Bobbie, General Manager: A Novel

by Olive Higgins Prouty

To save Oliver from disgrace cost me a big price. I paid Alec's confidence and respect to buy Oliver's honour. Sisters ought not to have preferences among their brothers, but, Father, you know, you—before whom now there is no deceiving or pretending—you know that there is no one in the world to me like Alec. Why, Oliver and I used to fight like cats and dogs. Ruth is Oliver's favourite. I don't know why I was putting myself to so much trouble for Oliver, breaking my heart to save his reputation. Father would have put Oliver into the mills; Tom would have put him there; Alec also; but at night when I look at the sad profile over my bed, that face which only until lately had been simply an old-fashioned picture of my mother, I wonder what she would have done. I know Mrs. Maynard would have sold her soul to protect her son's reputation. Perhaps I was saving Oliver from disgrace for the sake of my "best friend." At any rate there was no going back now.

Meal-time of course was dreadful. There was no connected conversation. The clatter of the slumpy general-housework girl, as she piled up our plates and took them away, was more annoying than ever, when we all simply sat and listened. It's a difficult thing, too, to ask for the bread, and avoid glancing at the person who passes it. I didn't join Alec in the sitting-room any more by the drop-light; I didn't hurry downstairs to meet him at noon; I didn't ask him if he were tired.

"Please, Alec, say something!" I said, almost desperate, at the end of the third day.

I didn't know Alec could be so hard and unforgiving. His reply made me feel awfully sympathetic and kind toward Oliver, or any one else who might have made a mistake. It seems that, besides shattering my brother's entire confidence in my honesty, I had shocked his sense of propriety in accepting money from Dr. Maynard. To call it a business transaction appealed to Alec as absolutely absurd. He assured me that he was going to pay every cent of Will's money back to him. I started to reply, but Alec shrugged his shoulders and turned away.

"I don't want to talk about it, Lucy. Let us not argue about a matter in which your honesty and reliability is so involved. I had such faith in you! I could have forgiven you your lack of pride—your utter ignorance of the proprieties in spite of your nineteen years, in accepting sixty dollars from a friend! But you have been dishonest. You knew as well as I the seriousness of your offence when you borrowed from the Household Account placed in your name at the bank. No, please, do not answer me. For what is there for you to say?"

I didn't know. I went upstairs—not to cry, not to grieve, but to sit down in my black walnut rocker by the window and think bitter thoughts. I didn't care if I had been improper; I didn't care if Alec was unjust and willing to believe the worst of me; I didn't care! I had sixty good, crisp dollars tucked safely away in a little chamois bag in the bandbox where I keep my best Sunday-go-to-meeting hat, and when my allowance came due on December first I should have seventy-five. I didn't care if all the world turned against me. I had accomplished what I had set out to do, and no one could rob me of my victory anyhow.

I had it all planned that on December first I would deposit the seventy-five dollars in the bank and make out a check for Oliver immediately. But something happened which made quicker action necessary.

When December third, Oliver's fateful day, was about a week off I received another letter from him. In his haste, in directing it, he had omitted the state, and the letter had travelled to a Hilton, New York, which I never knew was on the map, before it found its way to me three days later.

"The business meeting has been set forward to November twenty-sixth, so you better send the check on the twenty-fourth, at the latest. You've been a trump to get it for me, and if you're good, I'll have both you and Ruth down for a game sometime, with a spread in my room."

I didn't read any farther. I reached for my calendar. I found the twenty-sixth. I followed the column up to the days of the week. Yes—as sure as I was alive—Saturday! To-day was Saturday. To-day was November twenty-sixth! Oliver must have seventy-five dollars to-day!