Читать книгу The Girl from Hollywood - Edgar Rice Burroughs - Страница 16

CHAPTER IX

TWO WEEKS LATER, Grace Evans left for Hollywood and fame. She would permit no one to accompany her, saying that she wanted to feel that from the moment she left home, she had made her own way unassisted toward her goal.

Hers was the selfish egotism that is often to be found in otherwise generous natures. She had never learned the sweetness and beauty of sharing — of sharing her ambitions, her successes, and her failures, too, with those who loved her. If she won to fame, the glory would be hers; nor did it once occur to her that she might have shared that pride and pleasure with others by accepting their help and advice. If she failed, they would not have even the sad sweetness of sharing her disappointment.

Over two homes, there hovered that evening a pall of gloom that no effort seemed able to dispel. In the ranch house on Ganado, they made a brave effort at cheerfulness on Custer Pennington’s account. They did not dance that evening, as was their custom, nor could they find pleasure in the printed page when they tried to read. Bridge proved equally impossible.

Finally, Custer rose, announcing that he was going to bed. Kissing them all good night, as had been the custom since childhood, he went to his room, and tears came to the mother’s eyes as she noted the droop in the broad shoulders as he walked from the room.

The girl came then and knelt beside her, taking the older woman’s hand in hers and caressing it.

“I feel so sorry for Cus,” she said. “I believe that none of us realize how hard he is taking this. He told me yesterday that it was going to be just the same as if Grace was dead, for he knew she would never be satisfied here again, whether she succeeded or failed. I think he has definitely given up all hope of their being married.”

“Oh, no, dear, I am sure he is wrong,” said her mother. “The engagement has not been broken. In fact, Grace told me only a few days ago that she hoped her success would come quickly so that she and Custer might be married the sooner. The dear girl wants us to be proud of our new daughter.”

“My God!” ejaculated the colonel, throwing his book down and rising to pace the floor. “Proud of her! Weren’t we already proud of her? Will being an actress make her any dearer to us? Of all the damn fool ideas!”

“Custer! Custer! You mustn’t swear so before Eva,” reproved Mrs. Pennington.

“Swear?” he demanded. “Who in hell is swearing?”

A merry peal of laughter broke from the girl nor could her mother refrain from smiling.

“It isn’t swearing when Popsy says it,” cried the girl. “My gracious, I’ve heard it all my life, and you always say the same thing to him as if I’d never heard a single little cuss word. Anyway, I’m going to bed now, Popsy, so that you won’t contaminate me. According to Momsy’s theory, she should curse like a pirate by this time, after 25 years of it!”

She kissed them, leaving them alone in the little family sitting room.

“I hope the boy won’t take it too hard,” said the colonel after a silence.

“I am afraid he has been drinking a little too much lately,” said the mother. “I only hope his loneliness for Grace won’t encourage it.”

“I hadn’t noticed it,” said the colonel.

“He never shows it much,” she replied. “An outsider would not know that he had been drinking at all when I can see that he has had more than he should.”

“Don’t worry about that, dear,” said the colonel. “A Pennington never drinks more than a gentleman should. His father and his grandsires, on both sides, always drank, but there has never been a drunkard in either family. I wouldn’t give two cents for him if he couldn’t take a man’s drink like a man; but he’ll never go too far. My boy couldn’t!”

The pride and affection in the words brought the tears to the mother’s eyes. She wondered if there had ever been father and son like these before — each with such implicit confidence in the honor, the integrity, and the manly strength of the other. His boy couldn’t go wrong!

Custer Pennington entered his room, lighted a reading lamp beside a deep, wide-armed chair, selected a book from a rack, and settled himself comfortably for an hour of pleasure and inspiration. But he did not open the book. Instead, he sat staring blindly at the opposite wall.

Directly in front of him hung a water color of the Apache done by Eva and given to him the previous Christmas; a framed enlargement of a photograph of a prize Hereford bull; a pair of rusty Spanish spurs; and a frame of ribbons won by the Apache at various horse shows. Custer saw none of these but only a gloomy vista of dreary years stretching through the dead monotony of endless ranch days that were all alike — years that he must travel alone.

She would never come back, and why should she? In the city, in that new life, she would meet men of the world — men of broader culture than his, men of wealth — and she would be sought after. They would have more to offer her than he, and, sooner or later, she would realize it. He could not expect to hold her.

Custer laid aside his book.

“What’s the use?” he asked himself.