Manhattan Holiday

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 257, 10 November 1939, Page 3 (Supplement)

Manhattan Holiday

IWO days before Christmas ! Scurrying snowflakes, riding a northwestern gale, drifted subway entrances and street intersections; doing their usual best to disorganise traffic and add to the prevailing confusion. Inside the big New York store distraught shoppers and wearied salesgirls testified that the annual outburst of giving and receiving was reaching its peak.

unsteady feet and stretched out pleading arms to her, wailing as he strove to scale the bars of the cot. “I can’t stay,” protested Sara, “hush, darling, be quiet. Mama will come to you ” “He seems to know you,” suggested Miss Minnis grimly. “But of course if you give me your name and address -” “I don’t live in New York,” explained Sara eagerly. “I’ve just come from Canada ” “From across the line, eh?” The detective’s lips tightened. “I’m sorry, moddarn, we can’t keep the child here without further information. Where are you stopping in New York?" “At the Ladies’ Club,” began Sara. Then she stopped, appalled by a sudden recollection. All the other teachers on the excursion had gone to the club at once to register before starting on their pursuit of culture. But Sara, with incurable frivolity, had asked her chum, Julia Watson, to take her bags with her, and had started •for the stores, expecting to register later. Her purchases had been sent to the chib in Julia’s care, and now a frantic ’phone call elicited the information that Julia and the other teachers were out! Sara knew no one in the city except Hugo Plaxton, and she had not wanted to see him until he called for her at the club at seven. Then, glamorously gowned, scented and perfectly coif Ted, she had planned to step from the elevator and greet him. • The child’s moist little fingers clung to her own. Hugo was so thrillingly eligible, so spectacular with his Harvard accent and the tradition of great wealth and family prestige behind him. It had seemed impossible, when they met last summer in Muskoka, that he should have singled her out for his august attentions, but that was just what he had done. Almost from their first meeting he had asked when she would be in New York. And when she had told him of her plan to join some other teachers in a Christmas jaunt there, he had overwhelmed her with invitations and plans to make her holiday enjoyable. A scarlet fever scare had closed all the schools in Sara’s town three days earlier than usual. And Hugo, when lie heard that, had immediately ’phoned her that his mother was giving a dinner for her the first night of her arrival.

“What must Ido with him! I can’t hold him forever, and he yells when I try to put him down,” shouted Sara Lee above the wails of the child in-lier arms.

The big floor walker shrugged non-committally. “Cawn’t say I’m sure, moddarn. You might take him to the nursery on the fourth floor. Maybe there’s a —a —pin—or something

“But he’s not mine,” explained Sara distractedly. “He bumped against me in the crowd and grabbed my dress. I just lifted him up thinking someone would claim him.”

“Pardon me, Mr. Hutchins!” A woman detective sprang forward. “I’ve been watching this young woman for the last half hour. She’s trying to get rid of him—” “Of course I’m trying to get rid of him.” Sara’s smart brown hat was cocked over one car and her honey-coloured curls hung in limp wisps about her face. The new hat and coat that she had bought early this morning would be waiting at her hotel, but the detective and floor walker couldn’t know that. . . “I want to give him back to his mother. I have an engagement ” The precious hours of this important day were hurrying by! From the instant she had arrived on the chartered bus from Canada this morning with the other teachers. Sara had mapped out every moment carefully, allotting so many hours to the purchase of new clothes, so many for the beauty parlour, so many for the needed rest, before dressing for the dinner Hugo Plaxton’s mother was giving in her honour.

“Someone must be frantic with worry over him !”

“We’ve heard nothing of it,” declared the floor walker, “and, believe me. we usually do hear if a child’s lost. Show the lady to the nursery, Miss Minnis,” he went on rapidly. “All lost children are reported there.” Riding up the elevator with the detective, Sara fumed impotently. It was an absurd and intolerable situation. She’d been longer than she expected in choosing her new clothes, and the adorable evening gown of flame-coloured metallic velvet, that was the very spirit of Christmas, had required fitting. Sara thought of the golden brocade slippers with the sparkling heels, and all the other acesMiries that were going to make her alluring enough for a glamorous suitor like Hugo Plaxton. Now it was past three o’clock. She had ’phoned the hairdresser to expect her at four, and here she was saddled with a stray child whom she had befriended.

That, of course, would mean a family inspection. But Sara, with two years’ savings and all her Christmas money burning her pocket, was not afraid of that. She buy just . the right clothes, present the most correct appearance —and afterwards. . . . Of course, Hugo'was thirty-eight to her twenty-two, but age didn’t really r matter. Not with such an eligible man as Hugo! He had a yacht, there could be cruises to tropic isles, all the colour and luxury that one had ever dreamed of with sick, futile longings. . . .

ft was liorible to think of Hugo seeing tier in this humiliating predicament. But she had to ’phone him if she ever hoped to get out of it. And she had known that he would hate it, too. Just as much as he actually" did when he arrived. But his eminent name, his handsome face and impeccable grooming, made an agreeably'' deep impression upon the nurses and detective.

“Just my luck,” she thought resentfully. “Such a thing would never have happened to anyone else but me.” Why hadn’t she turned her back on the little fellow in the first place when he toddled up to her? There had been dozens of other women around who might have lifted him up to enable his mother to find him.

“It’s all been a mistake, of course, and we’re so sorry, Mr. Plaxton,” they flattered, as Sara, desperately conscious of her shiny nose and disorganised clothing felt that she must appear absurd and countrified to this sophisticated man. “Of course we’ll keep the child and hand him to the police if he’s not claimed before the store closes.”

THE LOST CHILD. But he was such an adorable baby, between two and three years old, she judged, with such wide blue eyes and yellow curls. He was dressed in a well-cut beige outfit, coat, leggings and matching beret, but one mitten was grey and one brown, and his clothes had been put on carelessly. Thei;e was a faint, subtle -air of negleM around him, like precious that was bW/g allowed, almost imperceptibly, to run to seed.. “No one has reported a lost child,” declared the crisply uniformed nurse: “There have been no inquiries at all.” ( Sara plumped . rtb,e.~~boyA on a white cot and stretched her aching shoulders. ■' jg v \ “I hope his mother will sooJj x vjr up,” she said, turning awaJ - ybye, youngster. . . .” $1 -one you can’t leave him herejfi bsed the nurse quickljj ' \n tinder five must , r‘ y. The store closes ljfii \S ” 9 Aid, sensing Sara’s \part, scrambled to hli

Hugo’s family had had an account in that store for three generations, and he didn’t let the employees forget il. His gray eyes remained icily contemptuous under their apologies, and Sara felt like a very" small foolish girl as he turned toward her and said loftily: “The whole'thing’s unpardonable. Come, Miss Lee. It’s too bad you- should have had such an expedience.”

1 NIGHTMARISH Saf a freed her fingers from the But he shrieked HlHMears of fright pourplump cheeks. p]fl|n|tftje to leave him !” cried so little and so wor■ill. . Wfehce will locate his parIjHMjKjlped Hugo, his patience point. Other their mothers Iteroimd curiously, -and

By MARGARET WILLIAMS

Hugo, conscious of the interest that his name and person always aroused in tabloid readers, flushed - angrily. “Let’s get out of here,” he muttered, seizing Sara’s arm. “I can’t,” cried Sara desperately. She knew that the child’s cries would ring in her ears for the rest of her life if she left him like that. That she would never really know what had happened to him. It seemed horrible to turn her back on a baby, lost in a great, impersonal city. “Honey lamb, don’t cry, hush, hush!” Sara, accustomed to soothing childish griefs, drew a handkerchief from his coat pocket, and with the handkerchief came an envelope. An envelope addressed to Mr. Michael Hetherington, at an address in the west hundred and forties.

“There, there’s where he lives, 1 suppose,” she cried in relief. Then, with an odd tightening of the heart, she saw that the envelope bore a Canadian stamp, that it had been mailed from Winnipeg. “His family must be Canadian,” she added excitedly. “That simplifies the job for the police,” snapped Hugo, and Sara knew he was thinking her a fool for not having found that envelope sooner. “They can take him there at once ”

“I’ll take him myself,” insisted Sara spiritedly. Suddenly it seemed terribly important that the child of a Canadian family should not be abandoned to strangers. Even more important than her appointment at the hairdresser’s. She was too late for that now, anyway. And Michael Hetherington’s telephone did not answer when Hugo called the number. Hugo glanced at his watch. “It’ll take an hour with the traffic and the roads in this condition,” he warned. “It’ll be a rush to dress for mother’s dinner.” Sara stifled a hysterical giggle. He spoke of that dinner as though it had been a summons from royalty. “Turn him over to the police with his address. . . .” Then he shrugged resignedly. For Sara, not heeding his protests, had buttoned the child’s coat and put on his cap. “I’m not leaving him until he s safely’- at home,” she said defiantly as Hugo led the way to his car.

That drive uptown was nightmarish. Hugo, seated by Sara in the back scat of his impressive town car, kept urging the chauffeur to hurry, and spoke little to his dishevelled companion. The baby nodded against her breast, and was sound asleep when they • drew up before a modest apartment house. PERPLEXITIES PILE UP. “We can’t stay an instant,” warned Hugo, as the child, recognising familiar surroundings, struggled from Sara’s arms and trotted across the small foyer to the elevator. “Hello, Mike,” beamed the dusky attendant, opening the door. “Where on earth did you come from? Where’s Anna?” “Does this child live here?” burst out Sara breathlessly. “T found him in Homan’s department store. Will you take him to his mother?” The attendant scratched his head perplexedly. “His ma’s sick in the hospital,” he told her. “And his pa’s at the office. He’s an engineer. There’s no one in the apartment, I know, for I just took a letter there.” “There must be a maid ” “Sure, there was Anna. But I guess she’s done a bunk on him and left him in the store. I know she’s been aiming to get home for Christmas.” “Then call a housemaid or a floor maid or some one of the staff,” snapped Hugo impatiently. “Some one must take charge of this child for we have to go.” “Dcy ain’t no staff in this buildin’,” the boy assured them. “There’s only me, and Miss Jackson, on the switchboard, and we can’t either of us look alter him. J guess you better ’phone his. pa “Oh, this is intolerable,” fumed Hugo fussily. Here was a situa-, tion~Thrrtr , hfTeiTl t<jrvfrnr -W;ncy “;rorimportance could settle immediately without worry to himself, and he seemed incapable of dealing with it. And not even Michael Hetherington himself,' at his office near the Battery, could help him. “I’ll get home as soon as I can,’ he told Sara over the ’phone. And the familiar intonation of his worried voice made her exclaim impulsively—

“You’re a Canadian, aren’t you?”

“We’re from Vancouver,” he told her. “I’m so horribly sorry you’ve been, inconvenienced. It’s all such a ghastly muddle. Rhea, poor girl; desperately ill in the hospital, and my mother on the way here from Winnipeg. I’d thought Anna', would stay' until she arrived. Miss Lee, it would have killed Rhea if she’d known that child was lost!” “I’ll have to wait until he comes,” said Sara, as she rejoined Hugo. “The porter will unlock the apartment for us. I’ll dress in a few minutes, Hugo. I promise you I won’t be late. Do you want to go’ now and dress and come by the club for me later?”

“I’ll stay right with you until this thing’s settled,” announced Hugo grimly, following diet* into the apartment. “It's the most incredible situation I ever heard of.” lie , glanced disdainfully about the room.

Shabby, but tastefully’’ furnished, Sara noted, with boohs lining walls and , overflowing tables.

The worn-leather chairs suggested a masculine taste rather than a woman’s. Sara wondered what sort of a girl Rhea Hetherington was.

If' only Hugo could, see the amusing side of the situation, she reflected, as she removed the baby’s coat and leggings. Such an adventure might .be fun with the right person, but not with Hugo. All he could feel was resentment and fear of being late for the family dinner. “Maybe he’s one of those people who can’t see a joke in anything that affects their own comfort,” she thought. He had been so different in Muskoka last summer. Then he’d been always laughing, always so good tempered. Despite the differences in their ages Sara had thought she could very" easily be crazy" about him, but now-

“Foolish! He has a million dollars,” she reminded herself angrily". “And if you don’t realize you’d be the luckiest girl on earth if he wants to marry you—well, twenty'-two years of being poor haven’t' taught y"ou much.” SCORN IN HER EYES. “I’m going to bathe this child and give him his supper,” she told Hugo determinedly". Hugo arched his brows resignedly" and went on with the paper. Sara wondered iff she could‘ ever dispel the bad

to-day •whfl« t fretted in her he sneezed in his bath, and Sara noted that his ' breathing, was A /heavy. - ' */: /’,/. WA “Heavens! I hope he’s not going to be ill,” she Thought,,ias/ she tried to feed He was pushing away" the spoon' / with a peevish cry vvh<?h jhe, burst open and Michael’ i'ngton entered/ . ? 1 “How much Mike loblcs him,” thought Sara at she saw that the blue eyes were clouded'-'toitl|-ji~! worry, and that there were lines’ , of fatigue and anxiety in The wide brow under the inane of tumbled 'Y black hair. A A 'YA : a;: Beside the hesplended fc Hugo Jie A looked as shabby and disheVeiled/’,; 1 as herself. “I can never thank you enough for your kindness,” he. reaching out for the baby, Mike, old fellow, what’s The matter? -You don’t think he’s/sick!;: A do you ?” he asked Sara anxiously,, < “I’m afraid lie’s caught cold,” she admitted. “However, if you get him right to bed and keep hiin covered—maybe you’d better. have a doctor ” “If he gets ill We’re Sunk,” cried ' Michael despairingly". * “We’ve been in such a mess here lately/Tv My elder brother and partneri® Peter, is in the Philippinesvafter-

o do nt li and Mite ;iike «nd lil- A* ■| t mld ,:, t V untl ■;,„ lt wj| god t'lStE'Sl Wff ft froj boulders, It was »■ le was nothing ■ i-tbuld’. never see.'h*®! &,§■ s - Michael Jara dield the : ;frJMi . 'Tut''the chillßjgg u,” ordered Hafifl&i diite dints is eyes were is in ou th wrfß^gx's m espjte- his/; e If'olceil' ,JEEI ®fS .There, op ef ri ■ the jiew: