Читать книгу The Siege of the Seven Suitors - Meredith Nicholson - Страница 17

There was no reason in the world why Hartley Wiggins should not call upon two ladies living in Westchester County, and I must say that he appeared to advantage in Miss Hollister's library.

He had got into his evening clothes somewhere, perhaps at a neighboring inn, or maybe at the house of a friend; for he could not possibly have motored into town and back since his interview with Cecilia in the highway. He had impressed the clerk at the Hare and Tortoise with the idea that he had left New York for a long absence, and he had apparently camped at the gates of Hopefield to be near Cecilia.

When he had paid his compliments to the ladies, he turned to me with an almost imperceptible lifting of the brows; but he was cordial enough. If he was surprised or disappointed at seeing me, his manner did not betray the feeling.

"Glad to see you, Ames. Rather nice weather, this."

"Even Dakota could n't do better," I affirmed with a grin; but he ignored the fling.

"It is quite remarkable, Mr. Wiggins, that you should have appeared just when you did, for we had been speaking of you, and I had been telling Mr. Ames of our travels abroad and in particular of the thumping you very properly gave our courier at Cologne. And I shall not deny that I mentioned also our brief discussion of the peach-crop at Fontainebleau."

Cecilia stirred restlessly; Wiggins shot a glance of inquiry in my direction; and I felt decidedly ill at ease. Miss Hollister crossed to the fireplace and poked the logs.

Just what part Hezekiah Hollister played in the situation was beyond me. If I had not witnessed Wiggins's clandestine meeting with Cecilia, matters would have been clearer to my comprehension; but his appearance at the house, after the colloquy I had overheard from the briar patch, was in itself inexplicable. Cecilia was a woman, therefore to be wooed, and yet she had indicated by her words to him that the wooing, independently of her feeling and inclination, might not go forward with entire freedom. Miss Hollister's singular references to Hezekiah—a person about whom my curiosity was now a good deal aroused—added to the mystery that enfolded the library.

"Our American peaches are not what they were in my youth. Cold storage destroys the flavor. I have not tasted a decent peach for twenty years."

This was pretty tame, I admit; but I felt that I must say something. Responsive to Miss Hollister's energetic prodding, the flames in the fireplace leaped into the great throat of the chimney with a roar. She turned, her back to the blaze, and looked upon her guests benignantly.

"If all your flues draw like that one, they are not seriously in need of doctoring," I remarked, feeling that flues were a safer topic than the peach-crop.

"Flues are nothing if not erratic," replied Miss Hollister. The subject did not appear to interest her; nor had she, by the remotest suggestion, referred to the object of my coming. I had sniffed vainly in the halls above and below for any trace of the stale smoke which usually greeted me at once on my arrival at the house of a client. The air of Hopefield Manor was as sweet as that of a June meadow. Wiggins remarked to me that I doubtless knew the Manor had been designed by Pepperton, whom we both knew well.

"This is Pep's masterpiece. He need do nothing better to keep his grip at the top," he said.

"I consider it a great privilege to be permitted to visit a house designed by a dear friend and occupied by a lady peculiarly fitted to appreciate and adorn it."

I thought rather well of this as I spoke the words; but neither Cecilia nor Wiggins rose to it as I hoped they might.

"You have a neat turn for the direct compliment," said Miss Hollister promptly. "The house was built, you may not know, for a manufacturer of umbrellas, who died before he had occupied it, in circumstances I may later disclose to you; which accounts, Mr. Ames, for that figure of Cupid under a pink parasol on the drawing-room ceiling. At the first opportunity I shall remove it, as baby Cupids are irreconcilable with the militant love-making I admire. I consider umbrellas detestable, and never carry one when I can command a mackintosh."

"When I 'm on the ranch I wear a slicker," said Wiggins. "It's bullet-proof, and that I have found at times a decided advantage."

We discussed mackintoshes for at least ten minutes, with far more sprightliness than I had imagined the subject could evoke. Then Miss Hollister, after a turn up and down the room, paused beside me.

"Mr. Ames," she said, "would you care to join me in a game of billiards? I 'm not in my best form, but I think we might profitably knock the balls for half an hour."

I acquiesced with alacrity. I assumed it to be Miss Hollister's purpose to leave Cecilia and Wiggins alone. I should be rendering Wiggins and Cecilia a service by withdrawing, and I was glad of a chance to escape.

To my infinite surprise they both protested, not in mere polite murmurs but with considerable vehemence.

"It's quite cool to-night, and I don't believe you ought to use the billiard-room until the plumber has fixed the radiator," said Cecilia.

"And if you knew Mr. Ames's game I 'm sure you would n't care to waste time on him," piped Wiggins, whom I had frequently vanquished in billiard bouts at the Hare and Tortoise, where, I may say modestly, I had long been considered one of the most formidable of the club's players.

Both he and Cecilia had risen, and we stood, I remember, just before the hearth, during this exchange. At this moment, a singular thing happened. The fire that had been sweeping in a broad wave-like curve into the chimney was checked suddenly. I had repeatedly marked the admirable draught, the facile grace of the flame as it rose and vanished. The cessation of the draught was unmarked by any of those premonitory symptoms by which a fire usually gives warning of evil intentions. The upward current of air had ceased utterly and without apparent cause. We were all aware of a choking, a gasping in the deep flue, which could not be accounted for by any natural stoppage incident to chimneys—the dislodging of masonry, or a packing of soot. The former was hardly possible and the house was not old enough to make the latter theory plausible. From my survey of the flue on my arrival in the afternoon, I judged that this particular chimney had been little used.

The smoke now rolled out in billows and drove us back from the hearth. I seized the tongs and poker and began readjusting the logs, without, however, any hope of correcting a difficulty that lay patently in the upper regions of the flue itself. The smoke, after a courageous effort to rise, encountered an obstruction of some sort and ebbed back upon the hearth and out into the room. My efforts to stop the trouble by shifting the logs were futile, as I expected them to be, and I retreated quickly, making, I fear, no very gallant appearance as I mopped my face and eyes.