Читать книгу Swift Water - Emilie Loring - Страница 6

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In a morning frock as softly yellow as the feathery chrysanthemums on the middle of the breakfast table, Constance Wynne, from behind the silver coffee urn, thoughtfully regarded her brother. With arm on the mantel he looked unseeingly down into the sociable little fire which blazed, sputtered, cast flickering shadows on the delicately tinted walls of the old room, on the soft-toned linen hangings.

The sun dappled her with colors as it shot its rays through the glass arranged on the shelves against a great, many-paned window behind her. It shone through a bit of mulberry Stiegel, a fat Chinese bottle of yellow quartz; set aglint a Venetian flagon gay with enamels, a priceless bit of ruby Bohemian, an eighteenth century example of Persian sapphire; lovingly touched a tulip-shaped piece of royal purple, a goblet of clear green. Through lemon yellow, amethyst, dark amber, blue and russet brown, it flung its light lavishly, gorgeously.

With a shrug as though ridding his shoulders of a burden Christopher Wynne turned his back to the fire, thrust his hands hard into the pockets of his tweed coat. His sister inquired solicitously:

“Does the inexplicable gift of the Contessa worry you, Chris?”

“Perplexed, yea, perplexed, but not worried.” He smiled as he paraphrased the words of the apostle Paul.

“Will the responsibility of raising the money fall upon you?”

“No.”

“But Christopher—”

“Forget it, Con. I’m to meet the Standing Committee at eleven. If I am to realize my purpose to make our church a spiritual force in this community, if I am to be something more than a highly paid executive, I’ve got to take my stand this morning. My back will be against the wall. No turning nor side-stepping. If—here’s the late Miss Wynne—” he laughed, as a young girl catapulted into the room followed by twin red setters who flung themselves on Christopher. Her boyishly slim body was clothed in a straight frock of brown jersey. The white collar was fastened by a shining silver pin. Her eyes, shell rimmed, shone clearly blue in her tanned face as she thumped Christopher vigorously on the chest, hailed him affectionately:

“Morning! Old lamb pie.”

“Go easy, Sally-May. You and the Rover Boys are as tempestuous as a cyclone.” He smoothed her short, wavy hair. “This is the fourth time you’ve been late for breakfast this week. What are we going to do about it?”

“Sorry. I had to ’phone Flo. Thought I’d never get her. Central was catty on purpose. I’m starving.” She scowled at the table. “Only one pop-over left! I’ll say you had appetites.”

“Helga is baking some for you, dear,” Constance encouraged.

“She’s a peach!” The girl flopped into a chair. The dogs, one on each side of her, cocked their silky, red heads, opened their mouths expectantly, followed every movement of her hand with beseeching eyes. She attacked a grape-fruit with a force which sent a blinding, smarting spray into one eye.

“Hell!” she exploded as she dabbed at the afflicted member.

Constance Wynne swallowed a startled protest. She met her brother’s eyes. They had decided that the best way to meet Sally-May’s present phase in language was to ignore it. She was conscious of one shell-rimmed eye watching for the effect of the exclamation. Christopher saw it too. He laughed.

“One drop of juice in the eye is worth a dozen on the tongue for power.” His voice deepened, gravity submerged the smile. “There are some words your Aunt Con and I don’t care to have brought into this sunny parsonage. Courtesy as well as charity should begin at home. Get me, Sally-May?” He left the room. The dogs started up to follow, regarded the pop-over which the girl was buttering lavishly and settled back on their haunches, motionless as listening posts. She tossed each of them a morsel.

“You boys’d better stick round for the finish. I’m sorry, Aunt Connie, that word just slipped out. I’ll bet Uncle Chris’s rippin’ mad.”

“Not mad, Sally-May. It hurts him to have the child upon whom we’ve spent years of our lives like cheap ways and company.”

“Cheap company! I suppose you mean Flo Calvin. She isn’t cheap. She’s a re-re-acshunary. Her father’s all hell-fire and brimstone, she just has to get relief some way—so she swears. He’s terribly rich. Flo says he could buy and sell Uncle Chris. He’s one of our S. Cs. and—”

“S. Cs.?”

“Standing Committee. You know, the men who run our church. Flo says that her father could put Uncle Chris out of his job, if he wanted to.”

Constance saw red with green polka-dots. That insufferable Calvin child! Was her father behind this drive for money? Always she had the feeling that he was biding the time, when factions in the Community Church should clash, each to demand its own altar and gods back again. She sternly regarded her niece who was watching her with big, solemn eyes, even as she kept an uninterrupted supply of food moving in the direction of the demand.

“Sally-May! Do you discuss your Uncle Chris with Flo Calvin?”

“Discuss him! Of course I do. She’s as mad about him as I am. Says she’d walk over red-hot waffle irons for him. That’s going some. I could die eating Helga’s pop-overs.” She helped herself to a puff of golden brown crust, hollow as a balloon, from the plate a flaxen-haired, trim maid proffered.

“Watch your step or you will,” Constance warned drily. She waited until the servant had left the room before she inquired:

“Has Flora heard of the gift for the Community Church?”

“She’s all excited about it. Pigs!” she hissed at the dogs who none too gently had laid reminding paws on her shoulders. She fed them before she went on:

“Flo says, she’d bet her father’d give one of his gold teeth—you’ve noticed ’em haven’t you, one on each side glittering like nice gold tusks—to know why the old Contessa loosened up. Usually she’s tighter than a banana’s skin and you’d have to go some to beat that. Why is she crashing through now? Flo and I mean to snoop till we find out.”

Why indeed, Constance wondered in troubled uncertainty. When at the Contessa’s dinner Hugh Randolph’s eyes had seemed to burn deep into her heart she had decided that this was the psychical year to spend abroad. Her partner had been urging her to go in the interests of their business. But—how could she desert Christopher now? He would stand like a rock for what he believed and he believed that a clergyman should not spend the time, strength and energy so needed in his church work on the business side of it. Sometimes, devoutly she wished that he had stayed in medicine. He was not appreciated where he was and—

“Seen the Randolph girl? Flo and I are mad about her. She’s a knock-out,” approved Sally-May through a barrier of pop-over and marmalade.

“Dear, don’t talk with your mouth full. You’ll never be a lady if you don’t cultivate table manners.”

“Don’t want to be. Ladies bore me to tears. Pre-war stuff. Look at the Contessa with her wigs and her lorgnon. I suppose you’d call her a lady?”

Constance side-stepped.

“I have met Miss Randolph. She is lovely.”

“It’s all over town that she got pinched for speeding the day she arrived.”

The day she arrived! The day Christopher had taken Carter’s place at the Crossroads. Curious he hadn’t spoken of it. Sally-May went on:

“I guess the older bunch doesn’t like her. Jealous. Flo and I were scrunched behind the couch in the Calvin living-room when Sue was having her bridge-club—her father was in New York on business—she has to do it on the sly, he won’t have cards or dancing in the house—if the girls hear a step in the hall they pull out Parchesi boards— As I was saying, we’d been helping ourselves to candy and we knew Sue’d be rippin’ mad if she caught us—they were talking about the Randolph girl. Fanchon Farrell giggled and said—”

Constance thrust temptation behind her and protested sternly:

“Sally-May, don’t repeat what you overheard while scrunching behind that couch.”

“Overheard! Gee-whiz! Guess ’twas lucky I was there. Somebody’s got to be little long-ears when there’s a minister in the family. Aren’t I a W. V.? Doesn’t that mean that I’m to keep my lamp trimmed and burning so I can see danger to Uncle Chris?”

“Danger! What do you mean?”

“I thought you wouldn’t be so upstage when you knew they were talking about him. Fanchon Farrell, the giggler, was saying that she told Jean Randolph that she wouldn’t be here a week before she’d join the rest of the bunch in social service work and be going to church. And Jean was mad and bet her sporty yellow roadster that she wouldn’t. Sue Calvin cut in in that voice of hers which scrapes along your backbone like walking on sugar:

“ ‘What’s the big idea, Fanchon? You’ve taken the best way to start Jean Randolph after Christopher.’

“And Fanchon snapped, ‘Well, if she gets him, you won’t, Sue,’ and then the whole bunch cut-in on a regular cat and parrot fight.”

A stifled sound at the door. Christopher Wynne stood there.

His eyes blazed as he announced sternly:

“Sally-May, if you listen-in on any more of those big-girl talks and repeat what you hear, you’ll—you’ll lose that silver lamp.”

The girl clasped both hands over the shining pin at her collar. Protested breathlessly:

“He never would take it away, would he, Aunt Connie?”

Constance laid her arm about the too thin shoulders.

“He would if he thought it would teach you not to gossip, Sally-May.”

“But, that isn’t gossip. I heard it. I haven’t told a soul that Fanchon said that Jean said that she hated a man who under the guise of church catered to a lot of silly, sentimental women.”

Constance never had heard her brother’s voice so stern, as when he thundered:

“Sally-May—”

Fingers tapped on the French window. Unceremoniously Sue Calvin stepped into the room. Good heavens, had she begun coming to breakfast to be sure of waylaying Chris, Constance wondered indignantly. She was too meticulously groomed and dressed to seem human. Looked as though she had been taken from a mold. Not a thread of her red sports suit, not a wisp of the brilliantined hair visible beneath her toque, was out of place. She ignored everyone but Christopher who had retreated to the fireplace with hands behind his back, the slight line which indicated annoyance between his brows. Her voice was as hard, as clean-cut, as her personality as she exulted:

“Thank heaven I’ve caught you before you got away, Dominie. You keep office hours at the church more strictly than any business man I know. I came to warn you to look out for storm.”

Christopher drew out a chair.

“Have a cup of coffee, Miss Calvin?”

“Why don’t you call me Sue? I’ve breakfasted, thank you, Dominie. Father rises early and drags the family up after him. You are to meet the Standing Committee this morning, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“They are to discuss the best method of raising money to meet the Contessa’s gift, aren’t they?”

“So I understand.”

“Don’t be so communicative, Dominie, you’re garrulous.” It was evident that Miss Calvin was finding difficulty in controlling her irritation. “Well, when they put a certain proposition up to you, don’t be pigheaded.”

Christopher colored darkly. Sally-May slipped her arm within his. Frowned primly. Constance recognized the W. V. expression as her niece protested:

“What’s the big idea, Sue? Why are you trying to boss Uncle Chris? Anyone’d think you were married to him.”

Spark to tinder. Miss Calvin’s pallid skin flushed hotly. She turned angrily on Constance.

“I wonder if you realize that everyone in town is talking of the rotten manners of your niece! At a meeting of the Woman’s Association she dashed into the room when I was speaking—”

Sally-May’s face was red with fury as she interrupted stormily:

“Well, I like that! Who was with me? Flo! Your own sister! Pull yourself together! If you’re going to lecture on manners you’d better begin with her! Uncle Chris says, ‘Courtesy begins at home.’ Dashed into the room, did I! Watch me leave!”

With astonishing dexterity she propelled herself to the door by a series of perfectly executed handsprings. Upright once more she mimicked:

“ ‘I’ve breakfasted, thank you, Dominie.’ ” Giggled. Added, “ ‘Why don’t you call me Sue?’ ” In her own clear, fresh voice she informed: “I’ve got to exercise the gold-fish in the bath tub, Aunt Connie. F-f-fish, boys!” she hissed at the dogs. With one bound the red setters were at the door, tore after her up the stairs.

Constance Wynne’s face burned with mortification. Sue was right. Sally-May’s manners were atrocious—but—if you came to that so were those of Flo. Was Christopher’s dark color due to his effort to strangle back laughter? Sally-May’s exit had been funny, her imitation perfect. Why make a tragedy of it? Sue Calvin pulled on an immaculate glove as she observed venomously:

“The proverb that ministers’ sons never come to a good end in this case may be applied to a niece.” She met Christopher’s steady eyes. A miracle! Vinegar turned instantly to sugar. She temporized in her best sporting manner:

“Don’t think me unsympathetic, Dominie. I know what you’re up against. Haven’t I a little, motherless girl to discipline? But, about the meeting this morning. I came to help. Father’s all purple patches because, when he talked the gift over with Contessa di Fanfani, he got the impression that she knew you wouldn’t help raise the money. You will, won’t you?”

“That’s a matter for me to discuss first with the Committee.”

“Polite for ‘none of your business.’ Well, I’ve warned you. I hear that Mrs. Hugh Randolph is furious with her mother for giving away her money. Not that she’s suffering especially. I heard that for one short story she got three thousand dollars which she immediately sank in one emerald. They say, that when she refused to come back to Garston, her husband stopped her allowance. They say also, that her daughter is as extravagant, as pleasure-daft as she is. We have tried to draw her into our church activities, but she won’t help.”

Constance was conscious of her oblique, calculating regard before she went on.

“Remember, Dominie! Storm signals out! I ought to know! I live in the house with the Chairman of the Committee. I’ll go this way. Thank you.”

She looked straight up into Christopher Wynne’s eyes as he opened the French door for her. Nothing subtle in Sue’s methods, Constance told herself. That last look had made her hotly uncomfortable. Had there been venom in her reference to Hugh Randolph’s wife? Were people beginning to comment on his frequent calls at Hollyhock House? If only she could run away. Well, she couldn’t. She was selfish to think of it when her twin needed her. What was he thinking as he followed Sue Calvin with his eyes? As their late caller disappeared behind the shrubbery Constance patted his sleeve tenderly, confided gaily:

“If Sue had said ‘Dominie’ once more I would have screamed. Don’t mind her, Chris.”

Christopher Wynne’s thoughtful eyes flashed into laughter.

“Mind her! Do you know what I was thinking? That there went one little, motherless girl whom I would like to discipline.”