Читать книгу High of Heart - Emilie Loring - Страница 4

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Clive Neale, of Neale, Bridgers and Bridgers, was not the type of English solicitor representing a family whose titles and estates dated back to the fifteenth century that motion pictures, plus imagination, had prepared her to expect, Constance Trent reflected, as from under her fringe of black lashes she regarded the man talking earnestly to Angela Corey. According to fictional tradition he should be spare and gray and stooped. Instead he was tall. He might be in the late thirties, but not a year older. His dark eyes were in startling contrast to his hair and slight mustache, which were almost yellow.

He had set saucer and cup on the floor beside his chair and with the thumb and forefinger of his finely shaped hand was tenderly massaging the lapel of his black morning coat.

As he talked he cast an occasional glance of appeal at Peter Corey who stood before the fire as still and about as responsive as the terrier, who squatted motionless as a graven image, beside him. The man was good-looking and a snappy dresser, Constance admitted. Of course, he hadn’t Peter’s air of distinction, nor his engaging smile, nor his wonderful gray eyes which had a way of lighting as if flames had leaped in them for an instant, and of turning one’s mind inside out till he knew exactly what one was thinking, nor his clean-cut firm chin, but—

“You should talk to Miss Trent, not to me, Mr. Neale.”

Angela Corey’s voice roused Constance from the coma of surprise into which the Englishman’s announcement that he was an emissary from her father’s father had plunged her.

With a sudden instinctive need for something strong and impregnable to grip she rose and slipped her arm within Peter’s. She saw his face flush with dark color, saw the twitch of a muscle in his cheek before he encouraged:

“Here we are, judge and jury prepared to listen to your argument, Mr. Solicitor.”

As the maid left the room with the tea tray Clive Neale replied to the challenge.

“What I have been saying during the last fifteen minutes—Miss Trent has heard little of it, I am sure—sums up to this:

“Lord Gowan wants his granddaughter, his only remaining descendant, to come to Trentmere Towers. A year ago, after the death of his elder son who left no heir, he set agents on the trail of his son, Gordon; Trent is the family name. The search ended in this house.”

“For a good many years he didn’t care to know whether that younger son starved or prospered,” Constance reminded bitterly.

“Your grandfather has given superb service to his country, Miss Trent. He has the heart of a lion, the temper of a wildcat and the obstinacy of, I know of no adequate comparison, it’s colossal. Also, he’s a dashed fine Greek scholar. He came from generations of soldier barons whose loyalty was rewarded by kings who settled on them great estates. The family history is woven into Britain’s. It was a bitter disappointment when his younger son left home rather than continue in the army, a commissioned officer in his father’s old regiment. Failing male issue, the title, which does not descend through the female line, will go to a son of a cousin, Captain Ivor Hardwick.” Neale’s eyes and voice hardened as he spoke the name. “He is one of the popular bachelor hosts in London. Eventually he doubtless would have come into the estate, though it is not entailed, if your father had left no child. You are Lord Gowan’s direct heir. To his friends he is ‘Lord Van.’ ”

“Present the ‘direct’ heir’s’ compliments to Major General Lord Vandemere Trent-Gowan, Retired, and tell him that she is interested neither in him nor in his estate, that she belongs to another family.” She looked up. “I do belong to the Coreys, don’t I, Peter?”

“You do indeed, my dear, utterly, but I think you should go to your grandfather.”

“Peter! You can’t mean it! You don’t think I should, do you, Angel?”

“I do, Connie.”

“You would. Peter’s word is law to you.”

“Don’t make me out to be quite so spineless, my dear.”

“I’m sorry, Angel. Of course you’re not spineless, don’t you rule us all? Iron hand in velvet glove stuff. I’m not spineless, either. I will decide this on my own. I won’t go to Trentmere Towers. I am engaged in important historical research here. Besides, we like our life as it is, don’t we, Whiskers?” The dog planted his forefeet on her frock and gazed up at her with his soul in his eyes.

“What are you getting all steamed up about, Slim? I heard you laying down the law as I came in.”

Constance made a little face at the tall, blond young man who followed his voice into the room. Her heart tightened. He still showed the results of the attack of flu which had pulled him out of his last year at law school and made the doctors warn him gravely to keep away from study for a while. He was too thin, his skin was too white, his blue eyes too translucent. At twenty-four he should be stocky and bronzed. If anything happened to Tim she couldn’t bear it, that’s all, she just couldn’t bear it. To camouflage the sudden surge of terror she said:

“This is Timothy, my other brother, Mr. Neale.”

As he grinned and extended his hand to the solicitor with the cordial charm so like Peter’s she added flippantly:

“Tim, you have arrived just in time for a preview of Little Lord Fauntleroy brought up to date. English Baron graciously forgives runaway son and sends the family solicitor to America to bring long-lost granddaughter to the ancestral home that she may be given a screen-test for the role of heir to the estate. Can’t you hear a voice shout ‘Camera!’?”

“Well, what do you know about that! Stop and get your breath, Slim. Is that straight goods?”

“It is quite true, Mr. Timothy,” Clive Neale assured before Constance could answer. “But Miss Trent has left out the setting of her cinema. The house, Trentmere Towers, a large part of which dates back to the sixteenth century, is very beautiful, set in its famous gardens, with farmhouses, stables and garages. From the top of a hill it overlooks its own villages, streams and valleys. It has been modernized in keeping with its architecture and, unlike many of our old homes, has been kept in perfect repair. The estate covers 30,000 acres. It is one hour from London by express and forty-five miles by good motoring road.”

He drew a folder from the breast pocket of his coat with the assured manner of one about to play the ace of trumps.

“I have photographs of it here.”

“Not interested,” Constance declared indifferently. She freed her arm from Peter’s, turned her back, rested her forehead against the edge of the mantel and stared unseeingly down into the leaping, writhing, scarlet and gold flames. With a deep-drawn sigh the terrier dropped to the rug and laid his nose on her shoe.

As if she needed to be shown photographs of her father’s old home, she thought bitterly. Hadn’t pictures of it been etched deep into her memory by the keen, merciless point of his heartsick longing for it? Her throat ached, her lids stung from hot, repressed tears as she remembered his wistful eyes, his unsteady voice when he had tried to make her visualize the deeply carved, richly painted ceiling of the great vaulted hall, the Spanish leather of its walls, the gallery along its western end from the long, narrow windows of which one could watch the white border in the fountain garden slowly dyed to crimson beauty by the slanting sun.

Had only five years passed since his death? It seemed a century ago. He had been so tender. His passion had been music. Life had hurt him cruelly. He had been little more than a boy when he was hurled into the bloody vortex of war. He had loved the wife who had run away with his friend. He had loved England. He never had lost the feeling that he was an exile but he never had regretted in the darkest hours that he had refused to spend the best years of his life in the army. He hated war. It was such a tragic waste. Nothing ever was gained by it.

“Don’t misunderstand me, Connie,” he would say. “Of course armies must be maintained, adequate provision for defense must be made, and there are thousands to whom that life appeals. If ever Britain again needs me, my life is hers. I would die willingly in defense of the honor of my country, but I refuse to spend it in garrisons in distant lands or parading to the rhythm and martial music of bands. I don’t want to kill or cripple my fellow man. There must be other ways to adjust international quarrels. I have a deep, abiding belief that sometime some great mind and heart will work out the solution.”

And because he refused to spend the rest of his life in a profession for which he was totally unsuited his father had let him go, never had tried to find him. Had this man, Neale, who had spoken so casually of tracing Gordon Trent, learned that there had been weeks and months at a time when he and his small daughter had not had enough to eat? When they had shaken with cold? When the child had been taunted by other children in the poor neighborhood with the fact that her mother, her own mother, had run away and left her?

Probably he had ferreted that out too, but he couldn’t know that for months, after her father had begun to prosper, and for years after she came to Red Maples she had felt that her mother had left a dark stain on her heart which one who looked close enough could see. Angel had comforted and loved that inferiority complex away until now it was a mere wraith of memory.

To the accompaniment of the murmur of voices behind her her thoughts drifted back to the day on which her father had brought her to this mellow old house set against a background of maples which flamed crimson and scarlet and gold in the late afternoon sunlight. She saw herself a thin child of thirteen, so thin and scrawny that later Tim had nicknamed her “Slim,” seated stiffly on the edge of a chair in this very room which had been softly lighted by shaded lamps and the flickering fire and scented by a great bowl of yellow roses whose velvety petals were reflected in the shining mahogany of the piecrust table. She remembered how she had pleated and unpleated a fold of her red tweed coat with unsteady cold fingers while in another room her father conferred with recently widowed Angela Corey and her elder son Peter, who was twenty-four and just starting in the practice of law.

That had been ten years ago but she remembered as clearly as if it were yesterday the constriction of her throat as she asked herself, “Will they want me? It would be heavenly to live in a home like this after the years I’ve traveled with Dad, though since he has been in business with Mr. Corey we’ve had money enough to live in nice places.” And she remembered how she had jumped to her feet and how her nails had bitten into the palms of her clenched hands and how her eyes had flown to her father’s lined, white face as the three had entered the room. He was smiling. Her heart had spread wings. Angela Corey had welcomed tenderly:

“Your father has loaned you to us, Connie, dear. Gordon, you must have been divinely inspired to bring her here. We lost the two little girls who came between Peter and Timothy. You boys and I need a daughter and sister in the house, don’t we, Peter?”

She thought of the glow which had stolen through her veins as her anxious eyes met Peter Corey’s clear, amused gray ones and of his smile so like his mother’s and felt again the surge of passionate adoration of the two which had flooded her heart. The passing years had but intensified her love for them.

A hand touched her shoulder.

“You’re unfair to Mr. Neale, not to listen to him, Con,” Peter Corey protested. “And darned rude, too,” he added in a low voice.

The color scorched her face as she turned. She must have been putting on a spoiled-child act to have Peter speak in that tone.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Neale,” she apologized. The unexpected warmth of her voice and the charm of her smile sent a sudden tinge of color to the Britisher’s face. “I was thinking of the past, which is an extravagant waste of the precious present, isn’t it? I’ll be good now.”

The depth of Clive Neale’s sigh of relief expressed even more than the eagerness of his voice.

“Thanks for giving me a hearing, at least, Miss Trent. Our firm has administered the affairs of your family for generations. I should hate to fail in my errand.” As Constance impulsively opened her lips, he held up his hand.

“Give me a minute, please, let me explain. Your grandfather has no intention or desire to separate you from your foster family. He earnestly hopes that you, Mrs. Corey, and your two sons will accept his hospitality and will, with his granddaughter, occupy Cherrytree Farm during your stay in England. It is a jolly old stone house, with oak-paneled drawing rooms, dining rooms, six bedrooms, tennis courts and garages, and a garden which is the show place of the county. It is fully staffed with servants. He thought that Miss Trent would be happier to have that arrangement at first.”

“Very considerate of him,” Constance countered quickly, “but his proposition leaves me cold.”

“But, I say, Miss Trent, your father never became naturalized in the United States. You are a British subject.”

“Your mistake, Mr. Neale. Quote. ‘Persons born in the United States, though of alien parents, are citizens.’ Unquote. That’s the law, isn’t it, Peter?”

“It is. I am sure that Mr. Neale is aware of it. But being an American citizen doesn’t change the fact that you are the granddaughter and heir of Lord Gowan.”

“Even if I am, I shan’t—”

“Suppose you give us time to think over the invitation, Mr. Neale,” Angela Corey interposed. “That old stone house fully staffed with servants has an alluring sound to me.”

“Do you mean you’d consider going to England, Angel, and leave Peter and Tim?” Constance demanded incredulously.

“But your grandfather wants you all,” Clive Neale reminded. He laughed as the terrier hitched forward and looked directly up into his face. “That goes for the dog, too; he appears frightfully interested. Apparently he doesn’t intend to be left behind. Lord Gowan wants to know the family with whom you have grown up. He hopes that you will come to him at once. I have been instructed to arrange for all expenses; and—”

“Skip it!” Peter Corey interrupted curtly. He smiled. “Better accept my mother’s suggestion, Neale. Give us twenty-four hours in which to consider.”

“If you think twenty-four hours will change my mind, you have another think coming to you, Peter Corey. I hate England,” Constance declared hotly.

With no further attempt at argument Clive Neale bowed himself out. Angela Corey and Tim accompanied him to the hall. Con curled up in a corner of the sofa. With a “whoof” of content the dog snuggled down beside her.... She glanced furtively at Peter in the deep chair beside the fire.... Head tipped back he was thoughtfully blowing smoke rings.... With a rosy-nailed finger she drew an intricate pattern on her tweed skirt.

“I presume that Mr. Neale will return to England and report that the Xanthippe female has nothing on Constance Trent for a nasty temper,” she announced aggressively.

“You’ll have to admit that you weren’t at your sweetest and sunniest, won’t you?”

“I know. I was horrid. But when I thought of all Dad went through and of this chance to return to his home coming five years too late—” her voice broke.

“He loved that home, didn’t he?”

“He did. He would talk about it for hours. I know every crack and cranny of it, though according to the family solicitor it has been kept in too perfect repair to crack. I could see ‘Bunny’ the round and rosy housekeeper who, apparently, adored him. I can describe the crest enameled on the window through which the ghost of the Spanish Bride appears and disappears before the marriage of an heir.”

“Wouldn’t your father want you to go to Trentmere Towers?”

“Not if he knew how I would loathe it. That closes the subject, forever. I’m not going.”

“It’s up to you. It will be quite a blow to Angel. Didn’t you notice the sparkle in her eyes when Neale spoke of that garden? She’s a little mad on the subject of gardens. Tim’s expression was positively beatific when the stables and garages were mentioned. Do you know, Con, I believe that a few months in England would make that boy over. But, why think of it? You don’t want to go. That ends it.”

Constance stirred restlessly.

“You make me out a selfish beast, Peter.”

“Not at all. Why should you do something you hate?”

“Even if I did consent to go, Angel wouldn’t leave home before your marriage and Mr. Neale said my grand—Lord Gowan—wanted me to come at once, didn’t he?”

Peter watched a smoke ring ascend, curl and uncurl, before he said:

“But, I’m not going to be married, Con.”

She was on her feet, looking down at him unbelievingly.

“Not going to be married! So that’s why Angel’s spirit is riding the crest of the wave! Why? When—how?”

“Lydia threw me over today, if that’s what you’re trying to ask?”

“Oh Peter! Are you terribly hurt? Are you—” the sentence broke on a sob.

“I’ll weather the gale. If you don’t mind I’d rather not talk about it. The evening paper must have come. I will get it.”

“Don’t move! Sit there and rest. I’ll bring it to you.”

He rose with a laugh which disclosed a flash of perfect teeth.

“I’ll get it myself. A broken engagement doesn’t automatically make a man an invalid, Con.” He caught her hand.

“Like me again?” he asked with sudden, deep tenderness in his voice.

“Love you!” she declared passionately. She flung her arm about his neck and pressed her lips to his.

She stepped back and looked at him with horrified eyes.

“I shouldn’t have done that. You haven’t kissed me since I went away to college, perhaps you thought I didn’t notice it. I don’t wonder your face is a deep, dark, dangerous red. But I was so happy to think you were free. Now, perhaps you’ll sing again. Do you realize that you haven’t sung since you became engaged to that—”

“Forget it, Con. Let’s talk of something else. I’m a little disappointed that you won’t accept your grandfather’s invitation. I had planned to take three months’ vacation and now that my wedding trip has gone blooey, Trentmere Towers sounded inviting after four years devoted to trial and conviction and smashing Rackets with a capital R.”

She caught the lapels of his riding jacket and administered a slight shake.

“Peter Corey! Do you mean that you’ll go with us? Of course I’ll go! I’ll go anywhere on earth you want me to.”

“I may remind you of that sometime. Come on. Let’s tell Angel we’re all set to cross the pond.”

“ ‘A life on the ocean wave!

A home on the rolling deep!’ ”

he sang in a rich baritone. Con’s sweet, husky voice joined in the refrain as together they left the room with the hitch and roll of the sailor’s hornpipe, the terrier barking and nipping at their heels.

In the hall she squeezed his arm and said with a sob in her voice:

“Petey, isn’t it heavenly to be friends again?”