Читать книгу Who Killed Caldwell? - Carolyn Wells - Страница 6

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He sat down on the side of the bed to think over what Marcia had said.

It seemed to him foolish for Vincent to take that attitude. In America, the oldest son had no special advantage over his brothers, as he had in an English family. He had no intention of assuming older brother airs with Vincent, no wish to counsel or advise him, and no desire to criticize him. He knew nothing, as yet, of Vincent’s manner of life or of his tastes or his principles.

It was none of his business, anyway. As the oldest son, he simply claimed his rights with the others. He asked nothing more.

But it would all straighten itself out, he felt sure. And when he could have a good talk alone with their father, he would understand the situation better.

Meantime, he would do his best to win Vincent’s confidence and liking, but he would admit no cause for his resentment at his brother’s return.

He dressed and went downstairs, finding Marcia and her husband in the drawing room awaiting.

“Don’t make company of me,” he said smiling at her.

“For one night only,” she returned. “After tonight you will be just one of the family. But tonight it is a case of fatted calf.”

“All right, I’ll enjoy the fleeting moment. Perry, old son, how did you manage to snare my sister? As I remember her, she was afraid of the boys. Don’t you know, Marcia, you used to run and hide if one or two of the fellows came home with me!”

“Yes, I know; all little girls are like that. But I outgrew it, as all little girls do.”

Just then Lorraine appeared.

She wore a simple but exquisite gown of chartreuse chiffon, and she wore no ornaments. But her bright brown hair was in lovely soft ringlets and her little heart-shaped face was aglow with smiles.

“For heaven’s sake!” exclaimed Archer, “now how did you happen to wear a dress like that?”

“Don’t you like it? Why, it’s my newest one! It—”

“Oh, yes, yes, I like it—I like it a lot. But look here,” he picked up a little box from the table where he had laid it, “see what I brought you from India.” He took from the box a necklace of peridots, in a light setting of delicately worked gold. The stones were just the color of her gown, and as Lorraine clasped it round her throat, it made a perfect finish for the costume.

“Beautiful!” Archer exclaimed. “How odd that it should match so perfectly.”

“Where’s mine?” Marcia asked holding out both hands.

“You’ll have to wait, honey, until I can get my boxes unpacked, then I hope to find tokens for everybody. I just chanced to have that in my dressing bag.”

The other men came in and then Briggs brought cocktails.

“See how you like these,” Marcia said to Archer. “But I suppose you have had all sorts.”

“Indeed, yes, and more, too. But an old home cocktail is the best, whatever it’s made of.”

“Yes, yes, boy; and I’ll have another, with you.”

“Now, Father,” said Marcia, warningly, “you know—”

“Yes, dear, I know, but Archer doesn’t come home every night—”

“I hope to,” Archer caught him up, “though I do stay out late sometimes.”

“Are you a society man?” Lorraine said, so earnestly that they all laughed.

“Of course,” Vincent made the answer. “You can see that from his swagger clothes.”

Archer laughed easily.

“First show me your society, Lorraine,” he said, “and then we’ll see about it.”

“Never mind the social part,” came rather plaintively from Bruce, “when are we going to hear about Archer’s adventures? I say, Arch, did you go into the jungles in India?”

“Rath-er! They are not at all nice, Buddy. Just miasma and fever—”

“And tigers?”

“Yes, and tigers.”

“All that some other time, Bruce,” said his father, and they went to dinner.

“Tonight you must be guest of honor and sit by me,” Marcia said; “tomorrow you may choose your own place.”

Marcia, a perfect hostess, sat at the head of the table and her father at the other end.

The dinner was a fine one, and the newcomer fitted into the family group as if he never had left it. The others did not insist on questioning him about his travels, except Bruce, who really couldn’t help it.

He said at last, “Look here, Bruce, I have a diary, and you may read it some time, but let up now on your catechism.”

“Oh, I say, Archer, did you keep a diary? Can I get it? Now?”

“No, Silly! It hasn’t come yet.”

“Have you a diary? I shall be glad to see that.”

“Of course, Father. But it’s only for the first two years. I kept one after that, but time and again my luggage was lost or stolen, and the other diaries went, with other and more valuable papers.”

“Aha, you had valuable papers, had you?” Perry spoke up. “Then I believe you are writing a book. I thought you would, everybody does.”

“But they don’t begin it while they’re living it,” Archer told him. “And the thieves in the Orient don’t steal literature, they only annex money-bearing papers. I could have borne loss of manuscripts, if I had had any, but I was never really rich and the thieves were hard on me.”

“Just why did you come home?” Vincent asked, a little bluntly.

“Not because I needed money. It was sheer nostalgia that made me come home. A very bad attack of homesickness—and I’m glad I had it!”

“I’m glad, too,” said Marcia, “and now, Archer, here’s a special dish made for you. And Molly wants to serve it to you herself.”

And instead of the butler, a smiling black woman offered Archer an elaborately decorated batter pudding, while a waitress hovered close with two kinds of sauce.

Archer jumped from his chair, took the pudding and placed it on the table, and then grasping her two hands said, “Why, Mollycoddle, you look just as you used to. How are you?”

“Oh, Mr. Archer, nobody has called me that, all these long years! Lordy, but I’m glad to hear it again! Now, some folks might not like that for a name, but I know what you mean by it.”

“Yes, I used to call you that, because you coddled me, made me puddings and things. Well, keep right on making them, Molly.”

She made a smiling exit, and Archer turned to his pudding with evident delight.

“We’ll have coffee in the library,” Marcia said, as she rose from the table; “the drawing room is attractive only when we have company, then it rises to the occasion. Shall we give a coming-out party for Archer, Dad?”

“A coming-home party, you mean. We must get his views on that. If he likes, he shall have a ball that will set the town talking.”

The matter was discussed over the coffee cups.

“You see,” Archer said, “I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but you fellows understand how a chap like me hates to be lionized, or even held up to public view, which a ball seems like to me. At the same time, Marcia, if you and Father want it, I shall, of course, agree to any plans you make. I love to dance.”

“I think,” said Lorraine, and somehow, people always listened when Lorraine told what she thought, “that a small dance would be much nicer than a ball. Just a few people that Archer will like. You see, he will have to make new friends. When he went away, he had only schoolmates, and I doubt if many of them are available now.”

“Where are the Sperrys?” Archer asked. “Don’t they still live around the corner on the Avenue?”

“No, the block is all apartment houses now,” Marcia told him. “But I think Lorraine is right; a small party will start him with the right people, and if he can dig up any of his old acquaintances, so much the better.”

“You don’t have to decide right off,” Vincent said. “Give the chap time to get his bearings.”

“The news will get around rapidly.” Caldwell’s fine face beamed on his new-found son. “Reporters will come flocking!”

“Now, Dad,” Vincent laughed, “our Archer means a lot to us, but do you realize how few people we know are aware of his existence?”

“That’s so,” Marcia looked thoughtful. “We have lived right here all our lives, but all the friends we had around here long ago have moved away, and we have made new ones. Lots of these new ones have never heard of Archer, as Vincent says. This is not because we forgot him, but we thought of him as dead. Then Mother’s death came, and we grieved for her—”

“And too,” Perry Gibbs put in, “you must remember, Archer, that when you went away, the four children you left were really children, from eight to twelve years old. You must see that you could not live in their memory as you have in your father’s. And so, when they grew older and made new friends, it did not occur to them to speak often of the absent brother whom they looked upon as dead.”

“Yes, Archer,” and Caldwell nodded his head, “Perry is right. Your mother and I thought of you and talked of you as long as she lived. But we didn’t discuss you or your possible fate before the little ones. Vincent was twelve, the girls both ten and Bruce only eight. We tried to shield them from the fears and apprehensions we felt ourselves.”

“I know, Father, I understand; and right here let me say I want no apologetic attitude on the part of anyone. I went away for my own reasons, which seemed to me adequate; and which continued to seem so, until late years, when I could no longer withstand the craving for my home and my people. I am glad to be back and if I can make good with my family, I’ll trust to luck to find some friends later on. As to your parties and dances, Marcia, do just whatever you want to, and I’ll do whatever you tell me. I remember two or three old boys I shall try to look up, but like as not I shall prefer the new friends after all. Schoolboy friendships are seldom lasting. And, of course, people don’t know me or know of me; how should they? But all such things will adjust themselves. I want to go into some business soon, but I am going to take a vacation first; I think I’ve earned it.”

“Seems strange, doesn’t it,” Vincent said, “to think that nobody knows you or can recognize you outside this house! And, I say, how do we know we recognize you? None of us does, really, you know. Dad says you look like Mother, but I can’t remember her face very clearly. You surely don’t look like her picture!”

They all glanced up at an oil portrait that hung over the mantel. It showed a lovely, sweet-faced woman, atrociously painted, but it was a cherished possession of Irving Caldwell, and no suggestion had ever been made of replacing it by a newer or more worthy work of art.

Caldwell himself smiled a little.

“The picture does not do your mother justice, children,” he said, “but it is all I have. No, Archer does not look like that portrait, but I can see his mother’s looks in his face, which you could not be expected to do. Am I to understand, Vincent, that you are doubting your brother’s identity?”

“I don’t say that, but I do say he has given us no proof, no real proof—”

“Oh, Vincent!” Marcia interrupted him, “how ridiculous! Why, he has proved himself by almost every word he has spoken! And he is one of us, you can tell by his words and his actions. And his shape and size and his whole bearing! Why, he is Caldwell all through!”

“Thank you, Marcia,” and Archer smiled at her. “That is wholehearted recognition, I am sure. Sorry, you’re not satisfied, Vince.”

“There it is again,” Marcia said. “Nobody ever called you Vince but Archer.”

“And yet you could prove yourself, in a moment,” Vincent went on, “beyond all doubt.”

“No one seems to have any doubt but yourself,” Archer said, quietly. “What is the proof you want?”

“Show the letters tattooed on your back—if they are there!” Vincent replied.

There was a dead silence.

Then Archer said, in a different tone from any he had used before:

“They are there and I tell you they are there. I will not show them, because if you don’t believe my word you are calling me a liar, and that is a thing I do not stand.”

“I put it to you as a challenge; show me those letters or I shall not believe you are Archer. Come out in the hall and let me see them.”

“No!” Archer looked not angry, but haughty, and very firm. “They are there, as surely as yours are on your back, but I scorn to prove a statement I make in good faith and on my word of honor.”

“Father, I appeal to you!” Vincent cried, irately. “Tell him he must show them!”

Irving Caldwell laughed. “You are two silly boys!” he said, “Drop the subject at once!”

And just then the matter was concluded by the entrance of a stiffly starched white linen nurse, who had come to take her patient to bed.

Like a child, Caldwell begged to stay up awhile longer, but Miss Mason was adamant, and the two went off upstairs.

Vincent, too, left the room, and did not return. “Does Father have to have a nurse?” Archer asked in surprise.

“Nights, yes,” Marcia told him. “Stark, his valet, looks after him daytimes, but Miss Mason comes every night. She is capable and very kind.”

“Sorry if I upset Vincent,” Archer said, to the group in general. “But it had to come. Do you want to discuss it?”

“No,” Marcia said, “you were just right.”

“That goes for me, too,” said Gibbs, and Bruce cried out, “I’ll double it!”

But Lorraine said nothing.

And soon they all went upstairs, and so to bed. But no sooner had Archer closed his door than he heard a light tap against it.