CHAPTER XVII
THE ODDS AGAINST HIM
"Horrid taste she has, I must say," drawled Marian. Marian was the eldest of the Tapp girls. To tell the truth (but this is strictly in confidence and must go no further!) she had been christened Mary Ann after Israel Tapp's commonplace mother. That, of course, was some time before I. Tapp, the Salt Water Taffy King, had come into his kingdom and assumed the robe and scepter of his present financial position.
"Oh!" ejaculated Cecile. "That's Judson Bane, the Broadway star, she's walking with. I'd like to know him myself."
"You coarse little thing!" drawled Marian.
"And you not out yet!" Prue, the second sister, observed cuttingly.
"You're only a child. I wish you'd learn your place and keep it."
"Oh, fudge!" responded L'Enfant Terrible, not deeply impressed by these sisterly admonitions.
Marian was twenty-six—two years Lawford's senior. She was a heavy, lymphatic girl, fast becoming as matronly of figure as her mother. She still bolstered up her belief that she had matrimonial prospects; but the men who wanted to marry her she would not have while those she desired to marry would not have her. Marian Tapp was becoming bored.
Prue was a pretty girl. She was but nineteen. However, she had likewise assumed a bored air after being in society a single season.
"That big actor man will put poor Fordy's nose out of joint with the film lady," Prue said. "Look out for that dog, Cis. It's the Perritons'. If you run over him——"
"Nasty little thing!" grumbled Cecile.
"And the apple of Sue Perriton's eye," drawled Marian. "Be careful what you are about, Cecile. It all lies with the Perritons whether we get into society this season or not."
"And that Mrs. Conroth who is with them," put in Prue. "She is the real thing—the link between the best of New York and Albany society. Old family—away back to the patroons—so old she has to keep moth balls hung in her family tree. My! if mother could once become the familiar friend of miladi Conroth——"
"No such luck," groaned Marian. "After all's said and done, mother can't forget the candy kitchen. She always looks to me, poor dear, as though she had just been surreptitiously licking her fingers."
"We do have the worst luck!" groaned the second sister. "There's that Dot Johnson coming. Mother says daddy insists, and when I. Tapp does put down his foot——Well!"
"We'll put her off on Fordy," suggested, the brighter-witted Cecile.
"She rather fancies Ford, I think."
"Dot Johnson!" chorused the older girls, in horror. "Not really?"
Marian continued. "The Johnsons are impossible."
"They've got more money than daddy has," said Prue.
"But they have no aspirations—none at all," murmured Marian, in horror. "If Lawford married Dot Johnson it would be almost as bad as his being mixed up with that picture actress."
"For him; not for us," said Prue promptly. "Of course, as far as the
Johnsons go, they are too respectable for anything. Poor Fordy!"
"Goodness!" snapped Cecile. "It's not all settled. The banns aren't up."
The girls wheeled into the grounds surrounding the Tapp villa just as Betty Gallup guided the Merry Andrew to the dock and leaped ashore with the mooring rope.
Tapp Point consisted of about five acres of bluff and sand. At great expense the Taffy King had terraced the bluff and had made to grow several blades of grass where none at all had been able to gain root before.
The girls saw the queer-looking Betty Gallup helping their brother out of the sloop.
"Say! something's happened to Ford, I guess," Cecile cried, stopping the car short of the porte-cochere.
"Run down and see," commanded Marian languidly.
But Prue hopped out of the roadster and started down the path immediately. She and Lawford still had a few things in common. Mutual affection was one of them.
"What's happened to him?" she cried. "You're Mrs. Gallup, aren't you?"
"I'm Bet Gallup—yes. You run call up Doc Ambrose from over to
Paulmouth. Your brother's got a bad knock on the head."
"And he's been overboard!" gasped Prue.
"I—I'm all right," stammered Lawford. "Let me lie down for a little while. Don't need a doctor."
"You're as wet as a drowned rat," his sister said. "Come on up and get some dry clothes, Ford. I'm sure you're awful kind, Mrs. Gallup. I will telephone for the doctor at once."
"You bet she's kind! Good old soul!" murmured Lawford. "I'd have been six fathoms deep if it hadn't been for Betty."
"She hauled you into the boat, did she?" Prue said in a sympathetic tone. "Well, we won't forget that."
Betty had stepped aboard the sloop again to reef down and make all taut. Her sailor-soul would not allow her to leave the lapstreak in a frowsy condition.
Meanwhile Cecile came flying down from the garage, and between his two sisters Lawford was aided up to the house. Despite the young man's protests, Dr. Ambrose was called and he rattled over in what the jolly medical man termed his "one-horse shay." That rattletrap of a second-hand car was known in every town and hamlet for miles around. Sometimes he got stalled, for the engine of the car was one of the crankiest ever built, and the good physician had to get out and proceed on foot. When this happened the man who owned a horse living nearest to the unredeemed automobile always hitched up and dragged the car home. For Dr. Ambrose was beloved as few men save a physician is ever loved in a country community.
"You got a hard crack and no mistake, young man," the physician said, plastering his patient's head in a workmanlike manner. "But you've a good, solid cranium as I've often told you. Not much to get hurt above the ears—mostly bone all the way through. Not easy to crack, like some of these eggshell heads."
Lawford felt the effects of the blow, however, for the rest of the evening. His father was away and so he had no support against the organized attack of the women of the family. Although it is doubtful if I. Tapp would have sided with his son.
"It really serves you right, Ford, for taking that movie actress sailing," drawled Marian.
"It is a judgment upon him," sighed their mother, wiping her eyes.
"Oh, Ford, if you only would settle down and not be so wild!"
"'Wild!' Oh, bluey!" murmured L'Enfant Terrible, who considered her brother a good deal of a tame cat.
"At least," Marian pursued, "you might carry on your flirtation in a less public manner."
"'Flirtation!'" ejaculated Lawford, with a spark of anger—and then settled back on the couch with a groan.
"My goodness me, Ford!" gasped Prue. "You're surely not in earnest?"
"I should hope not," drawled Marian.
"Oh, Ford, my boy——"
"Now, mother, don't turn on the sprinkler again," advised L'Enfant Terrible. "It will do you no good. And, anyway, I guess Ford hasn't any too bright a chance with the Grayling. You ought to have seen that handsome Judson Bane lean over her when they were walking up to Cap'n Abe's. I thought he was going to nibble her ear!"
"Cecile!"
"Horrid thing!" Prue exclaimed. "I don't know where she gets such rude manners."
"That boarding school last winter completely spoiled her," complained the mother. "And I sent her to it because Sue Perriton and Alice Bozewell go there."
"And I had a fine chance to get chummy with them!" snapped Cecile.
"They were both seniors."
"But really," Marian went on, "your entanglement with that movie actress is sure to make trouble for us, Ford. You might be a little more considerate. Just as we are getting in with the Perritons. And their guest, Mrs. Conroth, was really very nice to mother this morning on the beach. She has the open sesame to all the society there is on this side of the Atlantic. It's really a wonderful chance for us, Ford."
"And—he's bound—to spoil—it all!" Mrs. Tapp sobbed into an expensive bit of lace.
"You might be a good sport, Fordy, dear," urged Prue.
"Yes, Fordy; don't crab the game," added the vulgar Cecile.
"You know very well," said the elder sister, "how hard we have tried to take our rightful place here at The Beaches. We have the finest home by far; daddy's got the most money of any of them, and let's us spend it, too. And still it's like rolling a barrel up a sand bank. Just a little thing will spoil our whole season here."
"Do, do be sensible, Ford!" begged his mother.
"Sacrifice yourself for the family's good," said Prue.
"Dear Ford," began Mrs. Tapp again, "for my sake—for all our sakes—take thought of what you are doing. This—this actress person cannot be a girl you could introduce to your sisters——"
"No more of that, mother!" exclaimed the young man, patience at last ceasing to be a virtue. "Criticise me if you wish to; but I will hear nothing against Miss Grayling."
"Oh, dear! Now I have offended him again!" sobbed the matron.
"You are too utterly selfish for words!" declared Marian.
"You're a regular pig!" added Prue.
"If you get mixed up with an actress, Fordy, I'll have a fine time when
I come out, won't I?" complained Cecile.
"Caesar's ghost!" burst from the lips of the badgered young man. "I wish Betty Gallup had let me drown instead of hauling me inboard this afternoon!"