Ladies In The Parlor by Jim Tully Read Free Book Online Page B

loss, he was confused. And yet, if she remained, and a rumpus were stirred up— Leora cut in upon his thoughts, “She swears she saw us together at the Norfolk in Cincinnati —that she looked at the register, and came right home and found your wife here. I don’t care whether I get mixed up in anything or not. It can’t hurt me. You’re the only one I’m worried about.” She then assured him with, “God knows, Dr. Haley couldn’t touch me with a ten-foot pole.”
    “Suppose I took you to Chicago?”
    “When?” she asked.
    “Whenever you say . . . . tomorrow night,” said the doctor. “I have to go in three weeks anyhow, I may us well make it now. I’ll get the tickets and make the reservations. You can get the train at Bellview.”
    “All right,” returned Leora, “but what’ll I live on there?”
    “We’ll fix that up all right,” he assured her.
    She smiled as he left. Her mind still racing, she went to her aunt’s and explained everything.
    “Now what do you want to do?” asked her aunt.
    “Call Dr. Haley—if she’s there, she won’t know your voice.”
    Red Moll telephoned.
    The doctor answered. Leora took the receiver.
    “Hello, Doctor—this is me—are you alone?”
    “Yes,” he answered.
    “Well, Mrs. Haley raised the dickens this afternoon—she said she had people watch—I promised to leave for your sake—if she wouldn’t make trouble—I’m at my aunt’s—can you drive out?”
    Dr. Haley came quickly.
    Leora explained further, “She said if I left town she’d say nothing and not sue you for divorce and ruin you—I told her I needed money to travel on, and she said she wouldn’t give me a cent—so here I am.”
    If the doctor’s heart was not touched, his purse was.
    “What would you need?” he asked.
    “Oh, I don’t know, Doctor, whatever you think—all I know is I don’t want to stay around here and make trouble—I don’t care about myself—but you’ve been so good to me—and if she made trouble for you it might make you lose a lot of practice.”
    The doctor pulled a leather wallet from his pocket. “I have three hundred with me. That should tide you over for a while.” He handed her the money.
    “Oh, thank you, Doctor, you’re so grand.”
    She promised faithfully to write to him in care of Dr. Farway.
    When the doctor drove away, he said to himself, “Caught again—oh, well—it was worth it.”
    And Leora’s aunt said, “Dear me, Leora—you’re hair-trigger smart.”
    “I have to be—look at all those kids—and poor Sally”; then she laughed, “and poor me .”
    On her way home Leora thought of the many things that had happened in the past few years. They bounced like raindrops from her rapidly hardening mind.
    Suddenly in her decision to go she regretted leaving Sally. She had never given her a thought before. And now, for a moment, she was overwhelmed at her loss. Sally had waited on her almost since they were babies. She had never scolded and never complained. When Leora had scolded their mother, Sally consoled her.
    Reaching home, she explained to Sally that Dr. Farway had loaned her money— ”to get me started.” She made Sally, who never talked, promise to be more secretive still— ”not a word to Aunt, or anybody,” she cautioned.
    And Sally, who had the faith of her mother, promised over and over again.
    Leora took her to the store and bought her many new things. She gave her two hundred dollars. “Spend this on the other kids, but don’t tell where you got it.” Again Sally promised.
    That evening, as the sun glinted the dust across the room in which their mother had died, Sally began to pack Leora’s trunk.
    Dr. Farway had bought it for her a year before. Leora had pasted the lid with pictures of film actresses in half-nude costumes.
    The two girls looked at the pictures.
    “None of them can hold a candle to you, Leora,” Sally said fervently.
    The words pleased Leora. She kissed her placid sister’s