Old-Dad

By Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Old-Dad" by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DigiCat
• Release date: Aug 1, 2022
• ISBN: 8596547144137

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Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

Old-Dad

EAN 8596547144137

DigiCat, 2022

Contact: [e-mail]

Table of Contents

PART I

PART II

PART I

OLD-DAD

I

II

III

PART II

I

II

III

PART I

Table of Contents

PART II

Table of Contents

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PART I

Table of Contents

OLD-DAD

Table of Contents

I

Table of Contents

1

UNTIL Daphne Bretton's peremptory departure from college she had neither known nor liked her father well enough to distinguish him with a nick name. But on that momentous day in question, when blurting into the problematical presence of an unfamiliar parent in an unfamiliar room in an unfamiliar city she flung her unhappy news across his book-cluttered desk, the appellation slipped from her stark lips as though it were the only fluid phrase in a wooden-throated world.

Old-Dad! she said, I have been expelled from college!

From under the incongruous thatch of his snow-white hair her young father lifted his extraordinarily young face with a snarl like the snarl of a startled animal.

Why?—Why Daphne! he gasped. "What?"

With her small gloved hand fumbling desperately at the great 2 muffly collar of her coat the young girl repeated her statement.

I—I have been expelled from college! she said.

Yes, but Daphne!—What for? demanded her father. His own face was suddenly as white as hers, his lips as stark. What for? he persisted.

Twice the young girl's lips opened and shut in an utter agony of inarticulation. Then quite sharply the blonde head lifted, the shoulders squared, and the whole slender, quivering little body braced itself to meet the traditional blow of the traditional Avenger.

For—for having a boy in my room—at night, said the girl.

Before the dumb, abject misery in the young blue eyes that lifted so heavily to his, a grin like the painted grin on a sick clown's face shot suddenly across the father's mobile mouth.

Oh I hope he was a nice boy! he said quite abruptly. Blonde or brunette?

Why—Why—Father! stammered the girl. I—I thought you would—3 would kill me!

Kill you? mumbled her father. More essentially at the moment he seemed concerned with an overturned bottle of ink that was splashing its sinister pool across his morning's work. Kill you? he repeated vaguely. Across the high, intervening barrier of books and catalogues he craned his neck suddenly with a certain sharp intentness.

And is your shoulder broken, too? he asked very gently.

My shoulder? quivered the girl.

It sags so, murmured her father.

It's my suit-case, said the girl. My heavy suit-case.

Why not put it down? asked the man.

Across the young girl's fluctuant face a dozen new miseries flared hotly.

I didn't—just know—whether you'd want me to put it down, she said.

You've come home, haven't you? questioned the man. Home is supposed to be where your father is, isn't it?

It never has been, said the girl quite simply.

Like a clash of swords the man's eyes smote across the girl's 4 and the girl's across the man's. The ironic grin was still twisting wryly at one corner of the man's mouth but under the mocking fend of his narrowing eye lids a glisten of tears showed suddenly.

Oh—Father, rallied the girl. They called me an evil name! They—— With a gesture of ultimate bewilderment and despair she took a single step towards him. Oh, Father, she gasped. "What is it about boys that makes it so wicked to have them around?" And pitched over headlong in a dead faint at his feet.

When blackness turned into whiteness again she found herself lying limply in the big Oxford chair before the fire with a slate-colored hound sniffing rather interrogatively at her finger-tips and the strange man whom she had called father leaning casually with one elbow on the mantel-piece while he stood staring down at her through a great, sweet, foggy blur of cigarette smoke.

Wh—what is the blue dog's name? she asked a bit vaguely.

Creep-Mouse, said the man.

I'm—I'm glad there's a dog, she whispered. 5

So it's all right now, is it? smiled the man. The smile was all in his eyes now and frankly mechanical still—a faint flare of mirth through a quizzical fretwork of pain.

Yes, it's all right—now, said the girl, unless of course—— Edging weakly forward to the front of the chair she clutched out gropingly for its cool, creaking straw arms and straightened up suddenly very stiff and tense. Aren't you even going to ask me, she faltered, what the boy was doing in my room—at night?

Oh, of course, I'm only human, admitted her father. Very leisurely as he spoke he stopped to light a fresh cigarette and stood for a moment blowing innumerable rings of smoke into space. Only somehow—that's a matter, he smiled, that I'd rather hear directly from the boy himself!

From the boy himself? stammered the girl. With her slender, silken-shod limbs, the short skirt of the day, the simple blouse, the tousled hair, she looked for all the world like a 6 little child just jumping up to play. Why—why he's here now! she said.

"Here now? cried her father. Where?"

Downstairs, said the girl. We came on together.

Came on together? demanded her father. From college, you mean? Two days and a night?

Yes, said the girl.

With a sharp intake of his breath that might have meant anything the man stepped suddenly forward.

Towering to her own little height the girl stood staunchly to meet him.

Why you don't think for one single moment that—that it was fun, do you? she questioned whitely. You don't think for one single solitary little moment that I wanted him to come, do you? Or that there was anything very specially amusing for him in the coming? Whiter and whiter the little face lifted. It was only that he said I couldn't come alone to—to face whatever had to be faced. And if he came first he said it would seem like telling tales on me instead of on himself. So——

Go and get him! said her father quite sharply. 7

With unquestioning obedience the girl started for the door. Half way across the rug she stopped and swung round squarely.

He will say it was all his fault, she said. But it wasn't! I—I sort of dared him to do it!

Just a minute! called her father. When you come back with him——

Am I to come back with him? protested the girl.

When you come back with him—— repeated her father, if I ask him to be seated you may leave the room at once—at once, you understand? But if I shouldn't ask him to sit down——

Then I am to stay and—see it through? shivered the girl.

Then you are to stay and see it through, said her father.

With a little soft thud the door shut between them.

When it opened again the man was still standing by the fireplace blowing gray smoke into space. With a casualness that savored 8 almost of affectation he stopped to light another cigarette before glancing up half askance to greet the hesitant footstep on the threshold.

Why, come in! he ordered.

Without further parleying the two young people appeared before him.

In the five minutes of her absence the young girl seemed to have grown younger, smaller, infinitely more broken even than her father had remembered her. But almost any girl would have looked unduly frail perhaps before the superbly handsome and altogether stalwart young athlete who loomed up so definitely beside her.

As though his daughter suddenly had ceased to exist the father's glance narrowed sharply towards the boy's clean young figure—the eager, worried eyes—the sensitive nostril—the grimly resolute young mouth, and in that glance a gasp that might have meant anything slipped through his own lips.

You're—you're a keen looking lad! he said. But I think I could lick you at tennis!

Sir? faltered the boy.

Quizzically but not unkindly the man resumed his stare. I don't 9 think I happen to have heard your name, he affirmed with some abruptness.

Wiltoner, said the boy. Richard Wiltoner.

Sit down, Richard, said the man.

Like some tortured creature at bay the boy turned sharply to the window and back towards the door again.

No, I thank you, Sir! he protested. I simply couldn't sit down! Restively he crossed to the bookcase and swung around with a jerk to rake his impatient eyes across the girl's lingering presence. Maybe I'll never sit down again! he said.

Nor eat? drawled the older man. Nor—sleep?

Nor eat, nor sleep! said the boy.

Yes, that's just it, whispered the girl. That's just the way he was on the train—miles and miles it must have been—from the engine to the last car—all the time I mean—night and day—stalking up and down—up and down!

Little Stupid! said her father.

Who?—I? gasped the girl. For a second bewilderment she stared 10 from the man's face to the boy's. O—h! she cried out in sudden enlightenment. "You asked him to sit down, didn't you?" And fled from the room.

With a shiver of relief the boy turned squarely then to meet the man. The quizzically furrowed lines around the man's mouth still held their faint ironic humor but the boy's face in the full light showed strangely stark.

Well—Lad, said the man very softly. What have you got to tell me about it?

Why that's just it! cried the boy. What is there to tell except that I've been a thoughtless cad—a——

How—thoughtless? said the man.

And that your daughter isn't one bit to blame! persisted the boy. Not one bit! And for the rest of it—— he cried out desperately. What am I expected to say? What ought I to say? For God's sake what do you want me to say? Oh, of course, I've read yarns, he flushed. French novels and all that sort of thing, but when it comes down to one's self and a—and a girl you know——Why—what's the matter with everybody? he demanded 11 furiously. "A fellow isn't rotten just because he's a fellow! And it isn't even as though I had wanted to be rotten but wasn't! I never thought of being rotten! Hotter and hotter the red shame flared in his face. It's a nasty, dirty, evil-minded world! he stormed. Why you'd think to hear Miss Merriwayne talk that——"

Miss who? said the older man.

Miss Merriwayne, said the boy. Claudia Merriwayne—the president of the college, you know.

No, I didn't know, said the man.

She's a fiend! said the boy. An utterly merciless—— In a hectic effort to regain his self-control he bit the sentence in two and began to repace the room. There—there was a dance at the college that night, he resumed at last with reasonable calmness.

I don't go in much for that sort of thing. I don't live in town, you see, but miles and miles outside. I'm just a 'farmer,' you know, he confided with his first faint ghost of a smile. My brother and I have a bit of a ranch outside. We're trying very hard to be 'scientific farmers.' It's the deuce of a job! And 12 whenever there comes a night that I've got 'pep' enough to stay awake I'd rather ride somehow than fuss around with people. Sometimes I ride all night! I've got a horse named Brainstorm! And he's some devil! In the instant's transfiguring glow he was all young god again, superb, defiant. Then as though with a spasm of pain his young mouth tightened to a single determinate line. With the air of one suddenly very tired he stopped his restless pacing and backed into the supporting angle of the bookcase.

But on this particular night—that I was telling you about,