“The Melody Girl”

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3445, 19 March 1932, Page 6

“The Melody Girl”

By RUTH D. GROVES.

CHAPTER XXXV. Among the cards Beryl held in- her game with Tommy there was one ace. It was a black ace and she hoped it would trump anything that Tommy could produce. It should, she thought, as she drove slowly toward the Larkin house. It had cost her enough to impress anyone with the slightest sense of honour. And she could not believe that Tommy's character had become completely undermined. The look of worry on her face tonight (she did not often drive near the Larkin place at night) was marked. She had not seen Tommy for three weeks. The avalanche she feared had descended upon her only the day before and she was certain Tommy had not heard about it.

The night was chilly. It was early fall. Beryl had not brought a wrap and the sweater she was wearing was scarcely warm enough. She shivered slightly. "I'm always either too hot or too cold," she thought impatiently. But impatience was such a slight burden compared »with the black despair she had known. She hoped never again to feel as she had when Dr. Auguston told her, "Your voice is gone, Miss Borden."

They had left her alone. She had asked them to. And what she had thought and what she had suffered had blacked out kcr youth—left her a woman.

She was a woman to-night as she went to And Tommy. She felt charitable toward him. She might have lost her voice anyway without tramping in the dew and being out when she should have been in bed. Tommy hadn't asked her to do that. She couldn't blame him. Besides Tommy had helped her. His need was the price of her misfortune. Her future should not be sacrificed for nothing. Ever since the thought had come to her that now she could make an appeal which Tommy must listen to Beryl had resigned to the hopelessness of her situation. She even found it a relief not .to have to worry about the inadequacy of her sweater. It wouldn't matter now if she caught cold. Her voice was gone. Something in her throat had hardened. The voice wasn't coming back. Her face .was a little white but in her eyes there was a vision of Tommy —tall and slim and brown and gay. Tommy as he had been, not the unkempt loafer he had become. How she hated those blood-shot streaks in his eyes. •He had even talked roughly to her when she had dogged him Until he was exasperated.

It had happened the night Pol had got into trouble. Pol had got out of it but Tommy wouldn't have. He'd have been made the goat.

Beryl had parked her car in front of Pol's house when he and Tommy came out to get into a truck which stood in the driveway. Beryl went over to them and insisted she would follow the truck if Tommy went with Pol.

Pol looked at Tommy. "All right," he said sharply, "we'll settle this later Tom."

"I guess you know what that means," Tommy exclaimed to Beryl as Pol drove away. "I'm in bad. Pol's had about enough of you I"

"Then quit him," Beryl returned coolly, "and save yourself from being kicked out of his gang."

Tommy had sworn angrily and walked away. Pol was arrested that night. It didn't come to anything but he blamed Tommy and thereafter Tommy had evaded Beryl with complete success except for one accidental meeting.

That was three weeks ago. Irene hadn't written and Beryl hud no excuse to tempt Tommy into a talk. After to-night she would have no difficulty in seeing him or she would not want to see him. "For I'm not going to crawl to him if he isn't worth it," she told herself.. She wouldn't have planned a test for him but this one that had been thrust upon her. would measure Tommy's character for all time for Beryl.

To put a soul upon the 'dissecting table is not an agreeable thing. Beryl, in her night of struggling with her new misfortune, had grown more tolerant, yet she knew that if Tommy failed her now she could never believe in him again. She was not frightened as she might have been for believing in Tommy was all that was left to her. The thread of doubt that ran through her hope was a thin one but sufficient to make her realise what she was doing. If she lost, her life would be barren indeed.

After arriving at the Larkin house she sat awhile in her. decrepit old car and weighed the potentialities of her venture. She could ■ find nothing to induce her to turn back. And no matter what sh ■■ thought there was Tommy. She saw him as he stood in the middle of the Larkins* living room to turn on a light. The shades were up und the glaring light flooded the shabby room with a hard white. brilliance, turning it into a a stage for Beryl. She saw Tommy light a cigarette and pick up a newspaper. Then she put the palm of her hand hard on the button that sounded the horn of her car and sent forth a raucous call. She repeated it in rapid succession several times, making it too peremptory for anyone to ignore—least of all Tommy who might reas-

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onably expect that it was one of the crowd calling him. Beryl held her breath as he came to answer the call. She had purposely parked her car in the shadow of a large maple tree. Tommy did not recognise it until he was within speaking distance. Then he swore under his breath and prepared to retreat but Beryl was out of the car in a flash and clinging to his arm. "Don't be a coward!" she challenged. "Besides there's no one home, is there?"

"Why can't you mind your own business?" Tommy retorted. "That's just what I am doing," Beryl said. "Please come with me Tommy somewhere where we can talk. I want to tell you something—about myself. I'm in trouble too, now." Tommy drew back and tried to peer at her in the semi-darkness. People rarely thought of giving Beryl sympathy. She never seemed to need it. Beryl continued urging while he hesitated. Her voice was fraught with despair and it was genuine. She clutched at Tommy! suddenly afraid with a blind unreasoning fear, that he would not listen to her.

"Please, Tommy. • You've always helped me when I needed you. Don't you see, I need you now,? There's no one else I can talk to."

Tommy turned batik toward the car. "Get in," he said gruffly. "I don't want you hanging around here. Pol won't stand for it."

"You drive," Beryl said, and slipped into the seat at the right. She was trembling so she could not have held the wheel steadily. Tommy became aware of her increasing agitation.

"What's the matter with you" he asked bluntly.

Words to answer him were jumbled in Beryl's mind. She did not know which to use. How could she know which to use. How could she tell him?

Suddenly she put her face down in her hands and Tommy was astonished to hear the sobs that were torn from her lips. He drove the car to the side of the road and stopped.

_Beryl crying, was a complete stranger to him. "Gee," he said awkwardly like a little boy, "gee, Beryl, don't cry." Beryl lifted her head. "I know," she said, "it's a nice way to act after dragging you out here to listen to me." She dabbed viciously at her eyes. "I've had a tough break Tommy. It's tough for you, too, because I've got to tell you the truth. My voice is gone. I may never sing again and . . and they say it wouldn't have happened if I'd obeyed the doctor."

"Why didn't you?" Tommy asked logically enough. "Because I couldn't," Beryl told him. "It was you, Tommy. You needed a friend. And you can't deny that there were times when you'd have got in a lot deeper with Pol if you hadn't had me on your trail."

"Yes," Tommy admitted, "I guess that's so. Do you mean that —" He paused and Beryl finished for him.

"I should have been in bed when I was chasing all over the country looking after you," she declared. "And now, Tommy, it's a showdown. I've paid a big price to help you. I'm not going to cry any more but I can't endure it unless you make it count for something. If you do I won't oare. I'll even be glad."

Tommy stirred restlessly. "What can I do?" he asked vaguely. "You can be yourself now and quit the Larkin gang. You know you can't slick with them forever, Tommy. I'll bet you're sick of it already. They know how to take care of themselves better than you ever will, but they'll slip some day. You're not a fool, Tommy. You know that. Come on back with me now—come to our house. We owe you a lot —our family—but you owe me more. And I'm licked, if I've got to admit that all I had to hold to on this old earth has gone down before the viciousness of Pol Larkin.

"Think of it, Tommy," she hurried on, "my whole future —everything that has given me a chance to lift myself out of the routine of working in a grocery store. I'll have to go back to that now, and I loved singing. I love the luxuries I never had before. It's horrible to think that I lost all that just because certain men are crooks! But I won't mind if it proves you're what I think you are. You've never been a welcher or a double-crosser, Tommy. You've always been regular. And now it's up to you to make good. I've bought your release from the Larkins with everything I had. Will you take it, or will you let me down?"

CHAPTER XXXVI. "All's right with the world —" Beryl turned swiftly to Tommy. "Isn't that a wonderful line?" she exclaimed rapturously. 'Look at that harbour I No, don't, for you'd surely drive us straight into the sunset. You couldn't take your eyes from it." Tommy grinned and swerved the car, pretending to lose control of it. Beryl laughed. "It knows which is its sunny side," she said. "I never knew a nicer brought-up car, did you?" "I never did. It curtsies every time it sees a Lincoln." "So much better behaved than its

new brothers and sisters," Beryl said snootily. "Better get your nose down before some bee mistakes it for a buttercup," Tommy told her. And so they drove along, care-free and merry. If each had a dark cloud in memory it was kept for private viewing and never brought out to spoil the sunny hours they spent together. Beryl was particularly happy this day. It was Sundiy and the grocery store was closed. Tommy too was released from his labours in a garage. And to-morrow he would return to college—to night classes, keeping the new job,,making his own way and proving to Beryl's entire satisfaction that he always paid his debts in full.

It has not been easy for him. Pol Larkin had given him a nasty beating but Tommy considered himself lucky to escape without a. cracked head. And his uncle's attitude when Tommy went back home had made it impossible to ask help of him. Tommy had stayed one night, refusing to accept Beryl's offer. The next night he slept at the garage. Then he took a cu!bby-hole in a nearby rooming house.

Like many a person who seems negative at times Tommy could see a thing he believed in through to a satisfactory conclusion. And he was determined now to be his own man. Beryl loved him deeply. She wondered at times if Tommy realised this. She'd tried to place all that had passed upon a basis of friendship. Tommy wasn't conceited. She had that to count on. He'd always accepted her in a matter-of-fact way. Of course another boy . -. . but she'd always been in Tommy's life. "Just like that wart on his thumb," she thought whimsically.

It was true. Tommy had not questioned her motive for salvaging him. It seemed the natural thing for Beryl

to do. Neither had he delved into or sought to analyse her need of him. It seemed the natural thing for her to come to him when she was in trouble. He did not think about Beryl. It was Irene who occupied Tommy's thoughts. She was a sweet fragrance in his memory. He did not blame her for discarding him. Beryl, hopelessly in love with him, lied about Irene. When he asked for news of her sister and there was no news she invented some. Oh, yes, they'd had a letter from Irene on Tuesday (but it might have been two Tuesdays past). She could trust her mother not to give her away in this practice for Mrs Everett said little of Irene's communications to them. Mr Everett was less reticent, but Tommy rarely encountered him, for Mr Everett was working late at the store these days. His helper had been let out for lack of funds and work that Mr Everett had done in the day time he was doing now at night. Beryl and her mother made the salads and cakes to increase the family income but most of Beryl's time was spent in the store. Shortly after she resumed her duties as cashier she realised with sinking heart that the business was headed toward disaster. All her own funds were exhausted, spent in large sums to the New York specialist.

When she spoke to her father about this state of affairs he acknowledged wearily that he knew it as well as she did. "I've begged your mother to write to Irene to help us out," he confessed "but she says we have no business bothering Irene." "She knows Irene," Beryl commented dryly. "If that girl's generous, then Shylock was a Santa Claus. Look at the things sha's sent mother, a pair of silk gloves and rubber exerciser 1"

(To be continued.)