Читать книгу Spawn of the North - Barrett Willoughby - Страница 16

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During this intermission Sockeye Jones, in his 'Seattle clothes'—a suit of grey tweed—steered Dian and Eve into the Floating Trap and seated them at the table reserved for them. Their entrance was unnoticed because the whole room was engaged in rendering a swinging fortissimo chorus:

In the land of pale blue snow, When it's ninety-nine below, And the polar bears are dancing on the snow; In the shadow of the Pole, I will clasp her to my soul, Oh-h-h! We'll be happy when the iceworms nest again!

Then, to the accompaniment of a banjo, a lone baritone with a laugh in it, carried on the burlesque:

And our wedding feast will be of oil and blubber. In our kayak we will roam the bounding main. How the walrus-es will turn their heads and rubber At our loving when the iceworms nest again!

Dian Turlon, settling into her seat, had a view of the performers, two lean, good-looking young men in grey summer flannels that fitted their athletic bodies with well-tailored ease. They were seated at a table just below the raised alcove of the musicians. Tyler Kemerlee, with the banjo, she knew more or less by sight—a tall fellow with lines a woman's eyes instinctively followed; thick, red-brown hair brushed back from his forehead, where it grew in a point, and narrow, lazy-looking eyes. But the other—her blood quickened in her veins as she recognized the dark young boatman of the Who Cares.

He sat there singing, his eyes half-closed, supremely careless and indifferent, one long leg crossed over the other, a wineglass in his hands. His flexible mouth held Dian: something in the way he sang certain words with o in them that made an upper half-moon of his white teeth.

'Who is he, Sockeye?' she asked.

'Him?' Red-faced and ungrammatical, Sockeye rose from retrieving Eve's compact that had rolled under the table. 'Why, that's Jimmy Kemerlee, our new superintendent at Sunny Cove ... Ah, ha! Here comes Blossom, the people's choice, prancing in with a crock o' the oil o' joy! Shoot it right over here to papa, lady! It's moose-milk that makes the salmon run! But for the girls, Blossom, a nice fruit punch, and as soon as it comes we'll drink a libation to the Fog Woman before the next dance begins!'

When the chorus ended, men and women from every part of the room began hailing Dian. They crowded about her table to welcome her home and to be introduced to Eve Galliard, who was a mild sensation.

From the front, the dark girl was provocatively demure in delicate black lace through which her exquisite magnolia-white skin gleamed alluringly. The scant flesh-colored slip underneath was so cunningly and so revealingly contrived that Sockeye, fearfully fascinated, yet equally embarrassed, was continually dragging his eyes from her only to move them back again for another surreptitious look. The back of Eve's gown was cut in a V to the waist-line.

Dian finished her drink and at the first opportunity rose intending to make her way to Ivor. But at that instant the music struck up. Couples surged out on the floor. Eve floated off with tall Lem Hanley, Chief of the Pirate Patrol. Her little upraised chin was pressed confidingly against the top button of his waistcoat, while his big hand timorously explored her back for a clothed spot on which to rest. While Dian was watching them a resonant voice said:

'Now that the Montagues and Capulets are once more exchanging visiting cards, don't you think we might dance this?'

She turned eagerly to the speaker, and with a feeling of disappointment saw that it wasn't Jim Kemerlee, but his brother Tyler, who stood regarding her, a half-smile on his lips. There was a quizzical, don't-give-a-damn look in his eyes, and his finely moulded mouth was slightly bitter above his cleft chin.

Dian had no intention of dancing with a Kemerlee, but there was a disarming charm about Tyler. She glanced up at him with mock seriousness. 'Your name is not Romeo, by any chance? Then I've been warned against you, sir. But,' she smiled suddenly, 'if you'll take me over to my brother Ivor, we'll see what he has to say about it.'

They kept up an interchange of banter until they reached the musicians' alcove. While Dian talked to her brother, Tyler stood beside her, his right hand resting on the piano. It was a tanned, virile hand, so shapely that Dian noticed with a little shock, the first two joints of his little finger were gone.

Ivor was in a buoyant mood tonight. He performed miracles of syncopation that lifted the dancers' heels and carried them into wild caperings and intricate steps. And all the while his grey eyes, brilliant with interest, kept moving over the crowd. When Eve and her tall partner passed below, he said: 'Watch, Sis, how my playing galvanizes Lem Hanley into action!'

Eve, looking up from Hanley's encircling arm, smiled at the boy.

Ever since Dian had entered the room she had been acutely and, she told herself, antagonistically aware of Jim Kemerlee. Now from her point of vantage beside the piano her gaze deliberately sought him. He was dancing with a tall graceful girl from Seattle, and while Dian chatted with Ivor and Tyler she looked him over with cool, appraising eyes seeking something to criticize.

Reluctantly she was forced to acknowledge a litheness about him, a sinuous-steel quality. It brought to her mind a line from Kipling: 'He trod the ling like a buck in spring, and looked like a lance in rest.' She caught herself watching his movements with a strange delight that was almost like pain—the symmetry of his bent dark head, the stirring masculine line of his shoulders. Then, dismayed and indignant that a Kemerlee should so affect her, she grasped suddenly at the thought of Alan. Alan was the most delightful ballroom dancer she knew. This man, lean and dark, danced with the gliding step of a pagan chief.

Deep within her Dian began looking forward to the end of the dance when the new superintendent should come to ask her for the next one. Of course he would, now that he was her father's employee. There was a hint of cruelty in her eagerness to say no to him.

But when the music began again he sought Eve for a partner.

Dian felt the hot blood sweeping through her in a flood of unreasonable resentment and outrage. The furious intensity of the emotion surprised and baffled her. What was the matter with her tonight? All at once she wanted to dance with the man more than she had ever wanted anything in her life before. Every throb of the music, every beat of the drum, made her ache for the rhythm of movement with him. Every fiber of her being hungered to tread with him that pagan measure that was so strangely his. Her body seemed to project itself against his ... And he—? Could it be that he was unaware of her? Had she suddenly grown unattractive? She, who had been the center of a gay circle of men at every dance she had ever attended down South?

She glanced toward her image in the full-length mirror near the piano. The girl in the glass looked back—a slender, high-breasted girl in floating chiffon of a pale green that made a glory of her honey-gold hair and lent her the look of one poised for flight. About her was a pleasant modern sophistication combined with a natural innocence that left her sea-grey eyes singularly lovely with the soft, wondering light of youth.

But to Dian that quick glance at herself brought only a maddening sense of frustration. Alan had told her she was adorable in the gown she wore, yet this provincial Alaskan, this fisherman, this Kemerlee, ignored her. Against her will now, her gaze moved back to him. She noted his level dark brows, the arrogance of his nose. 'I dislike the man,' she told herself fiercely. 'That's why he goads me, perturbs me.' And in a determined effort to brush him from her mind she turned to Tyler.

As he stood beside her, Tyler's manner conveyed the impression that he had forgotten every other woman in the world but herself. At the moment this was soothing to Dian's wounded pride. She looked up into his lazy, mocking blue eyes and without a word he slipped his arm about her in a possessive, yet gentle, way and they began to dance.

Tyler, shouldering away those who sought to cut in, danced twice with her in succession. Their steps were perfectly attuned and Dian knew instinctively that Tyler was a more adroit dancer than his brother. Jim Kemerlee faded from her mind. She became conscious only of an intoxicating rhythm of motion with Tyler; of his bent head and low words murmured above her ear. When she answered him she had to draw her head back to look into his face. They laughed a great deal.

No man had ever before danced with her in just Tyler's manner. He had a way of holding her with an almost imperceptible cradling movement, a way of strange delight—and danger. She welcomed the recklessness that swept into her blood. Suddenly she knew what her father meant when, during one of his lusty celebrations, he explained that he was only 'giving his devil a run.' That was the way Tyler Kemerlee made her feel. She caught Blossom's watchful, disapproving scowl upon Tyler, and smiled. Blossom, bless her, had a keen sense of the proprieties where Dian was concerned.

Once, when she and her partner were nearly at a stand-still in a compact mass of dancers, Dian encountered Jim Kemerlee's deep eyes fixed on her. For a moment she was disturbed. Then he smiled. She forced herself to return his smile carelessly, and immediately devoted her attention to Tyler.