Hidden Creek | Page 3

had a strange,
arresting sort of jaw, a trifle over-accentuated and out of drawing. Her
eyes were long, flattened, narrow, the color of bubbles filled with
smoke, of a surface brilliance and an inner mistiness--indescribable
eyes, clear, very melting, wistful and beautiful under sooty lashes and
slender, arched 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