Читать книгу The Seven Darlings - Gouverneur Morris - Страница 4

Table of Contents

Mr. Gilpin had departed in what had perhaps been the late Mr. Darling's last extravagant purchase, a motor-boat which at rest was a streak of polished mahogany, and at full speed, a streak of foam. The reluctant lawyer carried with him instructions to collect as much cash as possible and place it to the credit of the equally reluctant Arthur Darling.

"Arthur," Mary had agreed, "is perhaps the only one of us who could be made to understand that a bank account in his name is not necessarily at his own personal disposal. Arthur is altruistically and Don Quixotically honest."

It was necessary to warm the playroom with a tremendous fire, as October had changed suddenly from autumn to winter. There was a gusty grayness in the heavens that promised flurries of snow.

Since Mary's proposal of the day before to turn the expensive camp into a profitable inn, the family had talked of little else, and a number of ways and means had already been chosen from the innumerable ones proposed. In almost every instance Arthur had found himself an amused minority. His platform had been: "Make them comfortable at a fair price."

But Mary, who knew the world, had retorted:

"We are not appealing to people who consider what they pay but to people who only consider what they get. Make them luxurious; and they will pay anything we choose to ask."

After Mr. Gilpin's chillsome departure in the Streak, the family resumed the discussion in front of the great fire in the playroom. Wow, the dog, who had been running a deer for twenty-four hours in defiance of all game-laws, was present in the flesh, but his weary spirit was in the land of dreams, as an occasional barking and bristling of his mane testified. Uncas, the chipmunk, had also demanded and received admittance to the council. For a time he had sat on Arthur's shoulder, puffing his cheeks with inconceivable rapidity, then, soporifically inclined by the warmth of the fire and the constant strain incident to his attempts to understand the ins and outs of the English language when rapidly and even slangily spoken, he dropped into Arthur's breast-pocket and went to sleep.

Arthur sighed. He was feeling immensely fidgety; but he knew that any sudden, irritable shifting of position would disturb the slumbers of Uncas, and so for nearly an hour he held himself heroically, almost uncannily, still.

Two years ago, dating from his graduation, Arthur had had a change of heart. He had been so dissipated as to give his family cause for the utmost anxiety. He had squandered money with both hands. He had had a regular time for lighting a cigarette, namely, when the one which he had been smoking was ready to be thrown away. He had been a keen hunter and fisherman. His chief use for domestic animals was to tease them and play tricks upon them. Then suddenly, out of this murky sky, had shone the clear light of all his subsequent behavior. He neither drank nor smoked; he neither slaughtered deer nor caught fish. He was never quarrelsome. He went much into the woods to photograph and observe. He became almost too quiet and self-effacing for a young man. He asked nothing of the world—not even to be let alone. He was patient under the fiendish ministrations of bores. He tamed birds and animals, spoiling them, as grandparents spoil grandchildren, until they gave him no peace, and were always running to him at inconvenient times because they were hungry, because they were sleepy, because they thought somebody had been abusing them, or because they wished to be tickled and amused.

"He's like a peaceful lake," Maud had once said, "deep in the woods, where the wind never blows," and Eve had nodded and said: "True. And there's a woman at the bottom of it."

The sisters all believed that Arthur's change of heart could be traced to a woman. They differed only as to the kind.

"One of our kind," Mary thought, "who wouldn't have him."

"One of our kind," thought Maud, "who couldn't have him."

And the triplets thought differently every day. All except Gay, who happened to know.

"But," said Maud, "if we are to appeal to people of our own class, all mamma's and papa's old friends and our own will come to us, and that will be much, too much, like charity."

"Right," said Mary. "Don't tell me I haven't thought of that. I have. Applications from old friends will be politely refused."

"We can say," said Eve, "that we are very sorry, but every room is taken."

"But suppose they aren't?" objected Arthur.

Eve retorted sharply.

"What is that to do with it? We are running a business, not a Bible class."

But Phyllis was pulling a long face.

"Aren't we ever to see any of our old friends any more?"

Lee and Gay nudged each other and began to tease her.

"Dearest Pill," they said, "all will yet be well. There is more than one Geoffrey Plantagenet in the world. You shall have the pick of all the handsome strangers."

"Oh, come, now!" said Arthur, "Phyllis is right. Now and then we must have guests—who don't pay."

"Not until we can afford them," said Mary. "Has anybody seen the sketch-map that papa made of the buildings?"

"I know where it is," said Arthur, "but I can't get it now; because Wow needs my feet for a pillow and at the moment Uncas is very sound asleep."

"Can't you tell us where it is?"

"Certainly," he said; "it's in the safe. The safe is locked."

"And where is the key?"

"Just under Uncas."

"Very well, then," said Mary, "important business must wait until Stripes wakes up. Meanwhile, I think we ought to make up our minds how and how much to advertise."

"There are papers," said Eve, "that all wealthy Americans always see, and then there's that English paper with all the wonderful advertisements of country places for sale or to let. I vote for a full-page ad in that. People will say, 'Jove, this must be a wonderful proposition if it pays 'em to advertise it in an English paper.'"

Everybody agreed with Eve except Arthur. He merely smiled with and at her.

"We can say," said Eve, "shooting and fishing over a hundred thousand acres. Does the State own as much as that, Arthur?"

He nodded, knowing the futility of arguing with the feminine conscience.

"Two hundred thousand?"

He nodded again.

"Then," said Eve, "make a note of this, somebody." Maud went to the writing-table. "Shooting and fishing over hundreds of thousands of acres."

"There must be pictures," said Maud, "in the text of the ad—the place is full of them; and if they won't do, Arthur can take others—when Wow and Uncas wake up."

"There must be that picture after the opening of the season," said Mary, "the year the party got nine bucks—somebody make a point of finding that picture."

"There are some good strings of trout and bass photographically preserved," said Gay.

"A picture of chef in his kitchen will appeal," said Lee.

"So will interiors," said Maud. "Bedrooms with vistas of plumbing. Let's be honestly grateful to papa for all the money he spent on porcelain and silver plate."

"Oh, come," said Mary, "we must advertise in the American papers, too. I think we should spend a good many thousand dollars. And of course we must do away with the big table in the dining-house and substitute little tables. I propose that we ransack the place for photographs, and that Maud try her hand at composing full-page ads. And, Arthur, please don't forget the sketch plan of the buildings—we'll have to make quite a lot of alterations."

"I've thought of something," said Maud. "Just a line. Part of the ad, of course, mentions prices. Now I think if we say prices from so and so up—it looks cheap and commonplace. At the bottom of the ad, then, after we've described all the domestic comforts of The Camp and its sporting opportunities, let's see if we can't catch the clientèle we are after with this: