochester – to leave her cousins and proceed alone in her search for Tavia?
The morning of departure dawned bright and clear, conditions most necessary for a pleasant automobile trip, and when the Markin family waved an affectionate adieu, the Fire Bird puffed away from in front of the hotel, Rose-Mary throwing innumerable kisses to Dorothy. Suddenly, as they swung into the street, Dorothy turned to Ned and asked:
“Ned, could you let me go part of the way home, by train? I did not want to mention it at the hotel as Mrs. Markin would be sure to worry, but I would so like to return by rail. You could just leave me at the depot and then – you might stop for me at – did you say you were going through Rochester on your way back?”
Ned and Nat gazed at their cousin in surprise. What could she mean to ask to leave them and go to North Birchland alone?
“I know you think it strange,” she hastened to add, “but really you know, I am able to travel alone that short distance. You know I came from Glenwood alone.”
“Oh, yes, I know,” replied Nat, “but this time mother put you in our charge and these are big cities around here.”
“But if the auto makes you feel ill,” put in Nat, “of course no one could object to you going by train.”
“I would so much rather,” declared Dorothy, taking advantage of Nat’s ready excuse for her. “I have found that there is a train at eight-thirty. Then, if you pass through Rochester, you could meet me there. I can go to some young women’s club and wait if I do not meet you exactly on time at the station.”
This was a brave stroke, and Dorothy felt that she would not be equal to further argument should the boys offer much more opposition.
“You mean for us to leave you here at the Buffalo depot?” asked Ned in a dazed sort of way.
“Yes, I have plenty of money with me, and I know perfectly well how to travel alone.”
“But you may have to change cars, and suppose you were to be left alone in Rochester in case we had a breakdown and couldn’t pick you up?”
“It wouldn’t be any worse staying in Rochester than it would in some place near where you happened to have the accident. I hope you don’t have any. But I have told you what I would do in case you didn’t call for me. I’d stay at some girls’ club. There are plenty of them in Rochester I’ve read.”
“Well,” admitted Ned. “I suppose you ought to know what you want to do.”
“There’s the station,” exclaimed Nat. “What time did you say the train left?”
“Eight-thirty,” replied Dorothy. “We have plenty of time.”
But when she realized that she was to be left alone, to go in a train to that strange, big city, she felt as if she must cry out against the circumstances that forced her to all this trouble. Why should she deceive her two kind cousins, and desert them to take that risky journey alone? And she did believe her prospective trip dangerous in spite of her assertions to the contrary. It was very different to making the journey to Glenwood when she had had Tavia with her.
Besides, going into the New England mountains was along a quiet way, while this trip – she dared not trust herself to think further. She must decide at once, and she must go – alone to look for Tavia.
“I’ll get you a Pullman ticket,” Ned said rather gloomily, as the auto dashed up to the station, “but I do wish, Doro, that you would come on with us. Of course, in the parlor car you will be quite safe, and can rest better than in the Fire Bird. I’ll see the porter and have him look after you.”
“Thank you, Ned,” Dorothy managed to reply, and, but for his haste to make arrangements for her comfort, the youth would have seen tears in his cousin’s eyes, and noticed that her hands trembled as Nat helped her out of the machine to the station platform.
“I think, after all, it will be better for you to go straight on to North Birchland,” she said, trying to make her voice sound easy and natural, but conscious that her tones were rather unsteady. She was now putting into operation the second part of her plan. “It might be risky to attempt to pick me up in Rochester. I might miss you or you might miss me, whereas if we both follow out our route separately we will be sure to get to the Cedars in safety and without any delay.”
“Well, since you have decided to desert us, and travel by train, leaving the poor old Fire Bird to struggle along as best it can without a lady passenger, perhaps it will be best,” Nat agreed, in a dazed sort of way. He seemed for a time quite unlike Nat White – quite different from the youth who was always ready to take up the weak end of an argument and carry it to the strongest point of conclusion. Here he was letting his favorite cousin start away alone on a train to a strange big city, when she had been entrusted to his care.
“Here you are, Doro,” called Ned, coming from the depot where he had hurried as soon as the auto stopped. “Take this,” and he thrust some bills into her hands, as well as her tickets. “And do, above everything else, be careful. I’ve seen the porter, and tipped him so he will look after you. Now, you’d better get in and we’ll leave you, as we want to make good time. Good-bye,” and he stooped to kiss the pale-faced girl who was now too overcome with emotion to trust her own voice.
Nat put his arm affectionately around her and he, too, gave her a farewell kiss. They walked with her to the waiting train, and then the porter, in his blue uniform, adorned with numerous brass buttons, helped her aboard the car “Seneca.”
CHAPTER XXII
IN DIRE DISTRESS
Dorothy had traveled in parlor cars before but had never ridden in a sleeper, which was the style of coach she now found herself in. The train was a through one from the west and, as the regular parlor cars were full Ned had to get a ticket in the sleeper which, by day, is much the same as a parlor car.
As the porter set her valise down and arranged a seat for her near the ladies’ retiring room Dorothy’s heart beat fast, and, though the surroundings were new and novel to her she took no interest in them. But as the train whistled off, and the other passengers began moving about, Dorothy lifted her head and glanced around.
For a moment she felt that some mistake had been made. Surely this was no train for ladies, for not a woman was in sight, instead the entire car seemed filled with men in various stages of incomplete toilets. Some were adjusting their neckties as they walked through the aisle, others were fastening shoe laces, and a few buckling their belts or slipping on their coats.
Then she noticed, for the first time, that the car was a sleeper, for the interior was so dark because of the train shed when she entered that she could not tell what it was. She saw the berths on both sides, with heavy curtains lining the aisle. Only one or two beds had been shut up and turned into seats like the one she was occupying.
Dorothy was annoyed. Was she to make her lonely trip in company with a car full of men? She had expected, when she planned her journey, that there would be other girls and ladies in the coach in which she was to travel, and that she might appeal to them in case of need. But a whole car full of men!
She looked about for the little electric call button, and, finding it in the casement at the side of the window, pressed it vigorously. It was some time before the porter responded as, all along his route, the omnipresent men claimed his attention for various services. But finally he reached the end of the car where the girl in the blue sailor suit sat up very prim and stiff, waiting for him.
“Is this – er – a ladies’ car?” she asked timidly.
“A ladies’ car? Oh, yes, miss. This is all right. This is the car for Rochester.”
“But I – never was in a car like – like this before,” Dorothy objected, glancing about at the men who were still struggling in the aisles with various refractory articles of clothing.
For a moment the porter seemed puzzled. Then, all at once, he understood Dorothy’s objection.
“Oh, them’s only the gentlemen gettin’ ready to leave, miss. They’ll all be out soon, and you’ll have more room. Anything I can do for you, miss?”
“No,” and Dorothy just checked herself from adding “thank you,” which she felt would not be quite proper, and would show that she was unused to the attention of a porter. Then the colored attendant made his way down the aisle, while the only girl in the car held her face close against the window pane and fell to thinking of the task that lay before her.
She was not now troubled about the car and the occupants. If it was all right, and she would be brought safely to Rochester in it, that was all she had to consider. Of course it would have been less lonely to have had the usual day coach passengers with her, but she thought Ned must have selected this car and she felt he knew best. Then, too, the porter had said the men were rapidly leaving their berths and as soon as they did so the colored man made the folding beds into broad velvet seats, similar to the one occupied by Dorothy.
When these seats had replaced the hanging curtains, and the comfortable places were occupied by the men who had been so lately sleeping, even though there were no women among them, Dorothy recovered from her first shock of embarrassment. The passengers all appeared to be gentlemen and not one of them seemed to even glance in her direction, though they must have realized how strange it was for a pretty girl to be the lone female passenger.
When the spasm of brushing clothes into which the porter threw himself, was finally over, which operation Dorothy could not help watching for it was done with such dispatch, and when the men had gone to the dining car for breakfast or become engrossed in their newspapers, she tried to map out her day’s programme.
“I will get off at Rochester,” she told herself, “and then I’ll inquire for the Criterion Theatre.” She looked at the slip of paper which she carried so carefully in the little brown leather wrist bag. “Then,” she went on, “if the company has left Rochester I will go to Rockdale. But if it should get dark!” she cried in a low wail of terror. “If it should get dark and I should be all alone in a strange city!”
Then came the thought of the folks at home and how they would worry if night came on and she did not reach them. Was ever a girl so situated?
All sorts of dangers flashed before her mind, and now, though too late, she realized sharply how unfit a young girl is to cope with a big, strange world, how little the world cares for a girl’s tender feelings, and how cold and heartless it is when she tries to make her way through the city streets alone, yet crowded on every side by a throng of other human beings.
“But Tavia had to go through it,” concluded Dorothy, “and I must not be less brave than was she.”
The train was somewhat delayed on the run from Buffalo to Rochester, so it was almost noon when Dorothy reached the latter city.
On a slip of paper she had the directions of the theatre she wished to visit, and at the ticket station learned where the building was located. Then off she started, with never a look at the shop windows filled with wonderful displays of all kinds. She soon found the amusement resort, and stepping into the lobby, approached the ticket window and asked timidly:
“Can you tell me where the ‘Lady Rossmore’s Secret’ company is playing to-night?”
The man looked at her sharply. Then he smiled so ironically that Dorothy’s heart gave a painful thump, and a great lump came into her throat.
“‘Lady Rossmore’s Secret’ company,” he repeated, with the most prolonged and distracting drawl. “I guess there isn’t any. It’s down and out. Didn’t play to a house here last night big enough to pay the gas bills.”
“But the members of the company?” asked Dorothy with a choke in her voice.
“Hum! How should I know?” he asked with a sneer. “In jail, maybe, for not paying their board bills.”
For a moment Dorothy felt that she must cry out and tell him that the matter was very vital to her – that she must find a young and friendless girl who was a member of the company; but she realized what sort of a man he was and her better judgment asserted itself.
“But are there any members of the company in this city?” she persisted bravely, trying to keep up her courage, so as to get a clue as to the whereabouts of Tavia.
“In this city?” he repeated with the same distracting drawl. “Well, no. They managed to get out of here before the sheriff could attach their baggage and the scenery, which he was ready to do. They certainly were as poor a company as we ever had in this theatre. It was awful. Oh, no, they didn’t dare stay here.”
“Then where did they go?”
“Rockdale was their next booked place, but maybe they didn’t dare go there, for fear some word had been sent on ahead,” the ticket seller sneered.
“How can I get to Rockdale?” asked the girl, trying to keep back her tears.
“Get there on a train, of course,” and the man turned back to the paper he had been reading when Dorothy came in. Perhaps he was angry because she had not purchased a ticket to the current attraction.
“If you would be – be kind enough to direct me,” pleaded Dorothy. “I am a stranger here, and I must find a – a young girl who is with that company.”
Something in her voice and manner seemed to touch the rather indifferent man, for he straightened up in his tall chair and looked squarely and more kindly at Dorothy.
“Oh, that’s it, is it? I didn’t know. I have a lot of silly girls always asking about traveling companies after they’ve left here, and I thought you might be one of them. Now you’re talking. Yes, of course, certainly. If you’ve got to find anybody connected with that company you’d better be quick about it, for I should think there wouldn’t be much left of ’em by this time. I heard they had quite a time of it getting their trunks away from here. Held up for board, you know. But of course they’re used to that sort of thing.”
Dorothy took hold of the brass rail in front of her as she turned away from the window. She felt as if she could hardly stand any more of the man’s veiled insinuations. But it might not be true – surely it could not be true – it was only his cruel, teasing way. Tavia could not be in such distress.
“How can I get there?” Dorothy repeated.
“If you want to get to Rockdale,” the ticket seller answered after a pause, “you can take the train at twelve forty-five.”
“Thank you,” murmured Dorothy, turning dizzily toward the street to make her way to the station she had so recently left. How she managed to reach the place she never knew. The great buildings along the way seemed about to topple over on her head. Her temples were throbbing and her eyes shot out streaks of flashing light. Her knees trembled under her. If only she had time to get something to eat! But she must not miss that train. It might be the last one that day.
Through the crowd of waiting persons she made her way to the ticket office and purchased the slip of cardboard that entitled her to a ride. She learned that the train was late and that she would have to wait ten minutes. Grateful for that respite Dorothy turned to the little lunch counter to get a sandwich, and some coffee. But, before she had reached the end of the big depot where refreshments were sold, she suddenly stopped – some one had grabbed her skirt.
Turning quickly Dorothy beheld a crouching, cringing figure, almost crawling so as to hide herself in the crowd.
“Girl!” cried Dorothy, trying to shake off the grasp on her skirt. “Let me go! What do you want?”
“Don’t you know me?” whispered the miserable creature. “Look again – don’t you know – Urania, the Gypsy girl?”
Then beneath the rags and the appearance of age that seemed, in so short a time to have hidden the identity of this young girl, Dorothy did recognize Urania. How wretched – how forlorn she was; and even in danger of arrest if she was seen begging in the depot.
“Don’t turn away from me, Miss!” pleaded the unfortunate Gypsy girl. “Please help me!”
She stretched out to Dorothy a dirty, trembling hand. The gate to the Rockdale train had been thrown open, and Dorothy felt that the time was almost up.
“You should go home,” she said, dropping a coin into the outstretched palm.
“Yes, yes, I want to go home,” cried the girl, and Dorothy was afraid her voice would attract attention in the crowd. But the passengers were too busy rushing for their trains to heed anything else. “I want to go home,” pleaded Urania. “You should take me home, – it was your fine cousin – the boy with the taffy-colored hair – that brought me here!”
“What!” cried Dorothy. “How dare you say such a thing?”
“Ask him, then, if it isn’t so. And ask him if he wasn’t in this very station an hour ago, looking for some one – that red-headed girl, likely.”
“Do you mean to say you saw my cousin here to-day?” gasped Dorothy. “Come; tell me the truth and you shall go home – I’ll take you home myself – only tell me the truth.”
“Yes, I’ll do it,” answered the girl. “Well, him and his brother came in here an hour ago. They asked the man at the window if he had seen a young girl with a brown hand bag. I stood near to listen, but kept out of sight. Then they dashed off again before I could ask them for a penny, or throw it up to that dandy that it was the ride he gave me in the auto that brought me to this.”
“Don’t talk so!” exclaimed Dorothy, much shocked. “Do you want to go back to the camp where your people are?” She was too dumfounded at the news to argue with the wild creature.
“Yes, oh, yes, back to the camp!” and Urania’s eyes flashed. “They’ll take me back. Even Melea would not turn me out now for I am sick and sorrowful.”
It needed but a glance to see that in this, at least, the girl spoke truthfully.
“Come,” ordered Dorothy, “I’ll take care of you. But first I must get something to eat. We have a few minutes.”
Without heeding the attention she attracted by almost dragging the beggar girl up to the lunch counter, Dorothy made her way there and ordered coffee and sandwiches for both. She hurriedly disposed of her own share, being only a little behind Urania, who ate as though famished. Then, hastily procuring another ticket, she bolted through the door, followed by the Gypsy, who seemed to take it all as a matter of course.
The ride was, for the most part, a silent one. Dorothy was busy with her thoughts, and the Gypsy girl was almost afraid to speak.
“But you will see me to my home – to the camp?” she pleaded once.
“Yes,” answered Dorothy. “But you must have patience – I have something more important to attend to first.”
“I can wait,” answered the little Gypsy.
The Rockdale station was a brick structure, with a modest waiting-room for women passengers at the far end. It was there that Dorothy took Urania as they left the train which steamed away into the distance. The room was without a single occupant, a matter of rejoicing to Dorothy, as she had already experienced considerable difficulty in passing with Urania through the ordinary marts of travel.
“Now you stay here,” she told the Gypsy girl, “and I’ll go out and get you something. You must be sure to stay in this corner, and eat carefully so as not to make crumbs. If the station agent should speak to you while I’m gone, just tell him you are waiting for – for a lady, who told you not to leave this room until she returned.”
Willingly enough Urania sank down on a corner of the bench, and tried to smile her thanks at Dorothy. But Dorothy was too excited to notice the feeble effort. She hurried to a little store opposite the station, bought some crackers and cakes, and after putting the package into the Gypsy’s hands, with another word of caution, was off again, this time to find the Lyceum Theatre.
It seemed to Dorothy that any place must be easy to find in a small town, and when she was directed to the theatre by a man on the street, she was not surprised to find that it was but a few blocks from the depot.
Hurrying along, she reached a big hall, for the Lyceum, in spite of its name, was nothing but a big country hall, with the additional attraction of iron fire escapes. She knocked at the big broad wooden door, but soon discovered that the place was locked up and, evidently, deserted. She made a number of inquiries of boys she saw nearby, but all the information she could elicit from the urchins amounted to nothing more than laughter and “guying” to the effect that the company had come to grief in its attempt to give Rockdale folks a hint as to what Lady Rossmore’s “Secret” was. It appeared that the company had arrived in town, but had at once gotten into legal difficulties because of some trouble back in Rochester.
“But where are the members of the company?” Dorothy asked of one boy who was larger than his companions, and who had not been so ready to make fun of the unfortunates.
“Some’s gone back home I guess, that is if they has homes – some’s hanging ’round the hotel, where their trunks was attached as soon as the baggage man brought ’em in – some’s sitting around on the benches in the green. Guess none of ’em had any dinner to-day, for them hotel people is as mean as dirt.”
“Where is the hotel?”
“That’s the hotel, over there,” answered the boy, pointing to a building on the opposite corner. “Mansion House, they call it, though I never could see much of a mansion about that old barn.”
The afternoon was wearing away and Dorothy felt that she must make all possible haste if she was to get back to North Birchland that night, as she knew she must for her own sake. So, thanking the boy she hurried over to the hotel, and, after making some inquiries of a number of loungers on the broad, low veranda, was directed to the office.
She asked some questions regarding the whereabouts of members of the theatrical company, but the man at the dingy old desk was inclined to make inquiries himself, rather than answer Dorothy’s. He wanted to know if she had called to settle up for any of the “guys” and if not he demanded to know if she took him for a bureau of information or a public phonograph, and he grinned delightfully at his feeble wit.
“I don’t keep tabs on every barn-storming theatrical company,” he growled out. “Much as I kin do to look after their baggage and see they don’t skin me – that’s my game in a case like this.”
Dorothy pleaded with him to give her any information he might have as to the whereabouts of any girl or woman member of the company, but he was ugly, evidently because of the loss of some money or patronage in connection with the theatrical fiasco, and would not give so much as an encouraging word.
Dorothy looked about but could see no one who seemed to be an actor or actress. She had learned in a measure to know the type. Fairly sick and disheartened she turned away. How could she give up now, when she felt that Tavia must be almost within hearing of her voice? How loudly her heart cried out! Surely some kind fate would bear that cry to Tavia’s ear and bring her to her friend Dorothy – for now Dorothy felt that she could hardly go many steps farther in her weary search.
She heard a train steam into the station and go on without making a stop.
“Oh,” thought Dorothy, “if we could only get a train back again soon! But I can not give her up! I must – must find her wherever she is!”
Exhausted and discouraged, she sank down by the roadside at a grassy spot where the street turned into a country park. She felt that she must cry – she would feel better when she had cried – out there alone – away from the cruel persons – away from the seemingly cruel fate that was so relentlessly urging her on beyond her strength – beyond the actual power of human endurance. Was there ever so wretched a girl as was Dorothy Dale at that moment? Yes, she would indulge in a good cry – she knew it would relieve her nerves – and then she could go on.
The rough boys, playing nearby saw the girl sitting beside the road and, whether out of kindness or curiosity they hastened over to the place and stood looking down at Dorothy in respectful silence.
“Did they do anyt’ing to youse?” asked a little fellow with a ring of vengeance in his small, shrill voice. “Dem hotel guys is too fresh, an’ me fader is goin’ – he’s goin’ t’ do somet’ing to dem if dey don’t look out.”
“Dat’s right,” spoke up another. “His fader is de sheriff an’ he’s goin’ t’ ’rest ’em, if dey don’t pay der own bills, fer all der talk of holdin’ de show trunks.”
Dorothy raised her head. Surely these boys were trying to comfort her in their own rough but earnest way. Perhaps they could help her look for Tavia.
“Do any of you know where the girls of this company are now?” she asked of the boys collectively. “I am searching for a girl with brown hair – ”
She stopped abruptly, realizing how useless it would be to give these boys a description of Tavia.
“I sawr a girl wit a big kind of a hat and a little satchel, an’ I know she was wit de show,” volunteered a red-haired urchin. “I was right alongside of her when she bought five cents’ wort’ of cakes at Rooney’s, an’ after dat I seen her sittin’ on a bench in de green.”
“Honest?” asked an older boy severely, turning to the one who had given the information. “No kiddin’ now, Signal, or we’ll blow out your red light,” this reference being to the boy’s brilliant hair. “We want t’ help dis gurl t’ find de young lady, don’t we fellers?”
“Sure,” came in a ready chorus.
“I did see her,” protested Signal, rubbing his hand over his fiery locks and rumpling them up until they looked like a brush heap ablaze. “I sawr her less ’n hour ago.”
“Where?” asked Dorothy, eagerly.
“On a bench in de green.” And the lad pointed out the direction to Dorothy.
She followed the road to the end and there, stretching out before her was an open common, or the green, as the boys called it. In the centre was a little park, where a pretty fountain sent a spray of sparkling water high into the air. Arranged about it were benches, under shady bowers formed by overhanging bushes, and there were clumps of shrubbery that separated the seats, and concealed them.
Dorothy walked straight to the fountain. She sank down on a bench where she could watch the spurting water and listen to the cool tinkle as it fell into the basin. The sun shone through the spray, making a small rainbow.
It looked like a sign of hope, but she was too discouraged and dispirited to place much faith in it. She wanted to see Tavia; yet where was she? Here was the park the boys had spoken of, but there was no sign of the missing girl.
Dorothy felt she could not stay there long. After a few minutes’ rest she arose to make a circuit of the little park, hoping she might have overlooked some spot where Tavia might be. As she crossed back of a clump of shrubbery she saw the skirt of a girl’s dress showing on the border of a little side path. It riveted her attention. She turned down the path.
There sat a girl – a most forlorn looking girl – her head buried in her arms that rested on the back of a bench. Dorothy could see her shoulders heaving under the stress of heavy sobs.
She started! She held her breath! It looked like – yet could it be her – was it – she feared to ask herself the question.
The girl on the bench raised her tear-stained face. She looked full at Dorothy.
“Tavia!” screamed Dorothy, springing forward.
“Dorothy!” echoed Tavia.
There was a rush, and the next instant Dorothy Dale held Tavia clasped close in her arms, while she murmured, over and over again:
“Tavia! Dear Tavia! I have found you at last! Oh, I am so glad!”
Tavia could only sob.