Class _P^3_ Book ,3 9SVS Gojpglit N° ~R v COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. o o pf 2 A Roof Against the Rain \ A Roof Against the Rain by ~Y> ELIZABETH HIGGINS Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company Boston 1938 New York Copyright, 1938, by ELIZABETH HIGGINS SULLIVAN All rights reserved. No part of this book may be re¬ produced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in magazine or newspaper. First Edition PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (&Clfc 115880;(V OO to 6 4 f\ C. C. L. a life as rich in achievement as it was brief in years A Roof Against the Rain First Book Chapter One Old Simeon Goodrich knew it was the end when he saw them deployed about his bedside—Dr. Newton, two nurses, Judge Ramsey, Mrs. Crowley, Bob Otis. Ramsey was his lawyer; Crowley, the housekeeper. Bob was his dead niece’s husband, one of these static widowers. Bob looked concerned. He had plenty to concern him, now that he was about to become the whole works and head of the Goodrich chain of ten-cent stores. Over the shoulders of fat little Newton and a stocky nurse, Simeon’s eyes rested on two oil portraits on the opposite wall—Junior and Ada, his children, killed in a car crash, fifteen years ago. Their mother’s picture, Meenie’s, was between them; but tall Judge Ramsey was planted in the line of vision and Simeon only saw an edge of the frame that inclosed Meenie’s fret¬ ful little face and drooping apologetic pose. Twenty years since Meenie had lain on this same bed—and went out, holding Junior and Ada close to her. As he thought back, Simeon recalled his own feelings at his wife’s deathbed—an outsider, not in the picture at all. 3 4 A ROOF She was a sickly woman, always telling him that he’d be married before the grass was green on her grave. Well, he hadn’t married—he’d fooled Meenie. She had it all wrong —no grave, no grass—a marble mausoleum instead. A lot of women had tried to get him, for his money, but he fooled them, too. After losing Junior and Ada, others bobbed up, then, avaricious relatives with an eye to his will —cousins, dozens of cousins, swarms of them! He fooled them, too; and saw to it that they couldn’t fool him in the end with a bunch of shyster lawyers to prove he was crazy and break his will. Not a red sou markee could any of his kin get hold of now. He wasn’t leaving a will. He was leaving everything tied up in trust funds for the Goodrich Memorial. The Memorial was one of these welfare centers in the slums, founded soon after he had lost Junior and Ada. In fact, there were two welfare centers—the Memorial proper and the branch house, the Annex. Simeon smiled at the thought of such secure repository. Absolutely safe. Popular opinion is behind a thing like that, the sentimental idealism of John Q. Public, who enjoys seeing the ten-cent profits go back to the poor,—and the relations whistling for them. Almost finished now, Simeon thought. He was going to the mausoleum, with no expectant heirs rejoicing at his exit. No crocodile tears on his coffin. Everybody, kin included, knew damned well where the Goodrich wad was already located. Of course, Cornelia Cromwell was in for the time of her life from now on, cock-of-the-walk at the Goodrich Me¬ morial. Great God, that woman, Cornelia! She was presi¬ dent of the Memorial Executive Board. Simeon hated her and respected her. In his life’s experience, she was the one thing he had never been able to master. Nothing mastered AGAINST THE RAIN 5 her. The Executive Board members were just so many planks for Cornelia to walk on. She had the back of a Tammany sachem, the front of a Methodist bishop. And clever as hell. The man for the job ahead of her. There was another, too, of like stripe, Annie Elliot at the Annex. The two god- damnedest females that ever got hold of power, and each hating the other. Imagine Elizabeth Tudor, with Catherine the Great her rival across the border. Well, let them go to it. Both hellions. What did he care so long as the Memorial and Annex accomplished his objec¬ tive, the satisfaction of going to the grave with the say-so of who wasn’t to have his money. Bunk, all this social work and uplift business. It had bored him from the start, round¬ ing up the tenement crowds for clean wholesome recreation and self-improvement. All he had ever cared to see of their doings was the shows they put on in the Memorial Theatre. The dramatic stuff was fun, so rotten he liked it. One of the actresses had amber hair—like Ada’s, his daughter’s, hair. The tenement girl was very appealing, not much of an actress, but damned decorative. Nothing like catchy decorations. Get the eye of the public, and the public is yours. He had learned that, long ago—it was the show in the Goodrich store windows that sold the goods over the counters behind them. By George, thinking of that girl now, he was going to leave her something! Simeon looked around his bed and met a battery of eyes, fixed, staring at him. In for the kill, were they? Giving them a show, was he? Just for that, they’ll get no show— he’d die in private. “Get out,” he told them; “get out of here, every jack of you! Ramsey, get them away—I’ve had enough of this ante-mortem inquest!” 6 A ROOF As the room cleared, Simeon beckoned his lawyer to him. "Ramsey,” he said weakly, "hand me my checkbook. There’s a little girl at the Memorial that reminds me of Ada. I’ll leave a check for her, a thousand dollars. That’s not enough to spoil the kid, but it can get her set up in house¬ keeping when she marries a chauffeur or a clerk. She’s a smart little girl, the kind that should pick a good man for herself.” "I’ll fill out the check,” the Judge told him, "and you can sign it. What’s her name?” "The name’s Mary.” "Her last name?” "That’s slipped me. But you can place her—light brown hair and eyes,—blondish—very pretty, the theatre you know—she takes part in. .” The voice failed to a murmur, and old Simeon Goodrich met death with a twisted smile that told his lawyer nothing. Ramsey laid the checkbook back on the bedside table and called in Dr. Newton for a final service to a patient whose death had the same brittle quality as his living. A vision of tomorrow’s obituaries rose before the lawyer. The press, he knew, would chronicle the passing of a great philanthropist—a big heart that had ceased its benevolent beating! What bunk would be printed at old Simeon’s exit—padded, bolstered, synthetic! Downstairs, in the library, the Judge found them as¬ sembled: Bob Otis standing in front of the mantel; Cor¬ nelia Cromwell posted by a window, looking out absently on Riverside Drive; Old Abner Johnson, asleep in Simeon’s chair at the roll-top desk that clashed harshly with the colonial pieces poor Meenie had collected. Of the three, old Abner was the only one who really cared. When he AGAINST THE RAIN 7 woke up, he would cry and shed a few honest, senile tears. Before the old fellow had become a doddering, repetitious chatterer, he had been a crony of Simeon’s. But Goodrich friendship was as peculiar as all Goodrich attributes—too brittle to be bored with Abner in his failing years. "Is it all over?” asked Mrs. Cromwell, turning from the window at Ramsey’s entrance. "Yes, Cornelia, all over; Simeon has just passed away.” At that, she crossed the room, wakening the sleeper. The old man was her uncle, and very much under her thumb. Abner, too, must soon pass on and leave a goodly portion of the world’s goods. His heirs-at-law were Cornelia and her cousin, Herbert Johnson. The blood be¬ tween them was thin as water—but turbulent water, boil¬ ing, poisonous. At present, Herbert was in the discard. The Judge knew. Only last week, he had drawn up Ab¬ ner’s last will, entirely in Cornelia’s favor. The legal man’s lips straightened at the recollection—this business of piling up a tower of money! It seemed so grim, so ghastly com¬ ical—money, this short tenure of possession. "They’re all gone now,” Johnson sobbed. "Alone, left all alone, the last of my generation.” Ramsey noted the woman’s pose, an attitude of sym¬ pathy, one hand on the old man’s shoulder, the other with handkerchief in seemly gesture. But behind it the lawyer detected no tears. From now on, the Goodrich Memorial was Cornelia’s realm, hers to govern without interference. Bob Otis’s hands dug deeper into his pockets, his gaze fall¬ ing to the tiles about the mantel. Ramsey wished he could have caught what was behind the Otis eyes. This was Bob’s great day too; he was no longer a big man’s man; he was the big man himself now, sole head of the Goodrich 8 A ROOF system of ten-cent stores.