Читать книгу With Banners - Emilie Loring - Страница 6

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Brooke Reyburn stood in the doorway of the living-room at Lookout House. Behind her in the hall a graceful circular stairway wound up and up. She nodded approval. The room was the perfect setting she had visualized for the Duchess of Argyle since the day she had known that her father had willed her the portrait. The green of the walls and trim repeated the color of the satin gown of the woman in the dull gold frame which hung above the mantel of carved black Italian marble, repeated also the shade of the feathers of the dozing parrot in a gilded cage, threw into relief dark polished surfaces of mahogany. On each side of the fireplace in which birch logs blazed and crackled, choicely bound books lined the walls from baseboard to ceiling. Softly shaded lamps shed light on deep, inviting chairs and intensified the rich coloring of the hollyhock-printed chintz which covered them. A sun porch was filled from floor to ceiling with chrysanthemums in pots, shading from feathery white at the top through pale pink and rose to crimson.

Brooke's throat contracted as her glance rested on the large flat-topped mahogany desk. That, as well as the books, had been her father's. There had been no room for them in the apartment. If only he could have lived to share her good fortune. He had been such a wonderful father.

What would Mark Trent think of the changes—if he came? She needn't worry about that. It was evident that he wasn't coming, would not accept her last-minute invitation, he probably had dozens for the holiday. What was he thinking of her for having invited a man who had persistently snubbed all attempts at friendliness, to dine with her on Thanksgiving day? She needn't wonder about that either. She knew. She had sent the note two days ago, because she couldn't rid herself of the feeling that unwittingly she had robbed him, and she so wanted to tell him that she had known nothing of his aunt's will, and to thank him for saving her, if not from death, from being terribly messed up the day he had pulled her from in front of that speeding roadster. He had not replied to her invitation. It was her last flourish of the olive branch. She didn't like him anyway. Whenever she thought of his lordly declaration that he "wouldn't marry that schemer," she felt a furious urge to hurt him, hurt him terribly. So that was that.

She had had everything that she thought belonged to his family stored in the apartment over the garage. Curious that she had found so little silver. But she had found other things, heaps of useless things. Dozens of old corks, empty bottles galore, boxes in all shapes and sizes, bags of string neatly coiled and tied that had been taken from packages. Before she finished clearing closets and drawers, she had begun to wonder if everything that ever had come into the house had been saved.

She looked at the door which Mary Amanda Dane had told her opened into the twin house. Something uncanny about it. Whenever she was in the room it drew her eyes like a magnet. Mark Trent's house was on the other side. It had not been lived in for years. What a waste. Had his wife refused to live there? His wife? She couldn't think of him as having had a wife. Why think of him at all?

She resolutely switched her thoughts to her surroundings. This was the same room in which she had first seen Mrs. Dane in her wheel chair, but how different. Then it had been drab and heavy; now it glowed with soft color. She would never forget the pathos in the woman's eyes as they had met hers, nor the eagerness of her greeting. She had registered a passionate vow to make her lovely and attractive in appropriate clothes. That had been her job—then—and a thrilling job, too, to help women make the most of their good points.

Brooke smiled as she remembered the "Stop! Look! Listen!" with which the parrot had greeted her appearance; her face sobered as she remembered also the ill concealed animosity of Henri, the butler, as he had lingered in the doorway. In his beady black eyes there had been something menacing, something greedy which had stopped her heart for an instant.

How Mary Amanda Dane had fooled her about money. The crippled woman had kept her feet firmly on the ground when it came to spending. Planning inexpensive, attractive clothes for her had been an exciting challenge. She had succeeded. The frocks had been charming, and with her drab wardrobe the invalid had shed much of her crabbedness. Lovely clothes did that for a woman. Pity that more husbands didn't realize the fact. Now she was gone and had left a small fortune behind her. Why had she denied herself so many of the luxuries of life? Brooke blinked long wet lashes and said aloud, as she had said many times since she had come to live at Lookout House:

"Thank you for everything, Mrs. Mary Amanda. Thanks billions."

She swallowed the lump which rose in her throat whenever she thought of the woman's incredible kindness. Hardly the time to go sentimental when at any moment the family might burst in on her. They were on their way to spend Thanksgiving. For the first time they would see the changes in the house; she had postponed their coming until it should be in perfect order.

What sort of an evening was the weather clerk handing them after two days of storm? She had been too busy to think of it before. She pushed back the long chintz hangings at the French window. She leaned her forehead against the cool glass. Heavenly night. The sea was fairly quiet. There was a faint reverberation only as it drove against the rocks below the terrace, curled back on itself and drove again. Rows of lights, looking from a distance like a procession of cloudy jewels, outlined the causeway. A faint wind stirred the blinds as if ghostly fingers were running up and down the slats, moaned eerily at the corners of the house. Lights blazed and twinkled on the shore across the bay, but so far as she could see to the east, except for one jutting rock, the ocean stretched in unbroken immensity on and on to a distant continent. Where sea and sky met, a big red moon was rising. It cast a coppery mist on the shimmering water. That gorgeous gleaming bubble gave one a no-account feeling, a sense of being alone in a big indifferent world. Curious, it never had had that effect on her when she had seen it peering above the roofs of the city.

The city. The adorable city. Resolutely she shut out the mental flash of brilliantly lighted streets; of crowds of people, laughing, frowning, pushing; of processions of automobiles, all of them going somewhere.

She drew the hangings and crossed to the desk. The parrot opened one eye, muttered something deep in his throat, and shivered until every green and yellow feather stood on end as if electrified.

Brooke watched him from under her lashes as she rearranged the rich foliage of two perfect Templar roses in a bubble vase on the desk. He was dozing again, the old reprobate. Queer that she disliked him so. She distrusted Mr. Micawber almost as much as she distrusted Clotilde and Henri Jacques whom she had kept on as servants. The man was so—so obsequious—oily was a better word. A cadaverous, gray-haired hypocrite. Particularly she hated his slack mouth, his false teeth which clicked when he talked. Uriah Heep with French manners. His wife was fat and sullen, but—an excellent cook. They had not been part of her legacy. She had kept them on only until the house was in order.

Now that it was in order, what next, she wondered with a touch of panic. Her life had been so full that she would grow mentally flabby without an absorbing interest. The business world had sharpened all her senses, it didn't seem as if home-making for herself would keep them keen. Since she had come to Lookout House, she had missed the stimulating impact of rival firms on her mind, the sting of ambition to make good, the glamour and color of fashionable clothes. Had the family come with her, it would have been different.

She crossed her arms on the mantel and studied the face of the portrait. How did the Duchess like being transplanted? The painted eyes looked down at her steadily. Brooke nodded and confided:

"Something tells me that your spirit never shirked responsibility which would broaden character, nor evaded experience which would give stamina and courage to carry on. I'll wager you went forward like an army with banners. What you could do, your descendant many generations removed can do. Watch her, that's all, just watch her go on!"

She wafted a kiss to the painted face. "With banners, Duchess! With banners!" Her smile vanished. She thought:

"That's all right so far as it goes, but I feel a pricking in my thumbs. I wonder what experience, what test of courage is lying in wait to pounce on me as I turn the next corner?"

The honk-honk of an automobile horn outside was followed by voices singing lustily:

"'Over the river and through the wood,

Trot fast, my dapple-gray!

Spring over the ground

Like a hunting hound

For this is Thanksgiving day.'"

The gay chorus was followed by laughter and vociferous cries:

"Whoa there! Stand still, Lightning! Whoa!"

Laughing, Brooke dashed for the front door. It was so like the Reyburn family to dramatize its arrival.

In a rush of cold air and excited greetings she piloted her mother and sister to the library. The startled parrot shrieked, "Stop! Look! Listen!"

"Boy, you don't need a burglar alarm with that announcer. You ought to loan him to a bank."

Lucette made a gamin face at the parrot as she slipped out of her ocelot coat. She dragged off her hat and patted the swirl of her dark hair.

Brooke hugged her mother. "It's wonderful to have you here, Celia Reyburn, and aren't you devastating in that eel-gray ensemble!"

"Not as devastating as you are in that shimmery white, daughter. It brings out the copper lights in your hair."

Brooke laughed. "We are like two diplomats exchanging compliments, the difference is that ours come from the heart. Where's Sam? Don't tell me Sam isn't coming!"

Lucette held a lighter to a cigarette with a faint hint of bravado.

"Don't cry, darling. Sam came. Didn't you recognize his voice singing as if his little heart would burst from joy as we approached this baronial hall? Doubtless he is kissing his peachy convertible good-night in your garage. He's crazy about that coupe you gave him, Brooke. He has named it Lightning. And can it go! Who's the tall gent with the undertaker expression who pulled our bags from the car as if he were extracting upper and lower molars?"

"Henri. He and his wife, Clotilde, worked for years for Mrs. Dane. I kept them on to help me settle. They take a lot of handling, believe it or not."

"I believe it. This room looks like part of a House Beautiful exhibit. It's corking."

"Wait till you see the rest of the house, Lucette. Here's Sam. I would recognize his bang of a door if I heard it in Timbuctoo. Welcome to Lookout House, Sammy! It's wonderful that the theatre closed just at this time."

"Yeah! It's all in the point of view. There are them who think otherwise. However, I'm not kicking."

He caught Brooke in a bearlike hug. He kept his arm about her as he looked around the room.

"Swell joint you've got here. I like the greenhousey smell from those plants. Say listen, we've missed you like the dickens, haven't we, Mother?"

"We have, Sam." Celia Reyburn steadied her voice. "We'd better stop emotionalizing and get ready for dinner. I have kept house years enough to know that promptness at meals helps to keep the home-maker's life's walk easy."

"You would think of that, Mother. It isn't dinner tonight. I planned a buffet supper, not being sure at what time my relatives from the big town would arrive. Come upstairs and I'll show you your rooms."

A family might get on each other's nerves, as of course it did at times, but there was nothing like it, Brooke concluded fervently, as after supper on a floor cushion in front of the library fire she leaned against her mother's knees. And every family needed a house in which to spread out, and blazing logs around which to gather and exchange confidences, her thoughts ran on. People slipped aside their masks in a room lighted only by the flames on the hearth. Sam's face, usually gay and debonair, had settled into grave lines as he thoughtfully cracked nuts. Was he worrying about a job? Lucette's black brows were contracted in a slight frown as, on the floor, legs out straight before her, she leaned back against the broad couch. Brooke couldn't see her mother's face. Was she remembering the evenings they had sat about the fire like this when her husband had been the sun about which all their lives revolved?

Perhaps it was because she had been too absorbed in her own concerns before to notice, but Sam and Lucette seemed to have grown older, to have changed, seemed also to have something weighty on their minds. What was it? What had happened?

As if she knew what she was thinking, Lucette burst out nervously:

"If Sam can stop that nut-munching Marathon, perhaps he'll announce the latest Reyburn news flash."

Brooke sat erect. "What news?"

Sam took careful aim at the parrot's perch. The nutshell struck its bullseye and roused the dozing bird.

"Hell's bells!" he croaked, and ruffled his feathers.

"Looks as if he were caught in a typhoon, doesn't he?" The laughter in Sam's voice vanished. "Mother has been invited to spend the winter in England with her friend Lady Jaffrey."

"Sam!" With the exclamation Brooke was on her feet. "Do you mean it? How perfectly grand! She lives in an old castle, doesn't she?"

"Hey, pipe down, Brooke. There's a nigger in the wood pile. Wait till you hear the condition."

"A condition in Lady Jaffrey's invitation, Sam? I can't believe it."

"Be quiet, children. Let me talk." Arms crossed on the back of the wing chair in which she had been sitting, Celia Reyburn faced her family. Her cheeks were pink; her eyes, as blue as her son's, were brilliant with excitement. She clasped her hands tightly as if to steady them.

"The chair recognizes the lady from the big city," Sam encouraged with a grin.

"What's the condition, Mother? Don't you want to go?"

"Very, very much, Brooke, but I shouldn't enjoy a moment of the visit if I left your brother and sister in that apartment alone. Quote. I'm old-fashioned, and my feelings date me. Unquote. Let me finish, Lucette." Celia Reyburn spoke in the tone her children never failed to respect. "I know by heart your argument that you are old enough to live by yourself, that most girls are doing it; that Sam, a man of twenty-seven, should live in bachelor quarters—"

"I've never even thought of that, Mother."

"I know, Sam, I know. You've been a tower of strength to me. When I am with you I feel warmed through, as if I had been sitting in the sun. When I hear your key in the apartment door at night, I close my eyes secure in your protection. I feel as if nothing could hurt me or your sisters." She steadied her voice and brushed her hand across her eyes. She laughed.

"I didn't mean to turn on what Lucette calls the water-works. I would love to spend the winter with Elaine Jaffrey, Brooke; she was my room-mate for four years in college. I realize that I have been in a deep rut, that I have been stagnating. It's the water which keeps moving, if only a little, which gets to the sea. Perhaps I'm a selfish woman, but I would like to go and will go, if my mind is perfectly at ease about Lucette and Sam. If they will come here to you, and if you will have them—"

"Have them! Mother, don't be foolish! I have been rattling round in this big house like a dried coconut in a shell. Of course I want them—but will they come?"

"Who's being foolish now?" Lucette flung her cigarette into the fire. Her cheeks were almost as red as her painted lips. "Of course we'll come, Brooke Reyburn. Of course we'll play ball Mother's way. Sam and I aren't cold-blooded fish. If taking to the sticks to be chaperoned by big sister will make Mother's visit happier, we'll settle down here with bells on. She's earned all the fun she can get. She'll have one grand time and mow those stiff Britishers down in swaths and come home Countess Whoosit, or I miss my guess."

"Lucette!" Celia Reyburn protested indignantly.

"Don't mind her, Mother," Brooke reassured. "By the time you return your younger daughter will have acquired all the social graces—"

"Just a minute! Now I make a condition. I come only if I keep on with my job."

"It would mean early and late commuting, Lucette."

"I've thought that out. In Sam's convertible we can make it."

"But you and Sam won't be coming down at the same time, and—"

"Don't be so sure, Brooke." Sam aimed a nutshell at the parrot. "The theatre has closed permanently and I'm up against one of those simple economic problems, where's the next job coming from? I'll go to New York to see off Mother and take my play. Now that producers have begun to sniff around for bargains, I may get my chance."

"Sam—dear—" Brooke attempted to lighten her dismayed voice. Bad enough for him to be out of work without having her turn sob-sister. "You'll find something. I read the other day that the theatre is on the up-grade. If you don't—oh, Sammy, what a chance for you to write! Why not give your play a try-out here? We'll do it for the town's welfare fund, in the Club House theatre. What a chance to try 'Islands Arise' on the dog!"

"News flash! The Reyburns stage a play!" Lucette cut in.

"Why not?" Brooke persisted eagerly. "Most of the summer homes are to be kept open during the winter and—Answer the phone, will you, Sam? Take the message for me. I've been pestered to death by tradespeople and insurance agents wanting to sell me something. Tell them I'm out of town for the evening—anything."

The silence of the room was broken only by the snap and hiss of the fire as Sam Reyburn put the receiver of the handset to his ear.

"Hulloa.—Yes.—Miss Reyburn is out of town for the evening.—Sure, she'll be back tomorrow.—Oh, it is!—Yes, I'll give her your message. She'll be pleased purple.—I get you. I'll tell her. 'Bye!" He laid the phone on the stand.

"Who was it, Sam? What will please me purple?" Brooke demanded uneasily.

Sam backed up to the mantel. With hands deep in his pockets, he grinned at his sister.

"Holding out on us, weren't you, gal?"

"What do you mean? Sam, who called?"

Her brother cracked a nut with maddening deliberation and crunched the meat between his strong white teeth before he answered:

"A party by the name of Trent."

"Trent! Not Mark the Magnificent? Why didn't you let me answer?"

Sam struck an attitude. "Ungrateful female! Didn't I imperil my immortal soul by lying for you? Saying you were out of town?"

"Cut the dramatics, Sam. What did Mark Trent want?"

"Wanted me to tell you that he had been away."

"What of it? For goodness' sake, stop stalling! What did he want?"

"Not much. Only to say that he accepted your invitation for Thanksgiving dinner with pleasure."