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"But Ormand believed—"
"Yes, yes, so I thought; but I paid him handsomely and kept the police from finding him. It was his own fault he got caught. He should have stayed farther north and never come to Richmond."
"He doesn't belong in prison," I insisted. "It's not fair."
She turned away again, as though what I had to say was unimportant. But it wasn't!
"I don't care if you can force Mrs. Dalton to recant her story and if you can make my mother look so stupid no one will believe her; they'll believe me or at least it will create enough of a scandal to bring embarrassment. And I'll tell Randolph. Just think how hurt he will be to learn it. You let him go off chasing the hope he would recapture me. You offered that reward."
She studied me a moment. I held my gaze as firmly as I could, but it was like looking directly into the center of a campfire. Finally she softened, seeing my resolution.
"What is it you want? You want to embarrass me, rain down disgrace on the Cutlers?"
"I want you to get Daddy out of jail and stop treating me like dirt. Stop calling my mother a tramp, and stop demanding I be renamed Eugenia," I said determinedly.
I wanted a lot more, but I was afraid to make too many demands. In time I hoped I could get her to do something for Jimmy and for Fern.
She nodded slowly.
"All right." She sighed. "I'll do something about Ormand Longchamp. I'll make some calls to people I know in high places and see about getting him an early parole. I was thinking about doing that anyway. And if you insist on being called Dawn, you can be called Dawn.
"But," she added quickly when I began to smile, "you will have to do something for me."
"What? Do you want me to go back to living with him?"
"Of course not. You're here now and you're a Cutler whether you or I like it or not, but," she purred contentedly, quite pleased with herself, sitting back and contemplating me for a moment, "you don't have to be here all the time. I think it would be much better for all of us . . . Clara Sue, Philip, Randolph, even your . . . your mother, if you were away."
"Away? Where would I go?"
She nodded, a curious smile on her face. Obviously, she had thought of something very clever, something that pleased her very much.
"You have a very pretty singing voice. I think you should be permitted to develop your talent."
"What do you mean?" Why was she suddenly so eager to help me?
"I happen to be an honorary member of the board of trustees of a prestigious school for the performing arts in New York City."
"New York City!"
"Yes. I want you to go there instead of returning to Emerson Peabody. I will make the arrangements today, and you can leave shortly. They have summer sessions, too.
"Of course, it goes without saying that all this and all you have learned will remain here in this office. No one need know anything more than I decided you are too talented to waste your time cleaning rooms in a hotel."
I could see she liked the idea that everyone would consider her as being magnanimous. She would look like a wonderful grandmother doing great things for her new granddaughter, and I would have to pretend to be grateful.
But I didn't want to return to Emerson Peabody, and I did want to become a singer. She would get her way and rid herself of me, but I would have an opportunity I could only dream of before. New York City! A school for performing arts!
And Daddy would be helped, too.
"All right," I agreed. "As long as you do everything you promised to do."
"I always live up to my word," she said angrily. "Your reputation, your name, your family's honor, are all important things. You come from a world where all those things were insignificant, but in my world—"
"Honor and honesty were always important to us," I snapped back. "We might have been poor, but we were decent people. And Ormand and Sally Jean Longchamp didn't betray each other and lie to each other," I retorted. My eyes burned with tears of indignation.
She gazed at me for a long moment again, only this time I thought I saw a look of approval in her eyes.
"It will be interesting," she finally said, speaking slowly, "very interesting to see what kind of a woman Laura Sue's liaison spawned. I don't like your manners, but you have shown some independence and some spunk, and those are qualities I do admire."
