Читать книгу The Affair at Flower Acres - Carolyn Wells - Страница 5

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The house at Flower Acres faced north. On the western side a terrace and on the eastern side a veranda ran the full length of the house, and from each opened a door into the sun parlor that spread across the southern front. This sun parlor was an ideal room. Three sides and a roof of glass, with convenient curtains and lattices, it was always available for occupation or for idleness.

On the fourth side, against the house, was a wide stone fireplace and a door opening into a rear hall. The appointments included reading tables, writing desks, card tables, cozy ingle nooks, and tempting swings and lounges of ease and comfort.

Out here the family often had their coffee and smoked after dinner, and Malcolm Finley following the others was fighting a strong temptation to seat himself near his hostess. He had sat at her right hand at dinner, and their conversation, though of the lightest, had been intently listened to,—Finley couldn’t help noticing,—by Douglas Raynor, and also by his sister, Miss Mattie.

Deeming it wise, therefore, he took a seat beside the maiden lady, a proceeding entirely to her satisfaction.

“You’re one of Nancy’s old beaus, aren’t you?” she asked, her ever-present curiosity evincing itself at once.

“Now, Miss Raynor,” Finley said, gayly, “I object to that term old beau. It makes me feel like a somewhat decrepit but well-preserved man of sixty or so.”

“Nonsense, you know I didn’t mean anything like that. But weren’t you one of her admirers?”

“Oh, yes,—surely none but a blind man could plead not guilty to that charge! You’re one yourself, aren’t you? You admire her yourself, don’t you?”

“Yes,—except that I think she’s overly slim for a matron.”

Finley gave a brief glance at the slender, lissome form of his hostess, but looked away quickly, lest his eyes linger too long.

She sat in a swing, amid a cluster of cushions. Her small, dark head leaned back with a slight abandon, and her wistful little face was upturned to Goddard, who stood above and behind her. One black slippered foot kept the swing swaying a trifle, and her outspread hands rested on the sides of the swing.

“Do stop that teetering, Nan,” her husband said, pettishly. “You get on my nerves with your eternal seesawing. Why can’t you sit quiet?”

“I will, Douglas,” and the accompanying smile showed no trace of annoyance. She steadied the swing, and sat motionless, crossing her hands on her lap. Her gown was of plain black velvet, a trailing garniture of fine French flowers its only ornament. She wore no jewels, save a string of pearls, and her small, delicate face, though pale, was bright and animated.

“Why have you so few decorations to-night, my dear?” Raynor went on, looking her over critically. “In honor of our returned traveler, you should have donned your bravest war paint.”

“Beauty unadorned,” Nan said, smiling, but Finley saw her hands clasp tightly, as if there were a disturbing undercurrent to her husband’s remarks.

“Not your beauty,” Raynor said. “You’re too pale, my dear, to claim that your face is your fortune.”

“Then tell me so when we’re alone, Douglas. Personalities—”

“There she goes again! Always lecturing me on my manners! What would you do, Finley, if you had a wife that never stopped pestering you?”

“I’d let her pester,” Malcolm said, and his cool voice gave no sign of the anger in his breast. This, then, was the way Raynor was a brute. He baited his poor wife with absurd and unjust reproof, and held her conduct up to scorn or ridicule.

“Yes,—one has to,” and Raynor sighed, over-emphatically. “I’ve given up trying to mend her ways,—but it is tiresome to be caught up continually.”

“Oh, I don’t, Douglas. Don’t believe him, Malcolm, he’s teasing me. And by the way, Douglas, how do you like the new rhododendron beds?”

“A fine question—considering you placed them exactly where I asked you not to! Why did you do that? To prove your independence of my wishes, or merely to be contrary.”

“But, Douglas, dear, they’re just where you said you wanted them!”

“Nothing of the sort. You misunderstood entirely. You would, of course. Oh, well, I can’t expect to have anything as I want it around this place. With your knowledge of gardens and landscapes, Nan, I should think you could see for yourself that they should be fifty feet, at least, farther from the arbor.”

“I’ll have them changed.” Nan spoke dully, listlessly, as if she would rather change the whole garden plan than have any further dissension.

“Yes, and spend a fortnight more of the gardeners’ time! You’ve no conception of the value of time—or of money. I should think your early days of forced economy would have taught you not to be quite so extravagant. But there’s an old proverb, ‘Set a beggar on horseback—’ and so forth, that jolly well fits you. Where you going, Orville?”

“Out,” said Orry, shortly. “Star gazing,” he added, with a smile at Finley. “Want to go?” Finley went and Miss Raynor at once began to discuss him.

“What a nice man he is,” she said; “but not much of a talker. His conversational powers seem limited. I couldn’t draw him out at all.”

“Nancy could,—without half trying,” said Nancy’s husband. “I believe I’ll get some fun out of that chap. I’m a great student of human nature, as you know, Goddard, I study it as Orville studies his beloved astronomy. I believe Venus has a conjunction on to-night,—or Jupiter is giving a three-ringed circus. Want to go out there with them, Nan?”

“No, thank you,” and she tried to speak brightly, though her husband’s voice had a nasty ring in it.

“Devoted little wife,—rather stay with her husband,—that it? Don’t trouble yourself to say yes, for I shouldn’t believe you. Well, here comes Eva at last. Three minutes late, Miss Turner. What’s my sin to-day?”

“Too many calories for your luncheon, Mr. Raynor. And instead of making up for it at dinner, you transgressed again.”

“Did I? Well, it was that damned chocolate roll! I can’t resist that. I believe my wife orders it just to tempt me beyond endurance. She knows how fond of it I am. Did you, Nancy?”

“No, Douglas, you know I didn’t!”

“Well, why did you order it, then? I noticed you scarcely touched it yourself.”

“Yes, Nancy,” chimed in Miss Mattie, “why did you have it? To please your guest?”

“Yes, to please Mr. Goddard,” said Nan, bravely smiling. “You like it, don’t you, Ezra?”

“Oh, I do,” he exclaimed, “and so does Miss Mattie.”

“I don’t wish to have anything on the table that my brother doesn’t want there,” the prim spinster replied.

They were rather alike, the brother and sister. Both were very thin, with thin gray hair and thin, high voices. They looked as if they were thin blooded, and though a thin veneer of culture showed on the surface, one gained the impression that beneath were very primitive and unbridled impulses.

Douglas Raynor, tall and spare, had a hawk-like face, small bright eyes, and thin lips that closed in a tight straight line. The man was an able scholar, a most successful business man, and a loyal, upright and esteemed vestryman in the local church.

Two years ago, when he married the lovely Nancy Kent, all the world wondered. Wondered how he ever persuaded such a dainty bit of femininity to link her life with his. He had been a friend of her father’s, who had died since the marriage, but among scores of suitors it was hard to understand Nan’s decision.

Miss Mattie, though, saw no cause for surprise. To her, her brother Douglas was the epitome of all that was worth while or desirable. And her query was what had Douglas seen in that pale-faced big-eyed chit to make him want her. Curiosity being the lady’s strong point, she set about to find out. Her quest was unsuccessful, but she did succeed in adding no negligible weight to the burden of discomfort the mistress of Flower Acres carried.

The next morning most of the household arose with a fixed and positive determination on at least one point.

Nancy Raynor vowed to herself that not one word or glance of a personal or even friendly nature would she vouchsafe to Malcolm Finley. For she divined her husband was on the lookout for such and would exaggerate and distort their meaning to the discomfiture of all concerned.

Ezra Goddard vowed to himself that he would drop another hint, a strong one, to Finley on the advisability of keeping away from his hostess.

Miss Mattie vowed to herself she would find out the true state of affairs between Nan and Mr. Finley, and if she could find the least thing to report she would hasten to her brother with the matter.

Orville Kent concluded that Nan was doing wrong, and he must consider carefully whether to speak to her on the subject or not.

Eva Turner promised herself to be more careful in the matter of her employer’s diet, and to take from it and add to it certain items which she deemed would make the result more nearly what she thought he ought to have.

And Malcolm Finley solemnly and roundly swore to himself that he would stop, look and listen a little further, and then, if he was satisfied that that old curmudgeon was really maltreating that darling girl, he, Finley, would settle the said curmudgeon’s hash—in one way or another!

Finley would not see the members of the family until luncheon time unless by chance. And, having seen Nan out among the gardens, he concluded to make his own chance.

He strolled forth, but by the time he was in the great maze and labyrinth of flower beds, the lady he had seen from his window had vanished.

Doubtless she was in some greenhouse, or behind some sheltering trees, but he couldn’t find her. Wandering aimlessly, he came upon a small house,—a very small house.

It was built near a shiny, ripply brook, and was both picturesque and comfortable in its effects.

On its absurdly small porch sat an absurdly large man. Finley had a fleeting thought of Big Bruin in Tiny Cub’s chair.

“Good day,” he said, pleasantly, and the man on the porch nodded indifferently.

“Belong to the Raynor estate?” Finley’s glance took in the house.

“Yep. Any o’ your business?”

“Not the least. Good day.”

“Hey, wait a minute. Don’t be so awful swift in your proceedjer. You a friend of the family?”

“Yep. Any o’your business?”

The man apparently appreciated the good-natured mockery, and laughed.

“C’mon up on the porch,” he invited. “Here’s another chair.”

“Just for a minute then,” and Finley took the proffered seat. “Wonderful gardens, these.”

“That’s right. My work’s more wonderful, though. So’s Orville Kent’s.”

“His is astronomy, I know. What’s yours?”

“Bugology. Entomology, you know. And I had this shack right here by the water so’s I c’d study waterbeetles and the fifty-’leven other insects round about. Like that sort o’ thing?”

“I think I should if I knew more about it. Are you—er—in Mr. Raynor’s employ?”

“No; I ain’t in nobody’s employ. I’m my own master. But I make my reports—”

What he did with the reports he made Finley didn’t wait to hear, for he caught a glimpse of Nan’s blue garden smock, and with the merest word of farewell, he strode off.

Again, however, the quarry eluded him, and he found there is nothing easier than to lose a human being in acres of flowers.

He stood a minute, reconnoitering when what seemed to be a young whirlwind bore down upon him.

“Oh, sir, how do you do? Who are you? A fairy prince? Mine—come to claim my hand?” The speaker was a girl of about fourteen, her bobbed hair flying, her little frock of knitted wool open at the throat and brief at the knees, her Tam perched on one side of her tousled head, and her round, bonny young face laughing with glee.

“I’m Dolly Fay,” she announced. “I’m a neighbor of the Raynors and I live just across that brook.”

“There’s a man lives almost in the brook,” Finley informed her.

“Yes, I know. Old Grim Gannon, the bug man. He collects beetles and spiders and grasshoppers and—”

“And their ilk,” Finley finished for her.

“Does that mean their young? Yes, he gets eggs and cocoons and, oh,—and lovely butterflies! Where you going?”

“To look for Mrs. Raynor. Can’t you help me find her?”

“Cert. I’ll take you right to her. You’re a real nice man. Do you like me?”

“Very much.”

“So do I you. Come on.”

She ran ahead and it took Finley’s longest strides to keep up with her. At last, sure enough, she brought him to a sunken garden, whose depth had hidden Nan from view.

“Good morning,” she said, with a little constraint in her tone but an irrepressible smile of welcome in her eyes. “Hello, Dolly,” she went on, “have you scraped acquaintance with Mr. Finley?”

“Yes, he thinks me adorable! And I think he’s enchanting. But, Nan, I see you want to be alone with him,—so tra la la—” and she danced away, laughing at them.

“Stop, Dolly! Come back!” but the girl-child’s ringing laughter was the only reply, and in a moment that was lost in the distance.

There was a silence. Not awkward, not embarrassing, but fraught with weight of portent, a premonition of trouble, and yet,—a silence of surpassing sweetness.

Wistful, pathetic, Nan’s eyes rose to meet the ones that looked down on her with infinite kindness.

“What can I do for you?” Finley said, wasting no time in preliminaries.

“Nothing,” she returned, blankly. “There’s nothing to be done. You see how things are.”

“I see. Why did you marry him, Nan?”

Though the voice was gentle, the inflection almost caressing, Nancy Raynor straightened up and turned a cold glance on him.

“Because I chose to, Mal. I do not regret it.”

“You don’t! Well, by Heaven, I do! The mere thought of you, you, Nan, linked to that clod, that beast—”

“Stop! My husband is neither a clod nor a beast. He is a great man and a great scholar.”

“Great man be blowed! Great scholar be hanged! Is he a great husband to you? Is he even a decent husband? Is he good to you? Kind to you? Answer me, Nan,—answer me!”

Finley had grasped her two hands in his own, and stood eagerly gazing down into her frightened face.

“Don’t, oh, don’t!” she cried. “He will come,—he’s always on watch,—and he will see you,—and he will kill me!”

“I shall kill him,—if he has you in this state of abject fear, this condition of utter subjection!”

“But he has,—both those things are true. I can’t help it,—and—you can’t help me.”

“I will help you, Nan,—I must. I’m a helper first of all. I’m a fixer, a straightener-out of wrong conditions. You shall be freed from that brute—”

“Stop, Malcolm.” Her voice was quiet now, and icily calm. “I don’t want you to say those things. They mean nothing and they hurt me.”

“Nan,” Finley took her by the shoulders and looked deep into her dark eyes, “Nan, do you love him?”

“How could I, Malcolm?” she said, simply. “Then why did you marry him?”

“That I cannot tell you—”

“You mean you will not.”

“Yes, I mean I will not.”

“Why, Nan? Why, Nan, dear?” Finley’s voice was tender, his gaze was compelling, but she shrank away from him, saying:

“Don’t be kind to me—oh, Malcolm, don’t! I can’t bear it.”

“I don’t understand, dear, but—I’m going to. I’m going to get at the bottom of this thing, and if you’re being sinned against or imposed upon I’m going to be the one to punish the scoundrel who’s doing it. You know I love you, Nan,—oh, don’t be afraid, I’m not going to tell you so, but I have always loved you, and even though you threw me over for Raynor, I’m still going to keep watch and ward that no harm comes to you.”

“Please don’t! Please, Malcolm, don’t!”

“Ah, so my little plan worked, did it? I followed you down here, Mr. Finley,” these opening words were followed by the appearance of Miss Mattie from around the corner of the group of evergreens, “because I felt pretty sure that you would be making love to my brother’s wife. Ah, ha!”

Her thin old face took on a diabolical look of glee, and she peered into the face of each with a triumphant leer.

“Why, Miss Mattie, you here?” said Finley, quickly. “That’s good. And you will have your little joke. Now, own up, you heard me asking Mrs. Raynor to have more burglar protection down here. More trained men to keep watch and ward over her valuables. Don’t you agree with me?”

“Is that what you were talking about?” Miss Mattie said, thoughtfully, and with a shade of disappointment on her face.

“Yes,” said Finley, delighted that he had at least partly convinced her. “There should be a small corps of night watchmen, and more house protection beside.”

“Why does it interest you so deeply, Mr. Finley?”

“Oh, I’m not in the business,—don’t think I’m a burglar-alarm agent, but I see the necessity for better protection. I’m surprised that so able a man as Raynor doesn’t see it that way himself.”

“Yes, my brother is an able man, but he’s the sort whose mind is above domestic details. He leaves all such to Nan.”

“That’s why I’m trying to persuade Mrs. Raynor to attend to it or to let me do it for her. I’ll take up the matter with your husband, if you say so, Mrs. Raynor.”

“You were calling her Nan when I came up,” Miss Mattie spoke suspiciously.

“Oh, we were old friends, and I believe we did use to use first names. But it’s a more formal situation now. Shall we go to the house, it’s almost luncheon time?”

The three strolled along the flower-bordered walks, and as they reached the terrace, Dolly Fay flew to greet them.

“Got your spooning done, you two?” she asked, shaking a merry forefinger at Nan and Finley.

Miss Mattie’s lulled suspicions suddenly awoke again.

She said nothing, but her thin lips came together in a straight line of faded pink, and her thin gray hair seemed almost sentient as the canny old head wagged in understanding.

“It was you I was spooning with,” Finley said to her, with a glance of exaggerated reproach. “You called me your fairy prince,—and then you ran off and left me.”

“Because you had found the real princess. What’s the matter, Nan? You look as if you were going to cry!”

“But I’m not,” and the brave little face forced itself to smile, and the firm little chin set itself with an air of dogged determination. “I’ll just run to my room and change for luncheon,—there’s time if I’m expeditious.”

Miss Mattie went too, and Malcolm Finley, in answer to a killing glance bestowed on him by the flapper, said:

“What a beastly little brat you are!”